Same-sex Marriage and the Apocalyptic Consciousness of Seventh-day Adventism

Seminary N310

Same-sex marriage is, in a social sense, a conservative notion, making this new legal an opportunity for Seventh-day Adventism to clarify both the purpose of the Sabbath and what it means to minister healing to LGB people in preparation for the soon second coming of Jesus. Classification according to ideal types of relating immanent goods to transcendent goods identified by Charles Taylor in his genealogy of secularism, A Secular Age, reveals that common cases made both for and against blessing same-sex marriage in Adventism make sense against immanent moral backgrounds in ways that can diminish the plausibility of an apocalyptic consciousness focused on the imminent restoration of Eden. Comparing marriage to Sabbath-keeping practices foregrounds the availability of immanent moral imagination to make sense of Adventist doctrines, and also clarifies how sacrifices for the transcendent good of Eden restored can be sustained through communal recognition and alleviation of the cost, which reinforces the fuller sense of meaning available thereby.