Nineteenth-century sexual ideals in Mormonism and Seventh-day Adventism differed: Adventism proscribed sexual expression, even in marriage, and Latter-day Saints encouraged marriage and sexual expression in addition to that sanctioned by the wider society, especially in polygamy. Nonetheless, each movement justified sexual norms by asserting that sexual expression lessened vital force, or physical well-being. In the face of changing societal sexual and gender norms——especially resulting from the sexual revolution, the modern feminist movement, and the gay rights movement——Adventism's and Mormonism's definitions of appropriate sexual expression converged to promote sex in heterosexual marriage. Concomitantly, homosexuality was explicitly and publicly defined as sinful and antithetical to, even threatening, heterosexual marriage and family. This paper explores the convergence of sexual ideals in Mormonism and Adventism, with attention to explicit proscription of homosexuality, responses to homosexuality and homosexuals in each movement, and implications of these for gay and lesbian adherents.

ABSTRACT: This article employs a content analysis of the Adventist Review to explore Seventh-day Adventist denominational change and concomitant delimitation of women's roles and expectations in the denomination. It uses Weber's theory of the religion of non-privileged classes in order to consider denominational change and attendant advocation of specific gender ideals and proscriptions for Adventist women. The paper finds that early in its history Adventism defined itself in opposition to secular society, and that in the context of this definition by distinction, Adventist women were encouraged to assume positions of public religious responsibility not available to them in secular society. Following the turn of the century and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, as Adventist culture adopted an accommodating response to other denominations and secular society, the Review promoted conventional secular notions of gender appropriate activity, relegating men to the "bread-winner" role and discouraging women from engaging in wage labor, or religious activity outside of the domestic sphere. As suggested by Weber's theory of religion of non-privileged classes, examination of the Adventist Review illustrates the way in which Adventist leadership shifted from advocating ideals inconsistent with those promulgated in the wider society, when Adventist culture most emphasized its distinction, only to later embrace secular expectations of gender when the denomination adopted a more accommodating response to other denominations and secular society.