Exodus European Member Ministries Secede
Ex-Gay Watch reader Noa from Sweden (of “Alex and Noa” as mentioned on Peterson Toscano’s weblog) sent us this news from the website of Swedish ex-gay ministry Medvandrarna:
[translation by Noa]
Exodus Europe
Exodus Europe has been something of a sad series of events in the newsletter of the Medvandrarna ministry over the years. The latest developments is that since the Exodus conference in Northern Ireland in the summer of 2005 the work of the elected board [of Exodus Europe] has come to almost a complete breakdown, and a lot of the reasons for that is disparate views on how the relations to the Exodus Global Alliance (EGA) are supposed to look like. The board of the Medvandrarna ministry has, together with many of the other member organizations, for long held the opinion that Exodus has been too much affected by non-functioning structures and American thinking. After a great deal of discussion we were called to a yearly meeting in Denmark the 25-27th of April. The turnout was great, with all the member organizations represented. We elected a partly new board of directors we decided also to cancel our membership in the Exodus Global Alliance. The board of directors has been assigned with the task of developing new bylaws and visions and also coming up with a new name for Exodus Europe.”
And for archival purposes here’s the original Swedish.
Exodus Europa
Exodus Europa har blivit något av en sorglig följetong i Medvandrarbrevet de senaste åren. Det senaste som hänt är att sedan Exoduskonferensen i Nordirland sommaren 2005 har styrelsearbetet i det närmaste helt brutit ihop, mycket beroende på vitt skilda uppfattningar om hur Exodus Europa ska organiseras och hur relationen till Exodus Global Alliance (EGA) ska se ut. Medvandrarnas styrelse har i likhet med flera andra av medlems-organisationerna, länge tyckt att Exodus varit alltför präglat av icke fungerande strukturer och amerikanskt tänkande. Efter ett antal turer kallades vi till årsmöte i Danmark 25-27 april. Uppslutningen blev mycket god med representanter från alla medlemsorganisationerna. Vi valde delvis ny styrelse och beslutade även att säga upp vårt medlemskap i EGA. Styrelsen har fått i uppdrag att arbeta fram nya stadgar och visioner och även ett nytt namn för Exodus Europa.
The main Exodus website hasn’t had a link to any European ministry for quite some time now – enquiries are redirected to their main International office instead.
The UK ministries had drawn back from Exodus over a number of years, as Dave Rattigan summarised here
“American thinking”
Very interested in knowing what they meant by this.
Sboyd, it doesn’t become any clearer in Swedish, it is the literal translation. However an educated guess is that the europeans generally feel that Exodus US has departed from being an organization of ministries and has become more of a political organization. The conservative political forces are much weaker here in Sweden than in the US, so the temptation of the ex-gay oganizations to prioritize politics over ministry is weaker.