Putting the Gradient Back in The Spectrum

“Homosexuality is not 'normal' On the contrary it is a challenge to the norm...Nature exists whether academics like it or not. And in nature, procreation is the single relentless rule. That is the norm. Our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction...No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous...homosexuality is an adaptation, not an inborn trait....” – Camille Paglia, transgender professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia

The worlds’ opinions on homosexuality and transsexual issues have changed, seemingly overnight, and those who hold to a biblical understanding are labeled weird, bigoted, or perhaps even dangerous. I am not so concerned over those labels and their misapplication when they come from the world. But, increasingly, they are coming from within the church. Consider this an open-letter response to the very one-sided article in Spectrum Magazine, “Adventist School creates worry over sexuality-focused week of prayer.” I found your article to be one-sided; your spectrum, as it were, feels a little monochromatic. And so, I am writing this letter to put the gradient back in the spectrum. 

I say one-sided because Spectrum magazine saw fit to publish an article that only gave voice to those who spoke against the series of meetings, ignoring the majority that was in favor of them. Couple that with a few mischaracterizations, factual inaccuracies, and a scathing tone and you’ve got a hot pot of stew. Spectrum intended to throw Lester Coon Adventist School into that stew and thoroughly cook them. 

As for your first claim that gender and sexual identity are “not likely to be changed,” as supported by “mainstream science,” I would like to respond by saying that we must first define what “change” is and secondly, we must define our relationship to mainstream science.  

“Change” as Michael Carducci put it in the precursor meetings with the community, is more of a “lifestyle change,” and a call to walk in harmony with Jesus and to live life according to biblical standards. If mainstream science says that “changing to follow a biblical standard” is unlikely, well, none of us would be surprised. 

So Called Science

“Mainstream Science” is not an orthodoxy, and I would exhort any member of society to do his own thinking on any of the hot-topics du jour. Christians are called to be thoughtful about which dictates they follow from mainstream-anything. True Christianity can never be described as true if it bends to the whims of science and culture just because they said so—we are called to a higher standard. Indeed, science has been wrong on a number of occasions, from the Piltdown man, to the ever-shifting age of the earth, to the recommended use of Thalidomide in pregnant women. Where has it ever been suggested that Christians follow the science blindly?  Certainly not in the Bible,

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20).

This same science (so-called), espouses medical barbarism and butchery, and chemical cocktails for questioning children. If a person claims to be have changed races, we foam and froth at the mouth. (See the strange case of Rachel Dolezal for context.) But if he claims to be a different gender, we respond with sage nods of our collective heads, labeling him or her as brave. No one knows who writes “the rules” of exactly what might be changed about a person, but “mainstream science”, politicians, and the Twitterverse all respond with alacrity that gender is completely mutable, and may be changed at a whim. Genderfluid. Flexisexual. A boy today, a girl tomorrow, and back in a week or so, if it suits him…er her…er they? 

We reward these “brave” souls with “gender affirming care,” and ship them off to tax-funded clinics to be carved into some approximation of the opposite gender. We give them new pronouns and Frankenstein reconstructions that approximate genitalia (minus pleasure or function). We conscript them to a life of medical care, surgeries, medications, interventions, and subject them to hormone treatments and puberty blockers that stunt growth, cause developmental delays of both brain and body, clinical depression, and potentially cause cancer, bone-density loss, and a host of other irreversible changes. Is it any surprise to anybody that a health-message-believing Seventh-day Adventist might not trust “the science”?!  

There are many conflicting studies out there, so I’m only going to award you with one and a half Pinocchios for your claim that Carducci artificially conflated sexual addiction and homosexuality. Here’s a 2014 article in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions that found a higher rate of sexual compulsivity in lesbian women as compared to heterosexual women.  

I’m not trying to confirm that this article’s content is true, but it certainly attests that “the science” is not all in lock-step. And I choose to keep my inquisitive mind just as long as the decidedly incurious inquisition allows. 

The timeline of history is rife with Christians who paid the price for their dissent, so I shouldn’t be surprised to hear barbed words from the surrounding culture. But when it comes from the church, it feels different somehow; the barbs sting a little more. But this isn’t about hurt feelings. This is about our right, as Christians, to pursue our own understanding of these issues. 

Todd Leonard

I would like to respond to a claim by Todd Leonard, a senior pastor at the Glendale church. Why did we have to go to Hollywood to find a pastor to comment on a rural Tennessee issue? I’ll leave you to speculate. Leonard claimed that Carducci promoted “false stereotypes about gay and lesbian experiences.” As far as I can see, Mike Carducci spoke about his life and the things he experienced directly in his lifestyle. Are you, Todd Leonard, invalidating Carducci’s lived experience as a gay man? If Carducci says he would rather live as a straight man, shouldn’t I believe him? After all, a central tenant of gender ideology is to “believe people when they tell us who they are.” Or should I only believe those whose lived experiences go counter to the Christian narrative? Carducci’s story is our-collective story, the story of a prodigal who spent his inheritance to get a taste of the world; he wandered, was lost, and eventually came home to his father. Spectrum and Leonard can naysay if they like, but I say “Alleluia, our brother has returned!”  

Spectrum stated that Carducci says he “never has homosexual thoughts.” I’m going to award you three golden Pinocchios for that claim. For as Carducci quite openly said in the pre-meetings, his new life in Christ “does not mean that I never have homosexual thoughts.” Don’t believe me? I double-checked (do we still do that in 2022?) by asking Carducci directly; he confirmed. 

As for Sandy James‘ claim that “several parents have decided to opt out,” I will corroborate, there have been a few families who do not wish to participate. But the article neglected to show the grounds. Could we speculate that some wanted to have the conversation with their children on their own, or that some feel their children are too young? The tone of the article implies that parents were offended, which may be true. I won’t speculate and neither should you. 

I award Spectrum five golden Pinocchio’s on the claim that non-participating families will need to bring their children later in the day. Why five? Because, there is an alternate program and, as mentioned around 6 families are attending. James would have received an email informing her of the program. I understand if James didn’t see the email, but Spectrum should have double checked this fact. 

Jody Vandiver

As for Jody Vandivier’s statement that Coming Out Ministries “judges people” and uses the “Bible as a weapon,” I have found no evidence of this. I did attend the pre-meeting and a follow up Vesper’s meeting, and can say that I felt Carducci’s program was exceptionally thoughtful and caring, both in recounting his own past history, and in expressing a loving attitude toward homosexuals, transsexuals, etc. We worked our way through the curriculum the children would be viewing and I found it useful in understanding the approach; I did not see Ms. Vandivier at the meetings. As for her claims regarding their online content, I watched several sections from their online presentations, and didn’t find any weaponry, just thoughtful and soft-spoken discussions. Yes, Coming Out Ministries categorizes homosexuality as a sin, but is this any surprise to anyone, in or out of the church? They are a Christian organization and the Bible does discuss this issue at several junctures. Is this ministry allowed to believe the Bible? Or shall we chalk up bible belief to just another item on a growing list of hate-crimes?

Again, more Pinocchio’s for the Jody‘s claim that there was no other option other than to bring her children later in the day. See my notes above about the alternate option. 

Suzette Vandiver

As for Suzette Vandivier, (a Physician’s Assistant) whom Spectrum quoted as spending “a lot of time” researching “medical-type topics.” Yes, I do too. Don’t we all in the Information Age? Let’s stop pretending that only medically licensed professionals can have an opinion on these topics—they are not the gatekeepers. I understand and support Suzette if she would rather have this discussion with her children. The problem is, most children are being exposed to gender ideologies by other children, or worse, the internet, or the-dregs-of-the-worst, Tik Tok. Vandivier may not feel comfortable with a stranger discussing these topics with her children, but isn’t that exactly what is happening with our children? Strangers on the internet telling our kids how to transition, often without their parents consent? Kids will hear about it, and if not from Carducci, then from whom? I have been listening to his community discussions at Apison and am comfortable with his presentation, as is most of the school, ostensibly.

With such support, I’m a little surprised that Spectrum couldn’t seem to find a single family to speak in favor of the meetings . I don’t read a lot of Spectrum, but the name implies that voices from across the range of ideas will be heard. Your spectrum feels a little narrow. 

Cashing in at four golden Pinocchios, Spectrum claimed that Carducci apologized for his past content. I knew nothing about this issue so I asked him directly. He informed me that the claim was factually incorrect; according to Carducci, “I apologized if people were hurt, but I never apologized for what I said.”

 As for the 40,000 that signed a petition to not allow Carducci to come speak in their country. Is anyone surprised that the seething-masses are offended at hearing a different point of view? To illustrate, I’ll share an anecdote from a 2022 event at the Podcast Movement Expo (PM22). The swooning “influencers” at this convention had a collective bout of near-aneurisms when Ben Shapiro (a conservative podcaster) showed up, claiming that they felt unsafe.

God forbid that a conservative man show his face in public. The nearby psychiatric hospital must have had to scramble to keep up with the influx of check-ins who suffered from sudden-onset cPTSD at exposure to a conservative.  Is anyone surprised that the masses disagree with Carducci? Should Christians be swayed by these masses? 

As for the critics and the APA and the DSM-5 that now believe so-called conversion therapy to be dangerous, it appears that Coming Out Ministries agrees. A whiteboard doodle video on their site outlays the damaging of ineffective results of such therapies and instead turns people to Christ—Spectrum got that part right. In a short interview, Carducci spoke to me about the history of reparative therapy which was focused on behavioral change. In a short interview, Mike Carducci, said,

“we do not recommend conversion or reparative therapy as a modality for treatment, and that instead we refer people to the power of Christ; the reality is that God may not remove attraction, but can give grace to live beyond it if that’s what a person desires.” 

Unlike Spectrum, I realize there actually is a spectrum of beliefs on this issue and you, personally, may disagree with the above statements by Carducci. Disagreement is okay! But I don’t like the position that ideas are scary, and Spectrum has gone to great lengths to adopt a tone that some ideas are too scary for discussion. 

SDA Kinship

Of course, SDA kinship, who seems to agree that ideas are scary, chimed in with pearl-clutching “shock and dismay.” I believe this to be a boiler-plate response. They’ve been at this for many years and it should not come as any surprise that the majority of Seventh-day Adventists hold to the biblical view of sexuality. This is decidedly un-shocking. 

Steven Chavez, director of something-or-other, responded with similar claims about conversion therapy (see my comments above) but he adds the claim that the Adventist church should be a welcoming place of people of “all genders.” I’m sorry, Steven, do you mean both genders? You know, those two pesky genders that the Bible and “mainstream science” (until 15 minutes ago) has defined it for centuries? Steven is also afraid of ideas, citing that it is harmful to claim that “God’s ideal allows for no deviation from the model established at Creation.” Steven, are you aware that gender dysphoria is included in the DSM-5 as a mental disorder, even today? Alongside things like Anorexia? This may change, and I’m sure it will, as “the science” has determined that all of this mess is well and good. 

Turner

As for Paul Anthony Turner’s remark that Carducci is not trained in psychology, neither is Turner. To the remark that he is not trained in theology, I would respond that there were many Pharisees who were so-trained, and Jesus had some stern words for them (“You are Israel’s teacher…and you do not understand…”). As for Turner’s humble plea that Lester Coon should rescind their invitation, I would respond with a humble plea of my own. “Please, Lester Coon, and other Seventh-day Adventist schools, consider having these discussions with people like Carducci. We hear affirmation aplenty from every corner of the internet, we want to hear what this man has to say. We want to hear his testimony, and more like it so our children will not be so confused and that churches will learn how to lovingly respond to the homosexual and transsexual questions that our culture has raised. For we love our children and want them to love you too, no matter the cost.” 

And as to your closing remarks, a quote from Ms. Vandivier, that this is not suitable discussion for young children or for “anyone who calls themselves a Christian.” I would respond that Christians must discuss topics like these and that we should “reason together” as compassionately as we can. If we don’t discuss it with our children, who will? If we don’t educate them, who will? And if we say these things are too scary to discuss, we will certainly be swept away in the coming maelstrom of change that society would foist on ours and every church.  

Perhaps these existentialist philosophies that espouse that biological realities don't have anything to do with the actual self are the real dangers. Perhaps our love affair with discovering the “true self” has rendered us impervious to future molding. How can Christ build us anew if we have already found our supposed true selves? 

Conclusion

Christianity is not the doctrine of self-discovery; it is the doctrine of dying to self. Everyone who comes to Christ will undergo a change. We go under the water into that cold death and come out reborn. Molded. Made. Remade. 

This is basic Christianity.

And Spectrum, you have positioned yourself to be a leader of spiritual Israel. How is it that you don't know all these things?  

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Jesse Rademacher