CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A documentary exploring the lives of three gay and lesbian Seventh Day Adventists and their journey reconciling faith, identity and sexuality will be screened this week in Charlotte.
On July 31, “Seventh-Gay Adventists” will be shown in a Tugg limited engagement at 7 p.m. at AMC Carolina Pavilion 22, 9541 South Blvd. A Q&A session will follow the screening. Tickets are $10.
Presented by co-producers and directors Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer, the poignant portrayal shows how the characters find their spiritual home while being caught between the “church they love and their desire to be fully accepted.” Akers and Eyer said that the film was “born out of our personal frustration with the anti-gay religious propaganda and deeply unkind treatment of LGBT individuals that we witnessed around Prop 8 in California in 2008.”
“The movie, which simply tells stories rather than taking an advocacy stance, is powerful,” Dr. William Johnson, a retired editor for The Adventist Review, remarked in a press release. “It can, I believe, do much to make Adventists more compassionate in this controversial area of lifestyle.”
Chris Blake, an author and professor at Union College added, “The film is superb–a poignant and profound experience beyond any I’ve seen on the subject.”
The Gay Christian Network Executive Director Justin Lee also shared, “‘Seventh-Gay Adventists’ is a film that moves beyond politics and controversies to look at the real lives of SDA Christians and the different ways they’ve dealt with being gay in a church where that’s not always easy. It’s rare to find a film that deals with this subject with this much nuance and sensitivity! We enjoyed showing it at our annual conference, and I’m happy to recommend it to others who want an insightful look into the human side of the gay debate in conservative churches.”
info/tickets: sgamovie.com. tugg.com/events/4814.