We have big problems in Germany, friends.
Adventisten Heute is the OFFICIAL church paper of the SDA church in Germany.
The September 2023 issue is dedicated to questioning the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of gender issues, and undermining our biblical position on gender and sexuality.
The six authors of this troubling church paper edition are Johannes Naether, Werner Dullinger, Andreas Bochman, Arndt Buessing, Lorethy Starck, and Klaus van Treek. All of these are liberal-progressive leaders, pastors, or professors, as well as strong influencers within SDA Germany.
There are two Unions in Germany, Northern and Southern. Johannes Naether is President of the North, and Werner Dullinger is President of the South. They, along with the authors of this newsletter are working together to advance a liberal agenda in Germany.
Johannes Naether and Werner Dullinger
Adventisten Heute Paper Highlights
We need to accept and affirm LGBTQ+ individuals in our churches. No, we need to affirm the value of righteousness and repentance in our churches by speaking the truth in love.
The German Unions are in harmony with the NAD book, Guiding Families. Make no mistake, what we are seeing in SDA Germany regarding LGBTQ+ is the future for North American Adventism. Having long ago accepted social justice, feminism, and its subtexts there is no way back for them on the LGBTQ+ agenda (Romans 1:24, 26, 28).
Adam and Eve did not choose their sexual orientation. Today’s sexual deviants do not choose their orientation either.
The biblical prescription of marriage in Genesis 2:24 is transferrable to same sex relationships. No, it is not. Biblical marriage is joined in heaven. Satan’s counterfeits are not.
If we advocate for freedom of faith and conscience we must support equal treatment of heterosexual and homosexual partnerships in society and state. They believe that the Apostle Paul and Jesus the Christ would do this.
We should accept people for how they feel. Feelings are a reliable guide to personal identity. We need to make people comfortable in church. Wrong. We need to equip people for eternity in our churches, and sometimes that requires rebuke and exhortation (Titus 2:15; Revelation 3:19). Feelings are an unreliable guide to truth (Genesis 3:6).
According to the Queergedacht survey, 22% of poll respondents reported having left the church due to their experiences as LGBTQ+. 16% said they had lost their faith as homosexuals due to experiences with representatives of churches or religious communities. Unresolved moral sin leads to greater and more serious consequences, eventually resulting in the closing of our heart to truth.
The Adventisten Heute Newsletter portrays LGBTQ+ individuals as victims and recommends acceptance and affirmation as the healing solution for their victimhood.
Coming out requires a lot of courage. The day your child comes out is one of the most significant days of their life and should not be marred by rejection, parental or congregational. This is blasphemy, equating LGBTQ+ coming out with the Christian conversion experience.
The natural desire to accept and love your child comes from God. Therefore we should accept LGBTQ+ people unconditionally.
Teenagers don't just decide on a whim to come out. They've probably been trying to understand their identity for many years. Searching for answers often leads to isolation and depression because they find little social support. This is a lie. Our culture is currently saturated with lies about sexuality. Impressionable young people are taught to mistake common adolescent feelings of awkwardness or inferiority as indicators of homosexuality or being created in the wrong body. This is utter nonsense—we should help precious young people resolve their confusion and find peace in a biblical cosmology, not affirm them in the lies of the world.
Young people attempting to pray for deliverance from LGBTQ+ only adds to their burden, creating emotional trauma. This is untruth. Prayers of repentance and cleansing to the Lord can bring freedom from the guilt of sexual sin and restore truth in our life, including truth about our gender and God’s revealed will in Scripture.
Faithful Members in Germany
What about our members in Germany? Do we have faithful Seventh-day Adventists in that country? Yes, we do.
There are faithful conservative Seventh-day Adventists in Germany. They are beaten down weekly, if not daily by powerful liberal leaders. They go to church service on Sabbath hoping for just one sentence that will affirm their faith and give them some hope. They rarely get it. Most of them are emotionally flat, trapped behind enemy lines in a discouraging situation. My heart goes out to these dear people of my homeland. Lord, please help them, and help us to help them.
Here is a response I received from a faithful member in Germany regarding the September 2023 issue of "Adventisten Heute" on LGBTQ:
"I am presently in the process of digesting this [September 2023 edition of the church paper]. I think that the majority of the faithful members here are paralyzed and do not know what to do. Their faith in the General Conference is also shattered. I personally do not have any hopes of receiving help from the General Conference or world church." ---
Brother M
Germany
August 25, 2023
From a German Pastor:
“The GC, and its regional representive in the form of the EUD division, HAVE to visibly start getting their acts together before the end of this year 2023, if they want to retain any kind of credibility in this matter, both in Germany and globally.
Moreover, I suggest president Wilson to get as passionate about this topic as he was when he openly and strong-handedly encouraged the delegates to shut down any GC 2022 session discussion regarding the GC vax statements, when Jonathan Zirkle made a motion on that. That showed clearly that Wilson can openly get very passionate and decisive, if he wants to. [Failure to address this serious problem sends the message that the Vax issue is more important to Elder Wilson than this problem.]
The formal GC process is in place for dealing with these things. Why not make use of it on time, before it is too late?”
In view of testimony above, I think the World Church / GC has up to the end of 2023 to make up its mind to be ... EITHER...
Like ELI, who in spite of all complaints and grievances reported by the people, continued being inactive and unwilling to restrain his sons' devastating behavior and impact on the people
... OR ...
Like HEZEKIAH, who cleared up the dirt and removed the debris from the sanctuary and restored it to its proper place from his very first moment in office.
Pastor W”
My Thoughts
As a German by heritage, I am appalled at these liberal leaders giving themselves over to worldliness. Johannes Naether, I am ashamed of you. Werner Dullinger, I am ashamed of you.
To our faithful brethren (Brüder) who are suffering under their heavy hands, I say “You are not alone.” The Lord sees you, and cares for you (Psalm 27:10).
To our faithful brethren in Germany, we care about what you are enduring. You are in our prayers (2 Corinthians 1:11). Take heart. You are not alone. Commit yourselves to the Word of God daily. Relief is coming, one way or another.
There is one conservative conference in Germany — the Baden-Wuerttemberg Conference. Their president, Eugen Hartwich is a standing rebuke to world-loving Union and Conference presidents in Germany. May his tribe increase, may his faithful members stand for truth in the midst of error, may they be lights amidst the darkness of LGBTQ+ evil.
This Adventisten Heute September newsletter tells me that the North German Union is laughing at the Statement on Sexuality released by the Adventist Church world leaders in April. They have no intention of terminating the employment of the bisexual pastor of the Grindelberg SDA church, even though the world SDA Church and the EUD Inter-European Division have called on them to do so.
These progressive German leaders actually laughed at the GC when the Excom issued a warning in October 2019 for violating the ordination standards of the world SDA church.
The Compliance Document says that rebellious church entities are dealt with through three successive steps. The GC Excom initiated the first step in October 2019 (warned six rebellious Unions). Then the process stopped, with the remaining two steps uncompleted. Because of this inaction, the North German Union is convinced that they can do as they please with the LGBTQ+ agenda.
Unchecked WO rebellion has now turned into the secondary consequence of LGBTQ+ rebellion. Both issues use the same flawed theology, the same arguments, and both issues have a common enemy— biblical patriarchy. Feminism loosened the gender binary anchor pins, LGBTQ+ rips the anchor pins out of the ground altogether.
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“To hate and reprove sin, and at the same time to show pity and tenderness for the sinner, is a difficult attainment. The more earnest our own efforts to attain to holiness of heart and life, the more acute will be our perception of sin and the more decided our disapproval of any deviation from the right. We must guard against undue severity toward the wrongdoer, but we must also be careful not to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. There is need of showing Christlike patience and love for the erring one, but there is also danger of showing so great toleration for his error that he will look upon himself as undeserving of reproof, and will reject it as uncalled for and unjust. – {AA 503.3}
Ministers of the gospel sometimes do great harm by allowing their forbearance toward the erring to degenerate into toleration of sins and even participation in them. Thus they are led to excuse and palliate that which God condemns, and after a time they become so blinded as to commend the very ones whom God commands them to reprove. He who has blunted his spiritual perceptions by sinful leniency toward those whom God condemns, will erelong commit a greater sin by severity and harshness toward those whom God approves. – {AA 504.1}