“I Changed My Mind on Christian LGBTQ Marriage: Here’s Why and How!” (Part 4):

“I Changed My Mind on Christian LGBTQ Marriage:

Here’s Why and How!” (Part 4):

By Gary L. Clendenon, Summer, 2026

Because this is “Part 4” in this series of essays, if you haven’t already, I would urge you to go and start reading from “Part 1” HERE, otherwise what follows will make less sense—being out of context and out of order.

If you’ve read, “Part 1”, then you will know that I am attempting a “Short Version” of the arguments presented in Alicia Johnston’s 2022 book The Bible and LGBTQ Adventists. Reading this book led me, as stated in my title, to change my mind on the topic of “Christian LGBTQ Marriage”. In “Part 3”, I covered Point number 10 that stood out to me from Alicia’s book, and so I will now pick up where I left off continuing with “Point Number 11”:

Point 11: There is a potential solution to our natural tension around the topic of LGBTQ and Christianity.

Alicia’s next point wrestles with the tension that almost all Christians face regarding this topic of being a loving Christian versus the seemingly very hard-edged Bible verses that appear to be speaking to this topic of LGBTQ people and how to relate to them. The tension is between our understanding from the Bible that this lifestyle is very sinful, and yet we are told and believe in a GOD that loves everyone and commands us to love everyone as well. Many Christians resolve this tension with the popular saying “Love the sinner; hate the sin.”

Alicia says of this approach: "Most of us who are gay, bisexual, and transgender push back against this thinking. We have questions. Can we always separate the person from the behavior? Or are there some situations in which restricting a particular behavior also excludes a whole class of people. You might be surprised to learn what the Bible has to say on this question." (1)

Alicia found a strong comparison in the Bible that she believes can help us resolve this tension we have been speaking of. It seems, Alicia points out, that there was a very similar tension between the Jewish followers of Jesus and the new Gentile converts. She argues that we can learn a lot from looking at how the Jewish followers of Jesus solved their challenge of tension.

The story is found in the book of Acts. Alicia states:

In Acts 15, early Christians met in Jerusalem to discuss a significant theological and practical shift. Before being excluded from the synagogues, early followers of Jesus were considered a Jewish sect. They probably saw themselves as Jews. … Tribalism, persecution, and theology had led Israelites to think of the children of Abraham as the people of God and Gentiles as enemies. (2)

And now, with Gentiles joining the early church, the already circumcised Jews, were thinking and believing that the Gentiles—if they wanted to join the church, should also be circumcised. Their reasoning was, as stated by Alicia: “Circumcision was the mark of God’s people for millennia, and now it was being challenged. The inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles threatened their longstanding identity. … The disagreement threatened to rupture the church. They met to decide what to do. (3)

Does this sound familiar? “Gentiles were welcome; their lifestyle was not. They [the Jewish Christians] loved the Gentiles; they forbade the Gentile lifestyle. They loved the sinner; they hated the sin.” (4)

How then, did the Jewish Christians overcome this thinking? It started, as Alicia points out, in Acts chapter 10 with the story of Peter having a vision: “Unclean animals descended on a sheet and (it must have been shocking to him) God told Peter he should eat them because God had cleansed them. This went against everything he knew about avoiding what was unclean. Peter didn’t understand the meaning of the vision.” (5)

As Peter was pondering the meaning of his just-seen vision, there arrived visitors from a distant town. A godly Gentile man named Cornelius living there had also had a vision. In it, he was instructed to send for Peter to share words with him in answer to his prayers. When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house, Peter showed that he had gained an understanding of his vision by stating: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God had shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:28, NIV, emphasis mine)

Alicia points out that this idea had not come to Peter easily. She states “Ellen White wrote that even arriving at Cornelius’ home was agonizing for the apostle. Peter was violating ideas of uncleanness simply by being in that home.” (6) Because what he was doing was such a huge deal, he brought witnesses along with him because he “knew that he would be called to account for such a direct violation of the Jewish teachings”. (7)

Peter tells Cornelius and the large group of gathered people about Jesus and the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them. The Jewish Christians who came with Peter as witnesses were “astonished” by the fact that Gentiles were also receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Peter and his companions saw this, they decided to go ahead and baptize them—since they had already received the Holy Spirit.

Of this, Alicia says,

They baptized people who, moments ago, [without circumcision] were considered unclean. … A barrier to church membership was set aside at the leading of the Holy Spirit.

By not requiring [these new believers] to be circumcised, Peter violated a long-held scriptural teaching with centuries of theological history. Yet Ellen G. White tells us that the actual problem was obscured. For Peter, it seemed to be about the Bible, but it was really about prejudice:

How carefully the Lord worked to overcome the prejudice against the Gentiles that had been so firmly fixed in Peter’s mind. … He sought to divest the apostle’s mind of this prejudice and to teach the important truth that in heaven there is no respect of persons; that Jew and Gentile are alike in God’s sight. (8)

Alicia comments on this saying:

Sometimes the theological question that seems so pertinent is only the surface. In this case, the real issue was one of preconceived ideas. What Peter knew to be unclean, what seemed vile and unholy to Peter’s understanding, could be made holy by God.

...the inclusion of Gentiles meant theology had to change. This doesn’t mean the Bible had to change. Theology is merely our understanding of the Bible, and sometimes we get it wrong. We are fallible.

Peter grasped this. … What if Peter had instead said, “I love the Gentiles, but I disapprove of their lifestyle?” (9)

Alicia points out that not too long after Peter’s encounter with the Gentiles, the believers of Jesus met in Jerusalem to determine how to deal with this thorny issue of Gentile inclusion into the followers of Jesus group (Acts 15). The leaders listened to Peter and the eyewitnesses’ accounts of the Antioch encounter.

She rightly points out that this wasn’t the first time that “God’s plan had been entirely different than what they had imagined.” It would be “just like Jesus to pass right over ideas about which people are acceptable and which are not”. It would be “just like Jesus to forgo pride of religious and ethnic superiority and make Gentiles equal to Jews”. (10)

Alicia then quotes again from Ellen G. White regarding this meeting:

On hearing this account, the brethren were silent. Convinced that Peter’s course was in direct fulfillment of the plan of God and that their prejudices and exclusiveness were utterly contrary to the spirit of the gospel, they glorified God….

Thus, without controversy, prejudice was broken down, the exclusiveness accepted by the custom of ages was abandoned, and the way was opened up for the gospel to be proclaimed to the Gentiles. (11)

Commenting on this, Alicia states: “As the story of Peter, Cornelius, and the early church unfolds, it takes surprisingly long for a theological explanation supporting the inclusion of those who are uncircumcised. God knew what he was doing. The church needed to see Gentile believers not as unclean sinners, but as family.” (12) Family first, then theology? Interesting!

She goes on: “Peter found that they had placed a burden on the Gentiles by their demands and that the burden was so great that it amounted to exclusion. … Circumcision was seen as a requirement too heavy to place on the necks of all Gentiles.”  (13)

Elaborating on the implications of what we can learn from the Early Church in discussion of LGBTQ church members, Alicia says: “In other words, it matters whether theology is bearable. Does it work in the practical day-to-day lives of Christians? The results of theology matter. That isn’t an antibiblical view. It is the biblical view. Compassion is biblical. … We must look directly at the results of our theology and ask whether its life-giving.” (14)

The current SDA doctrinal teaching on LGBTQ members is that they ought to remain celibate. If they can do that, and are strong enough to do it, awesome. But what about those who are not that strong? Alicia puts it this way: “The problem [with that] is that the Bible says we are supposed to look out for the most vulnerable. The powerful are called to sacrifice for the vulnerable, not the vulnerable for the powerful. When gay, bisexual, and transgender people are called to make a huge sacrifice to benefit most of the church, it’s a heavy burden on a small group of people.”  (15)

How is the topic of celibacy handled with non-LGBTQ members? Alicia points out: “Jesus said that not everyone could be celibate. … The apostle Paul agreed. … Church founders who wrote about the value of celibacy also didn’t believe it was possible for everyone…. The modern church also denies that celibacy is possible for everyone.”

Heterosexuals have never believed celibacy was possible for all heterosexuals. Requiring celibacy of all heterosexuals would be an excellent way to close church doors forever. They would never stand for it. Neither do most gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and that’s why so many leave. Celibacy is no easier and no more possible for LGBTQ people than heterosexual people. Requiring it creates two different experiences of Christianity. In one, your community supports your life and family. In the other, your community forbids them.

This makes life more difficult for those whose lives are already difficult while simultaneously inspiring and requiring nothing of those whose lives are already the easiest. If our religion makes sense for people whose lives are already the easiest, it’s broken. The religion of Jesus is good news, especially for those who struggle. He brought hope to those who hurt and challenged those who were comfortable. He told us the first would be last…. Today’s church does the opposite. If the greatest sacrifice falls on the struggling shoulders of a few, it’s not the religion of Jesus or the prophets. (16)

Circumcision had no redemptive purpose. It was only about following a law that was no longer meaningfully connected to love and life. The real-world impact of circumcision was to keep most Gentiles out of the church. … It allowed Christians to think of Gentiles as gross and impure.

Removing circumcision required Jewish Christians to confront their prejudice. It took away their theological justifications for feeling superior. No longer could they think of themselves as the fulfillment of God’s plan and Gentiles deviations to be corrected.

Likewise, opposing same-gender marriage is suffering with no purpose. It’s about a rule that some believe was God-given. But there is no real-world impact other than preserving the status quo and keeping most gay, bisexual, and transgender people out of churches.  (17)

Alicia shares from her personal journey:

For a long time, my thinking had a big question mark in the middle of it. One one side I had the law of God, which is an expression of God’s love for us. On the other side, I had the lived experience of LGBTQ people. I didn’t know how to reconcile the two.

The more I learned about the experiences of LGBTQ people in the church, the less our theology looked anything like an expression of God’s character. The more I dropped my old prejudice, the less sense my theology made. This disturbed me. Good theology doesn’t need to be propped up by prejudice. . . .

When I thought of gay and bisexual people, I stripped them of their individuality and personal agency. It didn’t occur to me that some gay and bisexual people, particularly Adventists, were willing to abide by the same sexual standards as everyone else.

The process of living chipped away at my prejudice. … Why is it evil when two women choose to be life partners, but good if a man and a woman make the same choice? … It didn’t make sense.

This is the same as the requirement of circumcision. This requirement is not harmless. It keeps LGBTQ people out of the church, just like circumcision kept Gentiles out. It also restricts the ability of the church to spread the gospel, just as the requirement of circumcision did. … We need to tear down the barriers that keep people from the gospel for no good reason, those that create divisions and harm among us.

The crux of the matter is whether the behavior in question is inherently consistent with the kingdom of God. … Same-gender marriage is a loving commitment to making another person’s life better, and like all successful marriages, it requires self-sacrifice. Same-gender marriage is compatible with the joy that Jesus promises and the sacrifice that Jesus calls us to. . . .

To accept Gentiles, the church had to change its beliefs; there was no other way.

Imagine an Adventist church that believes fully in affirmation. Imagine that same-sex marriages are supported equally. Imagine transgender people fully supported in their gender.  (18)

Peter had his beliefs radically changed. He stated “But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:28) We can release the tension that was described in the first part of this essay as Peter and the Early Church did, as Alicia learned to do, and as I, Gary L Clendenon, also learned to do with the help of my transgender child.

As I wrote in the margin of Alicia’s book, “Why would we (Adventists) require something from LGBTQ+ that we don’t require or expect from non-LGBTQ members?”

One of the most profound things I ever heard was from a Cloud and Townsend seminar where they taught:

Truth matters. Grace matters.

But, if there is every any doubt, always come down on the side of Grace.

If you’re still unsure about this topic, I get it—it can take a while to process. But, in the meantime, won’t you at least join me in choosing the side of Grace.

STAY TUNED FOR “PART 5”!

FOOTNOTES:

1. Alicia Johnston, The Bible and LGBTQ Adventists: A Theological Conversation About Same-Sex Marriage, Gender, and Identity, p. 179.

2. Ibid, emphasis mine (E.M.).

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid, p. 180.

5. Ibid, p. 185.

6. Ibid, p. 185.

7. Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 137, as quoted by Alicia.

8. Ibid, p. 185-6. Ellen G. White quote ibid, p. 136, E.M.

9. Ibid, p. 186.

10 Ibid, p. 187.

11 Ibid. Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 142, E.M.

12 Ibid, p. 188.

13 Ibid, p. 188-89.

14 Ibid, p. 189-90.

15 Ibid, p. 191.

16 Ibid, p. 192.

17 Ibid, p. 194.

18 Ibid, p. 194-198.