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Then let us be powerless and dependent on the power of God, and God alone have all the power because He is incorruptible. "The Lamb is worthy to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, blessing, and glory."

Reading all sources, articles, replies, etc about this issue and statement, it would seem that all scientific evidence is side stepped, medical professionals excluded, the people being 'talked' about, where not consulted. If that is incorrect, can someone point to the data, peoples, etc that were consulted? is this another decision made by a group of men only or were women also envolved.I am also concerned by the statement that since God only created male and female, therefore we will decide how your lives are to be lived even in the face of the genetic or otherwise, changes brought on by sin. Much fear I see in the GC on many issues.

Pivotal point in this writing responding to Pastor Finely, two sections of quotes following. "To so vividly turn away from Jesus and to abandon reliance on the Holy Spirit and instead advocate for church policy and governance and authority to enable unity is utterly demoralizing. You put it this way: “The unity of the church is maintained … when the mutual agreements or policies of the church serve as the foundation for a system of church governance and authority.” As a long-time minister in New York volunteered to me the last time we were together: the vicar of Christ is the Holy Spirit, not the Pope or the General Conference executive committee." and then.... "The General Conference leadership can initiate just two possible courses of action it it believes it necessary to secure compliance with its policies. It can dissolve a Union Conference’s membership in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination and in effect walk away, or it can attempt to turn a Union Conference into a mission and place it under the direct management of men appointed by the General Conference. The General Conference has never attempted either option by way of discipline, at least in my memory—now in my eighth decade of life. And with good reason. The risk is that the General Conference could be legally required to dissolve its relationship with the current Union Conference and start over by establishing new local Conferences or a new Union Conference and then set about to evangelize congregations and members to join the ‘real Seventh-day Adventist’ Local and Union Conferences. In short, what a mess this would be. Perhaps the reason this has never happened before is that it has always been utterly unthinkable. But after the last Annual Council action, I find it alarming that the church appears to be considering such an action with one or more more Union Conferences. And I fear some will read your article in support of such action." It is my view that the urge to control is our danger. ... to be an Uzzah and reach out and touch the ark to control it and keep it from falling is our nature. God is in charge of His Church and His people. in the absence of God's clear direction we naturally attempt to fill in the gap, rather that wait on the Lord. Administrators are there to serve not to Lord over. The place of tension between leadership and constituency is a place where we especially need the Holy Spirit. We are an organization that relies on the present supernatural working of God in order for us to represent Him. Without that we will be building steps to approach the alter of sacrifice and our nakedness will be exposed. the implication is this.... just as the children of Israel were to come into submission to Moses, because if they were not they were in rebellion, we today are to be in submission to the authority of the GC or we will be in rebellion. Is the GC the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit as Moses was? Is this submission the test of loyalty to God? For those who are in this submission the answer is yes. So what is in their experience and faith that informs them of this? Is this truly the filter that determines who is the faithful and who is not? Are we like Israel when they demanded a King so they could be as other nations? This way they could be competitive in the national landscape among all the nations? Israel sinned by asking for a King. If they had not asked for a king would Jesus ever have been called the king of Israel? Because they were looking for a king to give them national glory they utterly failed to recognize and accept Jesus.

Jesus spoke about the Born Again experience... we are all familiar with that. It seems hard for some good and faithful Adventists-since-birth to see a need for the born again experience.. Thoughts?

1Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: 3All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 4For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 6And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 8But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted....Matthew 23 Maybe we are losing, in some areas, the willingness to suffer for discipleship of Jesus, for the comfort of a king. God is Love!~Jesus saves! ,

I think the persecution of the JWs is the beginng of persecution of all churches except the State religion. Russia is now arresting and torturing homosexuals. They have returned to the old ways of terror and horror. I think we are living in the time of the Holy Spirit slowly leaving the world.as men choose to turn from God to evil. Many of the nations are governed by very evil men.

Our strongest aversions rise from ways we are different in our DNA. Remember the circus sideshows? The tallest man, the shortest man, the bearded woman, the Siamese twins. you can google links to the most famous freaks... people paid to ogle and ooze with human aversions. Some have autism, some schizophrenia, some are straight white and eminently successful, and they may be most unusual and repulsive. I don't see that the human race is progressing. Fear of sin, and fear of those who are different and then confusing these two areas is ongoing. Jesus doesn't have a problem with loving every kind of individual exactly the same. He has carried the sins of every person, every shortcoming, every mistake, every infirmity, every sorrow. They are His children. Even the straight white right wing religious perfectionist... he loves just the same as the homeless drug addicts and the trans queen. Speaking of this article, interesting to note about the author... "The author has spent extensive portions of their life in various church service and leadership positions, including pastoral roles, local and overseas mission work, evangelical work, chaplaincy, worship ministry, Biblical Education, and counseling. The author is also a transgender individual on the biologically intersex spectrum, and therefore speaks out of both personal experience and general knowledge of the wider LGBTQ+ community."

Thank you for your contribution to this topic. I do believe that the interest of the children is important because Satan tries especially hard to mess up the lives of children because when a child's life gets messed up it often messes up their entire life. That is especially true during the first 7 years of childhood. I am so grateful that my marriage problems didn't start until my youngest was 9. Both of my children had a functional, Christian home until that time. The adults can always get divorced once the children are grown. When the children themselves are getting abused, there is a point that divorce is in the children's best interest. My position, and what I did myself, was to allow a professional counselor to decided when that threshold had been crossed. As a participant in the home, my view is too impacted by my own emotions to make a realistic evaluation myself. I understand how difficult it is to make changes to the Church Manual. However I have found very few articles about this subject in Adventist publicans while searching online. I would like to see more scholarly articles written in our publications and perhaps even a small book on the matter. There are many members of the church that go through divorce and feel awkward. The pastors may have the right attitude and try to love these members and keep them in the church but when the official church position says something different, it can be hard for the member to feel they are at peace with God. I do not understand Jesus's words as teaching that adultery is the only grounds for divorce. I understand Him as saying God never intended divorce at all. But then I have to look at the story of Abraham and Hagar. I have to look at the story of Ezra. And I have to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. When I do that, it looks rather simple. God allows divorce because of the hardness of man's heart but it was never part of His original plan. And how should the church deal with a hard heart? It should reach out with grace. I believe that many of the so-called "conservatives" are resistant to allowing divorce because we are still being influenced by the Catholic church. The Catholic doctrine takes a very strong position against divorce. What is clearly wrong is to divorce your wife so you can marry someone else. That is what was going on during the days of Malachi and what Christ strictly forbid in Mark 10:11, 12.

Why is the smallest thing to you - like accepting our salvation and repenting of evil we have done - such a "work"? Yet you claim we must overcome evil with good. I don't even know what that means. Does that mean striving for sinlessness? To me, that's a HUGE work! Is it simply "accepting Christ"; and waiting in laborless passivity to die so we can go to heaven? That's laziness. We must choose who and what we will serve - God and goodness or the devil and evil. Or is "choosing" a work? Was Joshua seeking works-based salvation when he said: "choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Josh. 24:15) Is "Serving the Lord" a "work"? When Jesus said "Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23) was He talking about some effortless walk in the park (or is effortlessly walking a work as well)? From what happened to Jesus on the cross, that sounds like a HUGE work. I am not saying that we can trust and obey our way into heaven. But I do think we can distrust and disobey our way out of heaven! If someone gives me a 5 front-row tickets to the super bowl on the 50 yard line with all transportation, meals and 5-star hotel accommodations included, I still must choose to show up to accept and use my gift. If choosing to do any "work" at all disqualifies me from obtaining the gift, I'd never get to the game.

I'd like to put in my 2 cents worth here, in addition to the other posts. There is a movement in liberal churches, who question the inspiration of the Bible and maybe even the belief in God that since the Bible is just of human origins that they have no trouble with both ordaining women and membership/ordination to homosexual and gender issues. Seventh-day Adventists do believe in God and accept the Bible as inspired. For us we need to find Biblical reasons in how to deal with the above issues. What ever stand we make on these must be molded by the Bible. But since there are churches who have made an accepting view of these issues who are not concerned over what the Bible teaches, we have members wo look at our discussion on these issues and jump to a conclusion of "Since there are non-Bible believing churches who have embraced women's ordination and people with gender issues, if Seventh-day Adventists end up ordaining women that means that we have to no longer be a Bible believing church and we would have to join the non-Bible believing churches. " and they oppose these issues in the name of wanting to keep us as a Bible believing church. They do not understand that there are more than two choices here.

Golfer: "I'd move heaven & earth to break 100 on this course." Caddy: "Try heaven; you've already moved most of the earth."