Christine BakkeChristine Bakke, of Rising Up Whole and Beyond Ex-Gay, has been featured in an article in Glamour magazine. I first “met” Christine when she emailed me about a year ago. She’d just discovered that I live in the same Texas town where her sister lived at the time, and Christine thought I might be able to help her sister process what was going on in the crazy journey from gay, to ex-gay, to ex-ex-gay. I happily obliged and was blown away by the incredible LOVE I felt emanating from the sisters.

It’s a good article. Christine is not bashing ex-gays, and it seems to me she is quite graceful in her attitude toward them. Christine is telling her story, honestly, and is to be admired and respected for it. She doesn’t leave out the parts that might make her “look bad” and she isn’t attempting to make certain spiritual practices look silly. From the article,

“Then he put his hand on my head and I felt myself falling backwards. They’re all praying that the demon of homosexuality will leave me. I’m crying on the floor, having this religious experience and being told God loves me.”

Christine goes on to say,

“I don’t want to trivialize this,” she says. “It meant a lot to me at the time.”

Some things may look silly just because they look silly. So be it. I’m certain if God is truly in those practices, someone calling them “silly” takes nothing away from them. If there are things in the story that upset ex-gay ministries, then, so be it. Again, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. It’s still her story and it needs to be told. We all have much to learn from one another.

Source: Glamour Magazine

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