On February 7, 1940, Walt Disney released his second animated movie, Pinocchio, in theaters. Pinocchio is a movie about a wooden puppet that became a boy. After expressing displeasure with the storyline, Walt Disney halted the project midway. Walt Disney then hired Cliff Edwards, as the voice of Jiminy Cricket, to become a central part of the story.
Jiminy Cricket begins the movie by singing, “When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are; Anything your heart desires, Will come to you.” The song later became fanfare for Disney, winning awards. But no one could have thought, not even Walt Disney, that such a slogan could inspire men and women to remake their gender surgically.
Today, characteristics that were once considered taboo are now slowly entering our worldview. Television shows such as Degrassi, Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, and Glee all have a well-adjusted homosexual character. In the movie X-Men, the director, screenwriter, and one of the leading actors in the movie admit that, “gay rights … was all put in there on purpose” and “that ‘mutant’ was a stand-in for [the word] ‘gay.’"
Currently, the ABC Family channel is airing a television show called, The Fosters, which shows a scene of two thirteen-year-old, seventh grade boys kissing each other. The Daily Beast reports that The Fosters is, “setting a fantastic standard.”
Clearly, Hollywood’s propaganda machine is in overtime, but why? Is the purpose of this agenda to simply ruin God’s creation? Or, in the spiritual realm, is there a more sinister plan behind the homosexual agenda?
I’ve heard some people quote Ezekiel 16:49-50 as saying that the sins of Sodom were only arrogance, overeating, and not feeding the homeless, but Jude says there is more to the story: “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7 NIV).
Just such a state of things as exists today existed before the flood and before the destruction of Sodom. Dissipation is on the increase in our world. Handbills on which indecent pictures are printed are posted up along our streets to allure the eyes and deprave the morals. These presentations are of such a character as to stir up the basest passions of the human heart through corrupt imaginings. These corrupt imaginings are followed by defiling practices like those in which the Sodomites indulged. But the most terrible part of the evil is that it is practiced under the garb of sanctity. Our youth will be defiled, their thoughts degraded, and their souls polluted unless they are barricaded with the truth (E. G. White, Letter 1, 1875).
Hold on, let’s walk that back. The prophet stated that “But the most terrible part of the evil is that it is practiced under the garb of sanctity.” So we can assume that these practices were not done by people trying to become evil or worship Satan, but instead they thought that they were doing good things! Perhaps this mindset had entered the churches of Sodom and Gomorrah in those days.
In an interview with Oprah, Rob Bell who is a former evangelical pastor and founder of the former Mars Hill megachurch in Grandville, Michigan, affirmed that he believes we are “moments away from the church accepting [homosexuality].” Meanwhile closer to home, the youth pastor of Pacific Union College, Jonathan Henderson, lobbied to impressionable minds for the acceptance of homosexuality in a sermon called “Adam and Steve.”
On the other side of the nation, eighty Andrews University students hoped to bring recognition to the LGBT community under the guise of helping homeless gay and lesbian youth for Jesus. When Andrews University halted their progress, the group turned to social media and non-adventist religious news outlets to express their disapproval. The group, Aull4One, has a Indiegogo.com webpage that asked for $2,000 to send to a homeless LGBT awareness group, but the income soon doubled, then tripled, and has now reached over $15,000 in nine days, at the time of this writing.
While there is nothing wrong with helping any of the needy, all should be cautioned that “It is one of Satan’s devices to combine with falsehood just enough truth to give it plausibility” (Great Controversy p. 587).
Something is clearly happening in the Adventist world that needs to be addressed at the upcoming 2015 General Conference session.
As Christians, we need to love our brothers and sisters who claim to be unchangeably attracted to the same gender. There are some, both straight and gay, that passionately believe that Christ Jesus is unable to change His creation. We should treat them with the love and respect God gave all of us when he sent his Son to die on the cross, giving everyone of us a second chance to allow Christ to mold us into His image.
In the last 100 years, the term “gay” has changed its definition from “happy” to “homosexual.” In the last ten years all homosexual terms found in published literature have also skyrocketed in popularity as seen by this Google Ngram viewer.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of these events is how homosexuality has changed the way most of Christendom studies the Bible. For instance, a Time Magazine article “Inside the Evangelical Fight Over Gay Marriage” by Elizabeth Dias writes:
So far no Christian tradition has been able to embrace the LGBT community without first changing its views about women. The same reasoning that concludes that homosexuality is a sin is also behind the traditional evangelical view that husbands are the spiritual leaders of marriages and men are the leaders in church …. It’s not an accident that the women’s-liberation movement preceded the gay-liberation movement.
Although this article emphasizes a non-christian worldview, even the non-christian author can see that the LGBT culture is affecting the way scripture has been historically interpreted.
The ultimate goal of the movement was discovered in Masha Gessen's speech at Sydney's writers festival. Gessen is an outspoken activist for the LGBT community. In a community panel speech on May 19, 2012 she said, “The push for gay marriage has less to do with the right to marry – it is about diminishing and eventually destroying the institution of marriage and redefining the ‘traditional family'.” and “Gay marriage is a lie. … Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there … marriage should not exist.”
In the spiritual realm, the homosexual agenda is not about creating a polygamist society; it’s about the destruction of God’s institution of marriage and the destruction of the church. Some have even suggested that the Sabbath institution and marriage are twin institutions that are closely connected. Perhaps the next attack by the enemy is one on the foundation of the Sabbath. In the book, Adventist Home, on page 340 it states, "Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity."
The Adventist church has voted on homosexuality once before, just as it has voted on the ordination of women, an issue that has returned over and over again. The 1977 annual council of the Seventh-day Adventist church voted that: "Gross sexual perversions, including homosexual practices, are recognized as a misuse of sexual powers and a violation of the divine intention in marriage. As such they are just cause for divorce" (General Actions, p. 10).
The Seventh-day Adventist manual states that the reasons for which a person may be disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist church include "homosexual practice and other perversions" (Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual , revised 1986) p. 162).
In the news, advocates who desire to advise against this phenomenon, in countries that claim to provide freedom of speech, have been jailed for homophobic speech. According to the Somerset County Gazette, Mike Overd, a street preacher in Taunton, UK, was advised by an police officer that Overd had the freedom of speech but, “If I hear one homophobic word out of your mouth here today, I will arrest you."
In the same way, English evangelist Rob Hughes was jailed in 2013 after speaking out against homosexuality, and American evangelist Tony Miano was put in jail for his speech about immorality. Miano added, “It was surreal because I was interrogated about my faith in Jesus Christ. I was asked if I believe that homosexuality is a sin. I was asked what portion of the Bible I was reading. I was asked if a homosexual was hungry and walked up to me, would I give them something to eat." Of course, any Christian person would feed a person, gay or straight, if they were in need of food.
Truly we have lost the primary purpose of our walk with Jesus if the church accepts this practice. As Christians we should love the sinner, but hate the sin. The good news, the gospel, is that we can overcome what God’s word calls sinful tendencies. Is it possible to be an overcomer? Yes! The Bible shows us the way to change from a hateful sinner to someone who loves the homosexual, loves the murderer, and the pedophile, but hates that homosexuality causes more depression and twenty times higher suicide rates than the suicide rates in the rest of the population (4).
We all wrestle with personal challenges and tendencies, some of which could be worse than homosexuality. However, I am confident that praying to our Heavenly Father will correct our path. Instead of “wishing upon a [falling] star,” Revelation 12:4 and Isaiah 14:12 ask the creator of the stars to abide in us to overcome sin (Revelation 21:7) and to become transformed into his ever-increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), not conforming to the world (Romans 12:2), and putting on the new man (2 Corinthians 5:17) which is in the image of our Father in Heaven. Living a life with Christ at the center is the only way to happiness and joy.