The following is a public letter by Eugen Hartwich, president of the Baden-Wurtemberg Conference in South Germany. It was posted on Telegram and distributed widely:

LGBTQ+ and the Adventist community - Update Part 1

“What Has Happened so Far

In the September 2023 issue of "Adventists Today" the topic "LGBTQ+ and our church" was front and center.

Before we (the SDA Church of Baden-Wurttemberg (BW)) responded to the content in "Adventisten heute" in a statement on August 31, 2023, we contacted Andreas Bochmann (author of an article in "Adventisten heute") and the responsible persons of the Advent-Verlag Publishing House in Lüneburg. We demanded statements regarding this.

What Happened Next?

On 03.09.2023, the following two requests were made by the Baden-Wurttemberg Conference to the Board of Trustees of the Friedensau Theological College and to the South German Union Executive Committee (SDV):

We request,

1) To publicly distance ourselves from the statement of Andreas Bochmann who has stated ("Therefore, the elements of partnership derived from Genesis 2:24 are also applicable to same-sex relationships.")

2) To make a public commitment to the Seventh-day Adventist position regarding the issue of "homosexuality."

On 06.09.2023 the board of trustees of the Friedensau Adventist University met. We have not yet received an official response from them.

On 13.09.2023, the South German Union Executive Committee (SDV) will meet and decide on our request.

Depending on the feedback, we will decide together with our Baden-Württemberg Executive committee on 04.10.2023 about further steps.

Furthermore, the pastors of the Baden-Württemberg Conference will also comment on the current development in the next few days.

I would further encourage individual church members or local Adventist congregations to send feedback in a respectful manner to the presidents of the two German Unions (Johannes Naether and Werner Dullinger), to those responsible at Advent-Verlag, and to the authors.

We are facing a fork in the road in our denomination in Germany. Either we profess the unchanging moral values of the Bible (Mt 5:18; Jn 17:17), or we follow societal developments regarding LGBTQ+. So it is up to everyone personally to make a decision here, and I encourage choosing the unchanging standards of the Word of God. For, the Bible states unequivocally that those who profess the validity of God's commandments and keep them will have to reckon with Satan's angry opposition (cf. Rev. 12:17), but not those who declare the Commandments invalid or outmoded.

...choose you this day whom ye will serve.... But I and my house will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15).”

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