HALIFAX—Two LGBTQ advocacy groups are urging a Canadian Conference to cancel an event taking place at Maritime Camp Meeting in rural Nova Scotia next month, claiming it is teaching principles that could put lives at risk.
Both the Halifax Pride Festival and the Youth Project, a Halifax group that supports queer and transgender youth, are insisting that two guest speakers booked to speak at the Adventist Camp Meeting apparently encourage LGBTQ people to adopt a heterosexual lifestyle and find freedom from homosexuality, regardless of their feelings and identity. And we can't have that.
When LGBTQ activists feel that their demands to silence an opposing viewpoint are not working, they do what they have always done. They get louder.
The two organizations co-signed a letter addressed to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and asked them to consider cancelling the event.
The event is being hosted by the Maritime Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, on a campground property owned by local church members in Pugwash, N.S., in northwestern Nova Scotia on the Northumberland Strait.
Danielle Harrison and Michael Carducci from Ohio-based Coming Out Ministries are scheduled to present at the event. Danielle Harrison spoke at an Adventist Camp Meeting in Ohio in 2016. Her message there was a balanced, Christ-centered message of hope for human hopelessness.
Coming Out Ministries describes itself as “a ministry which unites three individuals in sharing their testimonies of freedom from sexual sin and same-sex relationships.”
Conversion Therapy
Conversion therapy was first used to describe behavior modification therapy & methods that tried to change homosexuals through biological exercise and stimuli. Some of the early methods were crude and drew the ire of the LGBTQ lobby. Some of the early concerns were justified.
However, conversion therapy today is essentially a pejorative term that is used to scornfully decry any attempt to encourage homosexuals get free from their sin, or walk in truth (3 John 1:4). The philosophical approval of homosexuality today doesn't want freedom from its perversions, they demand that you admire their sin. Or else.
Mike Carducci said in an interview that he rejects the term “conversion therapy,” and asserted that he will cause no harm.
Adam Reid, executive director of the Halifax Pride Festival, said he was personally alarmed when he read the bios of two speakers being flown in for the conference.
“They used terms and language that sort of hides what they’re up to,” he said.
No they don't. They turn to God for truth and freedom and encourage others to do so as well.
Kate Shewan, transgender executive director of the Youth Project, said
“I just think it’s horrific this is still happening today. There’s so much evidence that this ... is extremely harmful, and ineffective as well.”
Kate Shewan, Photo by LENNY MULLINS
'She' is, of course, referring to any speaker sharing the biblical view of sexuality and--worse yet--sharing their story how the mighty power of Jesus delivered them from the depression and consequences of the LBGTQ lifestyle.
Shewan said she also called the leader of the Maritime conference of Seventh-day Adventist church, Paul Llweellyn, urging him to cancel.
Llweellyn referred all of StarMetro’s questions to Stan Jensen, a spokesman for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada.
According to the Star Halifax, Jensen said the two guest speakers are not really “youth speakers” and are not the main features of the 10-day conference, which draws Seventh-day Adventists from across the Maritime provinces.
Additionally, Jensen said he is concerned about the impression any association with conversion therapy could wrongly provide.
“My fear is this: If this gets a lot of publicity, those who are gay haters will come out in droves,” Jensen wrote in an email. “Instead our Church needs more conversations" [whatever that is].
There's been too much talk already--God is calling us to action, and through action to repentance, and through repentance to freedom. "It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance" (Romans 2:4).
Carducci is firm in his belief that his presentation will not cause harm.
Carducci said he was baptized as an Adventist in 2000. He said his presentation is all about sharing his personal experience leaving behind a life of “sexual addiction” and homosexuality, and finding God. “That was a great discovery on my part,” he explained. “The love of God is for everyone.”
“I thought it was beautiful, in the Bible,” he went on to say. “It doesn’t condemn the homosexual, it just condemns the practice.”
Carducci rejects the interpretation that condemning the practice is akin to condemning the person. He said the ministry does not engage in counselling, and insists he himself is not trying to “coerce or pressure anyone.”
“We just tell our experience of how we want to live according to God’s word. We don’t tell people how to live. We allow people to make up their own mind.”
Carducci said he intends to share the message that “God loves the (LGBTQ) community” but repeats he believes the Bible condemns the act of homosexuality, as it does premarital sex and extramarital affairs. Amen to that.
Kate Shewan, the trans-woman director (translation, LGBTQ activist) and Grand Marshal of the Halifax gay pride parade disagrees. “Whether it’s called conversion therapy, a discussion, or a ministry, the issue is the harm that is caused by cultivating shame, guilt, and self-hatred in (LGBTQ) youth,” Shewan said. Additionally, Reid said after being exposed to this kind of thinking, youth are made to feel they have a “broken identity.”
Yes. Outside of Christ we are all broken, in need of Him alone who can make us whole. Pray for our leaders in Maritime Conference that they will honor God with their decisions, and resist any pressure placed on them by a world given over to sexual license.
"They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you" (1 Peter 4:4).
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