Elvis is a good-looking boy coming from highly honourable Adventist family in Latvia. He had an older brother who has a family and three children. His father is elder in the local church and his family is actively involved in the church. Elvis is sociable and easily establishes relationships with others, especially with teenagers and he is serving in the local church as youth leader. He is highly educated and economically independent living separately from his parents in a contemporary high-rise building. His work as a construction engineer necessitates spending long hours in the different construction sites and contacts with builders mainly of the same sex. He enjoys that form of work; and told me that he has ongoing friendship with one of his colleagues who is gay. However, he did not yet have a sexual relationship, but is contemplating about it as the friendship is going deeper. As an active Adventist he is very concerned about the reaction from his family and the Church as he knows the Adventist traditional stand regarding homosexuality.
From his childhood he felt attracted to the boys more than to the opposite sex and as a teenager he realized that he had homosexual tendencies. Since that time he struggled with his inner attractiveness to the same sex and he went through the stages of deep depression and even considered suicide as his feelings and attraction to the same sex was too great. He was dating and trying to start relationship with different girls, but in his words, ‘It does not work as we did not have the right chemistry.’ He was trying different spiritual exercises, praying and fasting, but nothing helped in order to change his sexual orientation. Now he is considering ending this story and he want to speak out his feelings about his sexual orientation. But before doing that publicly he wants the last time consult someone. Elvis believes that as a pastor I could not solve his problem; however, he wants to share the truth about his sexual orientation with someone he can trust. At least he hopes that our conversation might help to soften the church reaction and could help him to sort out his plans and feelings towards his new life as an active gay. In order to ‘apply the biblical themes of journey, community, authority and resurrection to this case of a 24 year-old Adventist young man who has recently acknowledged to himself that he is homosexual’ I need to focus on something particular like the story above. At the same time I consider that every case is different as the people are different living in a different environment and culture. The story above is typical for the Eastern Europe Adventists with whom I am more familiar; however, there are many different cases around the world and a growing diversity of attitudes towards homosexuals and homosexuality especially in the younger generation. …
