Ex-Gay Watch

Great report. Bravo!

When Exodus apologizes we expect substance, not a strategy. Chambers must realize that Smid received support because his apology seemed sincere, or at least he was heading in the right direction.

Meanwhile, no one bought The International Healing Foundation’s recent apology from Richard Cohen, who we all thought was full of s**t. Chambers would be wise to look at the Cohen flop, not just the Smid success.

The dishonesty and deciept; the semantic games and double talk; the arrogance and allegiance to the political right; the forays overseas that spread hate in places like Uganda; have earned Chambers incredible ill will.

An apology absent a resignation will ring hollow. Chambers should practice some of that conservative “personal responsibility” and admit he has been a failure as a leader and maybe as a human being. He should go somewhere peaceful and quiet to reflect on the harm he has caused as an agent of intolerance. When he returns from exile, he should consider spending the rest of his life undoing the damage that occurred at his hands.

To bad this gift won’t arrive in time for Christmas. If Chambers thinks some clever wording will work he’s wrong. John Smid came out and said, “I never met a person who changed their sexual orientation”
Probably the worst line I ever heard come out of Alan Chambers mouth is the line about the goal of Exodus is not to make you straight but to make you Holy. That line sticks in my craw. Well let’s hope they miss a few mortgage payments between now and their next big meeting. Exodus should remove that advertising pic of him and his wife as mixed orientation marriages are not likely to survive and putting that pic out there leads people to seek that which overwhelmingly statistically is not gonna work. It’s false advertising.

Ironically, a kinder, gentler re-branding would basically bring Exodus full circle. Before Chambers, Exodus was a relatively quiet Seattle-area based organization that failed to attract much attention. Chambers moved Exodus to the conservative South, associated the group with Religious Right organizations, and embarked on bold “Change Is Possible” campaigns. It seems any lighter re-branding would require the resignation of Chambers.

I’m a bit puzzled as to what type of donors would be attracted to a more fuzzy re-branded Exodus. It seems to me that most wealthy conservative Christian donors would want firm assurance that Exodus clearly denounces homosexuality. Exodus’s appeal to conservative Christianity is that it offers a simple solution to the messy and uncomfortable issue of homosexuality.

My guess is that Exodus may do what many of its member ministries have done and expand its customer base to heterosexuals (i.e. sexual addiction, porn, infidelity, premarital sex, etc.). Of course to make itself more palatable to straight conservative men, it will have to de-emphasize gay issues. It could try to spark a Promise Keepers-type of revival and merely mention homosexuality among a variety of sexual issues.

Wow. This is big news! Whatever happens, lets not forget that Exodus is just the umbrella organization. While they’re the ones that get most of the press and organize the member ministries, even if they fold (which I doubt) there will still be the 100+ member ministries that are actually working with the clients to become straight.

Although without the annual exodus conference and the emotional high it brings, I think the drop out rate will be even higher among the member ministries. Those exodus conferences used to give me the emotional boost to keep fighting for another 6 months!

“Before Chambers, Exodus was a relatively quiet Seattle-area based organization that failed to attract much attention.”

Well, not exactly. The politicization of this group happened pre-Chambers. Exodus starred in the massive 1998 “Truth in Love” campaign under Bob Davies — which was really the pinnacle of the “ex-gay” industry. Remember John Paulk?

Chambers promised to scale back such political involvement — but lied through his teeth. Instead, he forged an alliance with Focus on the Family. When these groups teamed up — Exodus’ money woes seemed to disappear overnight.

When Focus on the Family dumped Love Won Out, this was really the beginning of Exodus returning to pre-1998, as their funding base and enthusiastic support from the Religious Right began to recede.

Focus on the Family made Chambers look smart. Without FoF’s public relations team and access to donors — Chambers was left to run the show on his own — and he lacked the skills to pull it off.

This is why the rebranding effort will fail. It is like putting a new body of a car over a crappy engine. It won’t be long before people realize it is the same old lemon that doesn’t work.

Smid? Well, I’m willing to see where that goes.

Exodus International and Alan Chambers have been too slippery, too cynical, too mean and too outright dishonest to deserve our trust. If a rebranding comes out of this last-ditch attempt to drum up support, it will have all the credibility of Cohen’s recent stunt.

Surprising that they are in such financial trouble given the many tens of thousands of happy ex-gays that are supposedly walking around. Why not just ask each one to donate $20 and their coffers will be instantly refilled?

Anyway, if they are going to rebrand in order to attract donors, that would militate in favor of a more anti-gay posture. The big Christian money is driven by fear and the need to fight some perceived threat. You get big dollars talking about how the gay agenda threatens kids. They aren’t going to get big dollar contributions talking about the end of sexual identity.

Well done, David!! This is the best article I’ve read on XGW in a while (my own included ). Way to go!!

As a self-identified 70/30 split gay/bi-curious male, and a survivor of Love in Action 1988 -I would advise Exodus to give up its own religious fundamentalist agenda based behavior modification model and create sanctuaries and safe houses for men and women to come and discover for themselves who they are as human beings, as sexual beings, as embodied representations of the Divine (at our best, most honest and most transparent selves) and allow them to become absolutely free and at liberty to be at choice in this world to manifest their most authentic selves. To deconstruct the structures of patriarchy, of sexism, of racism, of essentialism, and even of inversion models of matriarchy and find out what it really means to live fully human, fully enfleshed and fully purposed towards our highest calling, whatever that looks like! I would introduce these men and women to various streams of consciousness awakening like the Mankind Project’s (www.mkp.org) New Warrior Training Adventure and it’s inclusive Gay/Bi gateway weekends, as well as its sister organization http://www.womanwithin.org. I would introduce them to the work of the Human Awareness Institute (www.hai.org) and the exploration of our lives as embodied spirits and what it means to love fully. I would share the work of David Deida and James B. Nelson and talk about what it means to walk in the world with integrity knowing that what you say and how you live align. To create spaces where the often labeled “negative” emotions were acceptable because the facilitators of this work knew how to hold space for it. If Exodus would be the umbrella organization for these kind of places, where the only outcome desired was the fullness of the Christ consciousness as lived out through each and every unique and particular human being whether they be LGBTQorStr8, monogamous, poly or whatever, then that would be an organization I could support. Until then, I think like everything, it needs to die and be reborn as something real or stay dead and not act the zombie or the vampire feeding off us in its own self-righteousness. Selah.

@David Chambers has even been heard to claim that there are “hundreds of thousands” of ex-gays. Even if that means only one hundred thousand satisfied ex-gays, a donation of just $10 from each one would bring in $1,000,000.

What’s always puzzled me is that the only ‘ex-gays’ these groups present to the world for promotion are themselves merely professional ex-gays. It’s like some kind of pyramid system. They never parade out ex-gay surgeons, pilots, or engineers. Why are ‘ex-gays’ always these unskilled people who seem to just live off various scams and donations?

Leon, Greg Quinlan President of PFOX answered your question in a recent interview. He said that they (ex-gays) do not come forward because they are all opposite sex married and have children and they don’t want their children to know their past. I am just passing along what he said in the interview Leon, I don’t believe him. I think in reality there are very very few people living in an open successful mixed orientation marriage. And by open I mean the spouse was fully aware before marriage what the deal was. The statistics are in that Jones & Yarhouse study on mixed orientation marriages.

Page 41-
“The research suggests, however, that many mixed orientation relationships do not survive. It has been estimated that only about a third of couples even attempt to stay together after disclosure (Buxton, 2004). Of that third that attempt to stay together, only about half remain intact for three or more years (Bux- ton).”

“In the area of sexual fidelity, sexual minority spouses reported a higher than average number of extramarital relationships (44.2% indicating an extra- marital relationship), whereas national averages are at about 10% of women and under 25% of men (Laumann et al., 1994).”

the sexual minorities said that 44.2% had cheated on their spouse and had an average of 3.14 same sex liaisons.

http://christianpsych.org/wp_scp/wp-content/uploads/edification_4_2.pdf

I went to look at who is Exodus’ current leadership and I noticed under Mark Whitten, the Chairman, how much it is emphasizes on how financially successful his ministries were. Maybe it’s why they brought him on? The board seems to be missing some of the key players from the past who lead various bedrock ex-gay ministries. I guess a good sound Christian ministry is one that brings in the dough.

“Under Pastor Whitten’s leadership and through a miraculous move of God, the church became a healthy, growing body and in October of 1994, Metro Church paid off the five million dollar debt that was incurred prior to Pastor Whitten’s tenure… In April 1995, Clark Whitten became the senior pastor of Calvary Assembly of God, Winter Park, Florida. Under his leadership, Calvary grew in many ways – spiritually, physically, and financially!”

I have a question about those in attendance. The article says those who attended included people who are “in the process of changing their views or are fully gay affirming.” Are you saying that Chambers deliberately invited these individuals or that he does not know they are changing their views? I find it strange that Chambers would invite those in opposition to his views to such a personal meeting.

Personally, I do not trust any image change. I’ve seen too much of that attempt with Exodus when the views of the staff had not really changed which simply resulted in a lot of double-speak. Plus, there is other dysfunction beyond that. The only way for Exodus to survive is if Chambers and all the current staff resign and its taken over by those who are truly moderate. This would also mean a new board since the current board as I understand it is comprises Chamber’s friends who hold the same ultra-conservative perspectives.

Karen :

I have a question about those in attendance. The article says those who attended included people who are “in the process of changing their views or are fully gay affirming.” Are you saying that Chambers deliberately invited these individuals or that he does not know they are changing their views? I find it strange that Chambers would invite those in opposition to his views to such a personal meeting.

If it were about integrity and honesty, it would be strange, but not if it all comes down to money and doing whatever it takes to ensure the organization doesn’t go under. They’re just trying to play all sides.

Thanks for the update….when I was in college and Exodus was in Seattle, I tried to contact them to interveiw them for a paper and they refused to be interviewed….secrets runs high in Exodus!!!!

@StraightGrandmother

Thanks. Quinlan’s comments seem contrary to what Jesus commanded. If a person had been freed from homosexual demons, they would be joyous and want to share with others. If these supposedly successful ex-gays have kids, wouldn’t they want them to know this route to freedom and eternal life? It’s strange that they would want to keep it secret … unless of course they know that they wouldn’t be taken seriously. It just seems so selfish for them to hide from everyone else what they claim is a miraculous cure for homosexuality.

@Karen

Personally, I do not trust any image change

Exactly. Chambers is very deceitful. I remember during that Lisa Ling show he was trying to appear very moderate and said he would meet gay men (not ex-gays) in heaven. It took less than 24 hours for right-wing groups (probably his funding base) to call him out on that and he immediately backtracked. He is very conniving.

looks like some folks are going to have to get real jobs

Leon :

Chambers is very deceitful. I remember during that Lisa Ling show he was trying to appear very moderate and said he would meet gay men (not ex-gays) in heaven. It took less than 24 hours for right-wing groups (probably his funding base) to call him out on that and he immediately backtracked. He is very conniving.

Yes. A search of the tags Exodus International and Alan Chambers on this site will confirm exactly that. Under Alan’s leadership the last few years, Exodus has been nothing short of duplicitous. He should be ashamed of himself.

Thanks for your report on Exodus. To me, meeting with disaffected former ex-gays sounds like an attempt to follow typical advice given to evangelical churches. Church consultants recommend that pastors interview exiting members, especially if the church is in decline. The purpose is to listen for valid criticism, and in some cases, to regain the members. My guess is that Exodus is trying to apply this technique in the attempt to close the back door of their organization. What they (or their consultant?) may not get is that the problem is not with style but substance. Former ex-gays are rejecting the core message of ex-gay “ministries.” Tweeking the style or reframing the message will not help. The problem is with Exodus’s reason for existing. It needs to die.

@David Roberts
Thanks for the clarification David. This is an interesting development given that he would not meet with Beyond Ex-Gay folk to do exactly that in 2007.

What happened to all that money Schmierer said Ahmanson was giving Exodus?

Considering that Alan Chambers is a sociopath, I’m not surprised by this development.

@ Straight Grandmother:

If Chambers is correct that there are “hundreds of thousands” of Exodus alumni, then that means there are at least 200,000. The vast majority of these would be Christians who have an obligation to testify as to the saving power of the Cross. To fail to testify, knowing that their testimony of miraculous change could help bring others to Jesus, is to have blood on their hands. Now, some of the alumni will not be Christian and some of the Christian alumni will fail to meet their obligation. But wouldn’t it be safe to say that 20 percent or 10 percent would speak out? That’s 20-40,000 ex-gays. Heck, if only 1 out 100 alumni went public, that would be 2,000 amazing testimonials as to how one can go from homosexual to heterosexual.

But instead, all we have are the same 10-20 professional ex-gays and maybe a few dozen people who are forever “in the process” of changing or who have redefined change to mean a change from homosexual to “pure” and who disappear from public view after a few months.

Brilliant reporting, David. I hope this story gets picked up outside of the gay blogosphere.

“The dishonesty and deciept; the semantic games and double talk; the arrogance and allegiance to the political right; the forays overseas that spread hate in places like Uganda;”

When The Empress of Exgaynia shifted the goals from heterosexuality to holiness, the organization basically admitted to fraud; fraudulent heterosexuality and fraudulent holiness, and by implication, the likely fraudulence of any self-proclaimed holiness. what we normally call moral hypocrisy.

That should have been obvious to any intelligent person. And this may account for a drying up of funds. Just because you agree with the AntiGay agenda doesn’t mean you are also stupid, or willing to put your imprimatur on what is clearly a fraud.

I don’t understand the fundamentalist mindset in particular well enough, nor the more general mindset of people who positively eschew trying to be grounded in fact, experience, logic, and compassion, and hold their detachment up as a badge of honor. I have given up trying to figure out if they are 1) sincere but misguided 2) stupid enough to believe anything but smart enough to make money 3) completely amoral– or sociopathic, if that sounds less judgmental– SOBs, like arms dealers who live off death, but with worse haircuts 4) afflicted with megalomania composed of equal parts stupendous spiritual arrogance and massive moral myopia, expressed as an unshakeable belief in an otherwise wholly imaginary spiritual and moral superiority. (Of course I cannot believe they have any chance of actually being, oh, right).

Of course, I’m not sure it actually matters. You can tell me you love me all you want, and for whatever reasons you want. but when you call me a threat to freedom, god, children, family, and goddam western civilization (such as it seems to be becoming), I would have to be as deluded as you, for whatever reason, to believe it.

The product is dishonesty and deceipt. Their methods are semantic games and double talk. Their spiritual arrogance seems, to my mind, particularly endemic to A Certain Class of Christian. Why would you expect their rebranding and salvation campaign to be run or imagined any differently? (I know you don’t).

And of course, it is about money. Organizations need money to run anything. If you exerecise your Edifice Complex and buy a big building you can’t really afford, but it makes you feel more manly and in control, you need to know you have adequate funding for at leats half the length of the mortgage. and you have to hope their isn’t an economic downturn, especially ones that prevents you from selling your biggest but-no-longer-very-valuable asset and source of your greatest debt. If they were being successful with their current brand, they would be able to sell it to both the marks and the religio-politcal organizations.

Wayne, you and XGW have done a wonderful job over the years. I for one am very thankful.

Ben in Oakland, har har har, you had me rolling on the floor. Some of your best lines I thought are

afflicted with megalomania composed of equal parts stupendous spiritual arrogance and massive moral myopia

If you exerecise your Edifice Complex and buy a big building you can’t really afford, but it makes you feel more manly and in control

When The Empress of Exgaynia shifted the goals from heterosexuality to holiness, the organization basically admitted to fraud; fraudulent heterosexuality and fraudulent holiness, and by implication, the likely fraudulence of any self-proclaimed holiness. what we normally call moral hypocrisy.

I LOVED, LOVE, LOVE Edifice Complex!!

You must be a writer Ben and if you are not you should be.

Thank you. i have my designs on writingness.

Not sure how to enter into this conversation, but my burning issue is this: Some of those who were leaders in the ex-gay ministry movement now say they have NEVER known someone’s orientation to change. The implication is then that they were lying and falsely presenting the possibility of “change” to hundreds if not thousands of “clients” who paid great sums of money to enter into a process which was advertised as something which could and would fundamentally change their sexual orientation from one which was sinful to one which was in line with God’s original intent. And the implication is that the leaders were purposely lying. It wouldn’t have simply dawned upon them one day – out of the blue – that “this ex-gay stuff isn’t working.” So now, in the wake of these kinds of confessions and apologies and acknowledgements who is there to minister to those who personally felt that they were failures because they weren’t able to “change”? What is the responsibility of the leaders who have admitted their well-meaning but ineffective party-line proclamations? How can Christians who are homosexually oriented have trust in the Body of Christ to walk with them so to speak, given the disillusionment and deception they have experienced?
These are my questions at this point in the conversation…

“How can Christians who are homosexually oriented have trust in the Body of Christ to walk with them so to speak, given the disillusionment and deception they have experienced?

Tim, i can’t answer that question much, but merely re-ask it: After the 1700 year jihad of Christianity in general against our right to exist, in which every bit of theology was always twisted to make it ok to judge gay people, in which every shred of real compassion, truth-seeking, and logic was bent out of shape beyond recognition, how can any gay person trust the body of Christ for anything?

Probably the same way that witches, Jews, heretics, Moors, and everyone else who has been on the receiving end of Christian love.

Besides leaving the church altogether, I think the only answer is find a better class of Christian, and find a better class of church.

I understand what you are saying Ben. The problem is, according to my understanding of what The Church is, is that there is only one “Body of Christ” or Church. I mean, this is it… there is no better class of church or better class of christian. We are it! And I don’t want to leave it, even though I have been “out of fellowship” for about two years now. It’s tough!

Tim, the idea that there is only one Body of Christ is a variant of the “No True scotsman” fallacy, by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing.

They’ve been doing “such a thing” for centuries.

We have nearly 1700 years of religious wars, Christian against Christian. We have the Mormons claiming that even though the bible says you can’t add anything to it, nevertheless, there is a highly improbable book of mormon which, with the other sacred texts of mormonism, relays a theology completely at variance with anything approaching traditional Christian theology. We have Baptists claiming that Mormons aren’t christians, and wish to convert them to the true faith, though the catholics would assert the Baptists are in error about whose faith is the true one, which the Baptists would dismiss as being the satanically inspired ravings of graven-image worshipping w***e of Babylon.

And on and on and on. There hasn’t been a true Body of Christ since the first Catholic murdered the first Cathar– at least. But that’s because my memory only goes back to the 1200′s, and i didn’t want to include the crusades, because that bit of slaughter wasn’t Christians doing other christians.

In my early nearly-a-Christian days, when I eagerly read anything by CS Lewis that I could find (except his best book, the allegory of Love, which was dreary as all get out), he offered a metaphor for Jesus, which i only partially remember (It’s been over 40 years). Something to the effect that Jesus was like a rising tide or an extremely bouyant object, that lifts his flock with him as he rises.

There’s your standard. Is this Christian, or that Church, lifting people up, or beating them down? Is this Christian, or that Church, making the lives of the people they act upon better or worse? Is their Bible a support and a guide or a weapon and a reproach? Are they followers of Jesus or Paul, who not only never met Jesus, but never met a commandment of Jesus that he didn’t feel free to revise, contradict, or ignore?

Of course there is a better Christian, and a better class of Church. They are the ones who believe AND live in “Love one another”, “Judge not”, and “Do unto others.” They are the ones who don’t judge, who mind their own business, who support gay people not despite their faith but because of it, who don’t use their religion as a club against people whom they don’t know, are completely ignorant of, and who have done them no harm.

Jesus himself endorsed this manner of living when he said “By their fruits (giggle) shall you know them.”

He didn’t actually giggle.

Wow, Ben. That is a long list of grievances. Shall we throw in the kitchen sink?

Before continuing, I want to respect the fact that not all of us here claim Christianity. For them, this response may be irrelevant.

Ben, I understand the anger. For those Christians whose ignorance and prejudice and sometimes downright sinfulness have hurt us who are LGBTQ, I share your anger. FOTF comes to mind. But I don’t see that it helps a great deal to trot out the whole list of Christian failures. It feels like the kind of dysfunctional fighting in which the offended partner piles on the offender with a whole list of grievances never forgiven. Let’s stick to the point. We LGBTQ Christians have been offended, and many of us long for a church that supports us. As for the rest, how much does the church (any church) have to apologize for its past failings before it is forgiven? I’m thinking of the Catholic Church’s recent disavowals of anti-Semitism, for instance. Many Christians today, probably most, including Catholics and Baptists, recognize that the divisions in the church are a scandal. But healing those divisions is an extremely difficult task. As for the whole Jesus v. Paul thing, that’s too complex a theological argument to pursue here.

If the question is, is the church as a whole throughout time very lovable, hmm, maybe not. The problem is there are so many sinners in it. But that’s not news to anyone, the church most of all.

For me, the whole question of what to do with the church comes down to this: Do I believe in Jesus Christ or don’t I? If I have made a final decision that I don’t, then I can treat the church just as I would any other religious organization with whom I disagree. I may criticize them, but there is no need to spend too much energy doing it. If I do believe in Jesus Christ, then the church is the group of people with whom I belong, even if I am an offended member and need to confront some fellow Christians for their sins against me. I once hated my own homosexuality, and to the extent that I was complicit with that hatred in the church, I deeply apologize. I too was an offender.

Personally, I love the church, not because the church is so lovable, believe me, but because I love Christ, and he loves the church and gave his life for the church, as Scripture says. It’s a bit like my attitude toward online gaming. I think it’s a waste of time. But I respect gaming because my partner is a gamer and I love him. Blessedly, we’ve found a strongly gay-afirming Episcopal church where we feel most welcome. I would wish all of us who are Christians could be so blessed.

@Tim
“Some of those who were leaders in the ex-gay ministry movement now say they have NEVER known someone’s orientation to change. The implication is then that they were lying and falsely presenting the possibility of ‘change’ … purposely lying.”

Don’t underestimate the human capacity for self-deception. This self-deception may have stemmed not only from the fact that they earned their living by promoting change, but from the bind they were in between their beliefs and their homosexuality. Ministry tends to straitjacket a person. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for questioning and exploration. I’m just thankful some of the ex-gay leaders are having the courage to acknowledge the truth to themselves and the rest of us.

@David Roberts
No question. But is that humanly possible? We all have our blind spots.

@David Roberts
Thanks for your response, David. I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. The United States government has offended its citizens and other countries in huge ways, sometimes even intentionally. Yet most Americans aren’t ready to throw it away. The University of Pennsylvania has offended several boys in devastating ways. Officials are fired. But I haven’t heard any calls for the university to be dissolved.

The church needs to be held accountable. Some of its leaders should be fired. Some have been. I’m simply saying that for Christians, throwing away the church is not a viable option.

For myself, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot live my life as a human being without offending sometimes. Sheer ignorance is one reason, not to mention the times when I knowingly offend because I’m angry.

May I be honest? The idea that the church has failed and therefore it should be rejected offends me. That’s OK.

David, we’re actually in agreement.

I wasn’t trying to make a list of grievances, and certainly, none of those are my grievances. As a Jew and a gay man, I have my own extra special set, but they have little to do with the body of Christ. It was simply a list of observations. I was pointing out the the Body of Christ was long ago split by those who comprise it and who allegedly have the greatest stake– and greatest commandment– in preserving it.

It’s very much like the divorce, adultery and illegitimacy that plague the heterosexual majority. Gay people can’t get married because straight people screw up their marriages, families, and commitments. Gay people get blamed in advance for this, because it is easy to blame “the other” rather than question your own wholly imaginary spiritual, moral, sexual (ha!) and social superiority.

The Body of Christ, like the family, has been attacked and eaten away at from within. Those cankerous triplets– fundamentalist megalomania, spiritual arrogance, and moral myopia– have been chewing on their Host for centuries. Our current thread subject is the perfect avatar for that. Exodus is a religious fraud supported by other religious frauds, selling more religious fraud, sexual fraud, psychological fraud, marital fraud, and a cheap gimcrack of fraudulent holiness that wouldn’t fetch 20 cents in a back alley in Bangkok.

You wrote: “As for the rest, how much does the church (any church) have to apologize for its past failings before it is forgiven? I’m thinking of the Catholic Churches recent disavowals of anti-Semitism, for instance.” Interesting about that. Anti-semitism arguably got off to a good start in the gospel of John, right about the time that the Jewish heresy known as Christianity began to see itself as a new thing, not just a new version of the old thing, and then to turn on its former dominant paradigm. John was quite clear about “The Jews this” and “The Jews that”. Though I am no biblical scholar, I don’t buy the apologia that this was merely about an internal dissent amoung factions of Jews at the time. Not “Our Brothers” or “Our priests”, but “The Jews”, and Jews who were fathered by devils at that. It was intended to separate.

It took the Catholic Church 1900 years to aplogize for the anti-semitism it had fostered for most of that 1900 years. I doubt I’ll be here when they get around to apologizing to gay people for creating the wunderbar, wun-of-a-kind sin known as “an intrinsic tendency towards grave moral evil.” Coming from an organization iwth (at least) an 800 year history of pedophilia and enabling and covering up same, that’s really rich. (Now we’re getting in to some of MY grievances).

The statement I would make, and often have made, is this: if the Church wants ot be respected, maybe it should start acting respectably. If the cells that make up the body of Christ want wholeness in the body of Christ, then maybe they should strive to be more Christ-like? You know. judge not. Love one another. that sort of thing.

Which brings me to your other point. Instead, the Body of Christ is usually the dessicated bones of Paul. I would have to disagree that the Paul versus Jesus thing is complex, but then i am a simple guy. These days, I tend to follow Koschei the Deathless, who made things as they are. It makes thing simpler when you try to look at things that way instead of how one might prefer them to be.

Jesus said, “Judge not.” Paul said, “Why not.”

Jesus said: “Woe unto you, who bar the door to the Kingdom of Heaven. Prostitute­­s and sinners will enter before you.” Paul said, “Here’s a list. These people aren’t invited.”

Jesus said, “Don’t be like the hypocrites. Pray in private.” Paul said, “Let’s have a church. and rules. And donations.”

There are more examples, but you get the drift. I have no interest in trying to reconcile Paul and Jesus, because i have no dog in that race. I respect people’s religious beliefs, even though I am an atheist– well, strictly speaking, an it-doesn’t-matter-ist– because i especially respect Koschei the Deathless, who made things as they are.

And even you pay your respects to Koschei, because You did exactly what I advised Tim to do. Whatever your intentions may be about healing the body of Christ, you ALSO found a better class of church to go to and a better class of Christian to hang out with.

@David Roberts
I am sorry that you evidently see the church, this organism of which I am part, as monolithic. I think it would also be wise for us LGBTQs to recognize that not all teaching/preaching against homosexual behavior, etc., is intentionally hurtful or hateful. There is room in my world for honest difference of opinion/interpretation. I agree with those in the LGBTQ world who are realizing we will not win the day by being intolerant, especially not when those who accept us are politically in the majority.

Please understand. I am not defending Exodus. I am defending the church AS that group of people who believe in Jesus Christ. This is what defines the church, not people’s attitudes toward LGBTQs. It’s not all about us.

“I think I would be good if the Church would just stop offending in the first place.”

David Roberts said what I said. if the Church wants to be respected, maybe it should start acting respectably.

The Church can act respectably, though it must often be dragged kicking and screaming to respectability.

No one– and certainly not I– is suggesting that the church should be rejected. I’m practically a christian in the matter. I love the sinner, but I really despise the sin. Don’t you you think it is a little odd that I, thoroughgoing atheist/it-doesn’t-matter-ist that I am, encouraged Tim to find a better class of Christian in a better class of church to associate with? And supported you in it? I truly believe that whatever makes you a better person, whatever makes your life better, whatever brings you peace and happiness, is a good thing in the world. The purpose of any relationship, whether with another person, or a religion, or money, or alcohol, or sex, is to make your life better by the fact that you are in it. If it’s not making your life better, then it is probably not a good idea to be in that relationship.

I just had a look at their Form 990. No doubt they are in trouble, as their deficit sharply reduced their net assets, which they now value at $250K. $250K is approximately what they had on hand in 2004 and 2007, and it is a lot more than they have had on hand in other years. The big difference is their one-year deficit of $180K. In the last 10 years or so, Exodus would usually run a surplus and in one year a very small deficit. It has never run a deficit of the size that it ran last year, and clearly if it continues at this rate, the assets will be depleted in 2 years or so.

The problem seems to me to be that they have very big expenses associated with their conferences, but they can’t cut back on those b/c those same conferences account for a huge portion of their revenue. Also, they have 23 employees, which adds up to a lot of expense, even if no one employee is highly compensated (and that includes Alan Chambers, who to his credit, takes modest compensation).

There are 2 interesting items that raise questions for me, and i would appreciate any input from EGW that you can provide.

First, they appear to rent their facilities from Worthen Legacy Group, which is run by the same board of directors as Exodus. I assume that WLG owns the building and then Exodus rents it for a reported $78,000/yr. What is this about? Why doesn’t Exodus just own the property and pay its $896K mortgage? On its website, it talks about the building and the mortgage as if it all belongs to Exodus, with no mention of Worthen.

The second interesting item that raised a question is the revenue they get from membership dues. The membership dues may provide some insight as to how many people are involved with this outfit. The reported membership dues are $14,901. This is way down from years past. For example, in 2007, it was more than double, $29,805. You wouldn’t expect dues to be reduced over time, so I presume that this represents a real loss in members. However, I can’t determine from the crappy Exodus website what the membership dues are per member, so it is hard to tell from the raw number how many individuals and churches we are talking about. I would ask EGW and its readers to pipe up if they can offer any info as to what Exodus membership dues are.

@Ben in Oakland
Thanks, David, for your clarification. I enjoy the lively discussion. I didn’t mean to step on your toes as a Jewish man. You confirm my belief that it is not realistic to expect to never offend. Or to expect that others never to offend.

Yes, I agree with you on most of what you say. I totally agree with you that the hatefulness many Christians have displayed toward us is not only dispicable, it is a disease that eats away at the heart of what the church is. You are exactly right. I could not have said it better. In fact, I may steal your way of saying it in the future. I believe that what we are asking of the church is simply that the church be true to its own identity.

I am sorely tempted to discuss theological issues with you. I am trying to respect the purpose of this website. I understand what you say about John. I am not one who believes the Christian scriptures are inerrant in the sense of containing no kind of error. I do believe they are infallable (reliable) in pointing toward God and truth. Sorry for the technical lingo. I think you have misunderstood Paul at points. “And such were some of you,” he says to Christians when listing Kingdom-barring offenses. These lists do not include gay behavior per se, so recent research indicates, though his words have often been mistranslated to say such. He probably is referring to abusive forms of homosexuality — selling sex slaves, and the like — some forms of homosexuality that he saw around him in the Roman empire. Paul is saying that selling male sex slaves is death-dealing to the human spirit. Beyond that, I’m going to leave the theological issues to the side.

Thank you for your sympathetic understanding of Christianity. I will watch out for references to Koschei so I can better understand what you believe.

@David Roberts
I am sorry if I have misunderstood you.