A Disappointing Story of Bad Judgment and an Ethical Lapse at EKM
by Loren Seibold | 15 October 2024 |
A week or so ago I received a letter from Catherine Taylor, a family therapist who is also a member of Kinship International, the organization for LGBTQ+ people from a Seventh-day Adventist background.
Please be clear: everything I’m about to tell you comes from the letter Catherine sent out. The story in the letter (I will skip most of the details, because I’m not sure how many of them should have been revealed in the first place) was this.
In the autumn of 2023 a young man who was coming to terms with being gay attended the European Kinship Meeting (EKM) in Germany. While there he met Saša Gunjeviç, a bisexual pastor whose coming out to his congregation had briefly been a cause célèbre among those of us progressive Adventists who defend the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in our church.
The letter alleged that at EKM, Saša Gunjeviç engaged in a sexual relationship with this young man.
Catherine, a therapist and once an officer of Kinship, was understandably upset when this young man told her the story. He had been only 17 at the time.
Before you ask, 17 is within the age of consent in Germany. But Saša Gunjeviç was about twice that age, and at the time was serving as an Adventist pastor in Hamburg—a position of spiritual authority. (Saša is no longer a pastor. He resigned in April of this year.)
Kinship has a code of conduct (you can read it here) that outlines what every professional person should know by now: sexual relationships between people who are not more or less equals in authority or age are, in almost all cases, regarded as unethical.
Sex can be psychologically contradictory. It is a strong drive that leads people to do things that can be enjoyable—and sometimes very risky. It also has a lot of guilt and shame attached to it, particularly in a religious context. And once the desire is fulfilled, it sometimes ends in deep regret.
This young man felt regretful. He told his family, and ultimately the story came to Catherine, who sent it out widely.
Disappointment
Adventist Today was one of the organizations that said supportive things when Saša came out. At the time, we knew Saša was a well-loved pastor, and he appeared to have the support of his congregation and the leaders of the Hanseatic Conference. Though it was never said in so many words, most of us assumed that Saša wouldn’t have been allowed to continue in ministry unless he was living a life his conference leaders could approve—in short, that he was being sexually moral.
The moment I read Catherine’s letter, I was worried.
Of course, I was disappointed. What Saša did wasn’t illegal, but it showed poor judgment. I also realized that even though I’ve never met Saša in person, I had placed a lot of hope in him as the one who would show that LGBTQ+ people could be good pastors.
That’s not necessarily fair on my part. Knowing human weakness, we shouldn’t invest all our hopes for a whole group in one person. Nor should we even be shocked that someone had sex with someone they shouldn’t. It hurts people, it breaks hearts and relationships, it ruins families and careers—but it happens.
And most of the time (let’s be honest) it happens between straight people.
But in this case, I feared that it would make people say, “LGBTQ+ people can’t be trusted.” As someone who has LGBTQ+ friends whom I do trust, that made me sad, and a bit angry. I could almost hear the opponents chortling, “See? That’s what those people are like.”
Furthermore, the story was sent out to lots and lots of people, by someone who is a member of the Kinship community and could easily have sought counsel from Kinship leaders. Instead, Catherine implied that Kinship president Floyd Pönitz had tried to sweep it under the rug.
When I talked to Floyd, he wasn’t at all dismissive of Saša’s transgression, as the letter had led me to believe. He agreed that what Saša did was wrong. But he also felt that blanketing the Adventist community with this story, with every sexual detail and every person’s name and date and place, might also be unethical—and not necessarily redemptive.
We live in an age where everyone is concerned about their own privacy. But when someone else does something wrong, some folks don’t care as much about others’ privacy as they do about their own. There are sexual relationships that are wrong, but there are also wrong ways of dealing with them when they do (inevitably) happen.
Kinship’s response
Once the story was so widely spread, Kinship responded publicly, too. Their board of directors wrote,
SDA Kinship is devastated that this incident occurred and that Kinship’s values of safety, community, and respect were not upheld. The pastor behaved unethically and reprehensibly. He has been removed from membership with SDA Kinship. In a safe community, all members share a responsibility to one another. His actions do not represent the care or ethics Kinship expects from its members and from people in positions of power, and do not align with the type of community Kinship seeks to foster.
They followed that with a list of actions to be implemented within six months.
- Complete an internal review of all policies and protocols regarding allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct at Kinship-sponsored and associated events. These policies and protocols will be updated in accordance with best practices in order to prioritize community members’ safety and dignity.
- Provide training on safeguarding and mandated reporting to Kinship’s Board of Directors, leadership team, and regional coordinators.
- Update and expand the Code of Conduct that covers all Kinship leaders and members in all Kinship spaces and events, whether virtual or in-person.
- Offer workshops and ongoing education to all members on topics related to personal health and community safety, including consent, sexual abuse, and mental health.
The Board of Directors added that they were relying on the local leadership of Kinship Europe, who have “the most direct engagement with the people involved.”
Kinship leaders of the German-speaking countries wrote an excellent letter addressing this from their point of view. To their credit, that letter was also careful to avoid names and sensational details. You can read it here.
So what now?
When I first came to Ohio, I heard about a pastor who had had sex with at least three or four of his female church members. He was a straight man with pastoral authority: no matter the women’s willingness, he should have known better. It messed up a lot of families. The congregation was never the same.
It’s a sick story, but here’s the thing: no one said, “We can never trust straight pastors again.” We don’t say, “All straight pastors are promiscuous” because some pastors are.
I’m disappointed in Saša. He had admitted that he may have caused harm to a vulnerable young adult. He betrayed the trust a conference and congregation placed in him.
Am I wrong to say that LGBTQ+ people should still be welcomed in our churches? I don’t think so.
We all need to be more careful. Saša needed to be more careful—he did not behave pastorally. But Catherine might have been more careful, too: something that could have been handled discreetly wasn’t. Cathrine wrote that:
- [The young man] wants anyone who has been abused and feels isolated to know their voice and their story is important.
- [He] would like to use his story and information to help prevent the abuse of others.
- [He] would like his story to be part of creating a safer SDA Kinship community.
Have those goals been achieved? I’m not sure. It certainly has become known, but will it be redemptive?
We’ll have to wait and see.
Loren Seibold is the Executive Editor of Adventist Today.
