Ex-Gay Watch

It’s not news that the solution Exodus gives to young people for their attraction to the same sex is to refrain from acting on it and “deny themselves for Christ.” But a recent article brings Exodus to a new Orwellian level, this time by saying that being ascetic with one’s interpersonal relationships is a Godly calling when you are gay.

In “Loneliness is Good,” an article cross-posted to the Exodus Student Blog, Mike Goeke tells of his struggle to find Christian male friends after being told doing so would be a way to help heal his homosexuality.

I read many books, and a common ‘cure’ for my problems included finding some good male friends with whom to have healthy, authentic relationships.

This is in line with the disproven hypothesis that gay men become gay because their lack of “authentic” relationships with other men, especially of their fathers. But despite joining an inter-denominational Bible group, Mike found himself more alone than ever:

I sat alone most nights, and rarely spoke to anyone.  I looked around the room and everyone seemed to know everyone else.  Instead of finding friends, my loneliness only seemed to grow heavier.

One night, after he had decided to give up on Bible study altogether, God caused him to come to a realization.

In the dark of my room, as I expressed my frustration, I sensed God speaking into my heart.  He said, not audibly but clear nonetheless, “go to the Bible study to meet ME.”

In the days that followed, I realized that my greatest need at that moment was not connecting with a friend.  My greatest need was connecting with my God.  As I quieted myself down, it became clear to me that God could not entrust me with the kind of friendship I longed for at that time.  I had set up ‘friends’ as a sort of idol and made friendship the key to my joy and my fulfillment and my healing. I would have devoured friends had He given them to me then. God was gracious in many ways to deny me what I so longed for because it compelled me to Him and the true source of my affirmation and identity.  And, amazingly, as I pursued a deeper relationship with God, I found myself developing relationships with other men, and the friendships I had longed for began to happen.

For ex-gays, just about any red flag or stumbling block can be justified as part of the struggle, maybe even as a message from God Himself. Struggling to make friends? God must be denying you friendship for some reason. And it must be related to your struggle with homosexuality. Exodus’ real purpose, it appears, is helping one rationalize all of life’s stumbling blocks into something God intends.

I have gone through several seasons of loneliness.  I believe that God orchestrates those seasons in my life – in all of our lives – to help pull us back to Him.  We can be so prone to lose sight of Him and to make something else or someone else our center.  But when He becomes all we have, we realize more clearly that He is really all we need.  When He, in His godly and relational perfection, speaks affirmation and friendship and love and acceptance into our souls, we are perfectly satisfied.  And when we are perfectly satisfied in Him, we are so much more ready to be a true friend to someone else, and to receive true friendship in a healthy way.

I agree that any obsession or extreme dependency can be unhealthy. It can indeed cause one to lose sight of what’s important – for the religious person, it can cause one to lose sight of God. But why must simple social awkwardness or a struggle to connect with strangers be conflated with one’s struggle with same sex attraction?

God designed us to be in community and to be in friendship.  Those are good things, and things we all must have.  But God did not design us to idolize or worship friends and relationships.

It’s natural for human beings to seek out communion with other human beings. We are, with few exceptions, social creatures. Experiencing loneliness, even in an extreme way, does not mean one is ultimately “idolizing friendships.” But I suspect a different motive behind Goeke’s longing for and wariness of male friendship.

Befriending someone is a natural first step to a romantic relationship – something disallowed as a celibate gay person.

He promises that He can satisfy you, and you will discover the immensity of what it means to be fulfilled and have abundance in Christ alone.  And when your eyes are off of you and on God as the true center of your existence, you might just realize that you are not alone after all.

But such ethereal comfort is not the same thing as earthly comfort. This article does nothing to address specifics of a lonely, if religiously devout, life. The plain fact is, not all religious people are called to be celibate, and being forced to embrace such a lifestyle can cause extreme loneliness that feels anything but “good.” In fact, it can lead to depression, despair, and all the consequences associated with it.

It is a twisted way of telling young gay people that a “Godly” life of loneliness is how it “gets better.”

(Note: The relevant texts to this episode can be found here (adb/pdf)), and/or you can view the whole thing here.)

With that, we begin.

Dr. David Kyle Foster is the producer and co-host of a show called “Pure Passion.”:

David founded Mastering Life Ministries in 1987 and has been its director ever since. He is also the producer and host of “Pure Passion” – a televised outreach designed to equip the church to redemptively minister to those who are trapped in sexual sin and brokenness. … The goal of the program is to tell the world of God’s grace and love through Jesus Christ and His power to set anyone free from any sin or bondage.

Foster has a series of articles on homosexuality, rife with all the stale yet vicious antigay talking points:

Kyle Foster, 2008: The reality [of homosexuality] is a dramatically reduced life expectancy and the likelihood of contracting hepatitis, AIDS, or one of a host of diseases and infections, as a result of the unnatural perversity of homosexual activity.

Suicide among homosexuals is epidemic, not because society disapproves, as many would have you believe, but because these dear people feel trapped and condemned into a lifestyle and orientation that they know is out of whack.
–
And the faithfully monogamous gay couple myth – not even close. Such relationships are statistically nonexistent in the gay community.

On December 21st, 2009, the host of the show was Jayson Graves, a board member of Exodus International:

Welcome to Pure Passion. I’m Jayson Graves, and I’m your host for today’s program.

Today we have a man who has lived with the HIV virus for almost 30 years. His name is Jonathan Hunter, and since 1985 he’s been the director of a ministry to those with the AIDS virus, called “Embracing Life.”

After overdosing on drugs, he also had an after-death experience which utterly changed his life.

In my opinion, this episode exploited Jonathan Hunter’s near-death experience (NDE) in an attempt to convince their audience that there is now eye-witness testimony—proving once and for all—that Jesus Christ Himself is anti-gay.
Read more…

The Bishop of Liverpool has apologized for his part in opposing the proposed appointment of openly gay cleric Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. The Right Reverend James Jones – perhaps the Church of England’s most prominent evangelical bishop – has also drawn attention to God-sanctioned same-sex relationships in the Bible, describing the story of David and Jonathan as a “witness to love between two people of the same gender,” and signalling an openness to more dialogue on the subject.

Jones was one of nine Anglican bishops to put his name to a letter publicly opposing Jeffrey John’s consecration in 2005. The Very Reverend John, currently Dean of St Albans, has been in a civil union with his long-time partner since 2006, but has always said the relationship is celibate, in keeping with Church rules. Writing of the controversy, the Bishop of Liverpool now says:

I deeply regret this episode in our common life. … I still believe that it was unwise to try to take us to a place that evidently did not command the broad support of the Church of England but I am sorry for the way I opposed it and I am sorry too for adding to the pain and distress of Dr. John and his partner. I regret too that this particular controversy narrowed rather than enlarged the space for healthy debate within the church.

In the essay, which was published last month in A Fallible Church: Lambeth Essays (ed. Kenneth Stevenson), the Bishop goes on to talk about the Old Testament story of David and Jonathan: Read more…

Warren Throckmorton recently posted excepts from an article by social psychologist Carol Tavris called Mind Games: Psychological Warfare Between Therapists and Scientists (The Chronicle of Higher Education, paid account only). The point was made that, by and large, therapists are not scientists. There is such a “split between the research and practice wings of psychology,” that much of what we came to think of as fact over the past decades — simply because therapists said it was — turned out not to be so. Here are some examples from the original quote:

• Low self-esteem causes aggressiveness, drug use, prejudice, and low achievement.
• Abused children almost inevitably become abusive parents, causing a “cycle of abuse.”
• Therapy is beneficial for most survivors of disasters, especially if intervention is rapid.
• Memory works like a tape recorder, clicking on at the moment of birth; memories can be accurately retrieved through hypnosis, dream analysis, or other therapeutic methods.
• Traumatic experiences, particularly of a sexual nature, are typically “repressed” from memory, or split off from consciousness through “dissociation.”
• The way that parents treat a child in the first five years (three years) (one year) (five minutes) of life is crucial to the child’s later intellectual and emotional success.

Often these types of claims originate as the idea of a therapist or therapists who, while attempting to avoid dissonance between their theory and the evidence, begin to seek out situations which will fit their theory, dismissing all others. They begin to see all situations in light of their theory and act accordingly, sometimes defending it vehemently in what can become a self-serving battle. This is the antithesis of the scientific method.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) insists that boys can become homosexual (actually, have “homosexual problems” since he doesn’t believe there is any such thing as a homosexual) if they don’t get enough attention from their fathers, or if they were abused as children. Further he insists that they do not trust men, and that upon learning to do so they will no longer have the alleged homosexual problem. Read more…

This is a recent, brief interview of Dr. Warren Throckmorton and Dr. Benjamin McCommon on CNN regarding their views on the APA’s current re-evaluation of their position on reparative therapy. Sean O’Donnell also appears via a brief file clip explaining his own attempts to change from gay to straight. You may have already seen this or read about it; either way we would appreciate your candid impression of the comments by both interviewees.

Hat Tip: Jeremy for the video.

The national leadership of ex-gay umbrella network Exodus International promises and fails to deliver heterosexual attraction to its Christian followers, even as it uses those followers in various campaigns of antigay political warfare.

While Exodus’ national leaders focus on partisan politics and misdiagnosis of sexual struggle, other organizations focus more on helping same-sex-attracted persons live according to their Christian values.

One such organization: GayChristian.net, a support group for celibate same-sex-attracted Christians as well as for Christians who believe that God calls them to monogamous same-sex marriage.

From GCN’s frequently asked questions:

Are you sexually abstinent?

Not all gay Christians have the same answer to this question. Some gay Christians believe that God does not want them to be sexually active, so they choose to be celibate. Many others choose to date and marry just like straight Christians, with the only difference being the gender of the person.

This site is designed to be a haven for all gay Christians, whichever view they take. However, as Christians, we do believe that sex should be taken seriously, and we don’t support the promiscuity and sexual looseness that are often a part of the secular world.

Whether celibate or monogamous, GCN’s participants do not buy into ex-gay identity politics of groups like Exodus:

Is this an ex-gay site?

No. This site is designed to be a safe haven and place of fellowship for Christians who identify as gay. Membership is open to anyone, however, as long as they are willing to help us maintain that atmosphere.

For British Christians, there’s a similar organization which left Exodus for the reasons stated above: Courage UK.

If you know of organizations that help same-sex-attracted persons balance faith and sexuality without politically exploiting them or steering them toward predetermined outcomes, please feel free to discuss them here.

The Denver Catholic Register interviewed Father John Harvey, the founder of Courage, the Catholic Ex-Gay Ministry. Unlike Exodus, Courage places more emphasis on physical acts of sex than on “gay identity”. And while they do repeat the bilge coming from NARTH, their purpose is driven around the notion of chastity rather than a change in orientation.

Nonetheless, Father Harvey makes some statements in his interview that are odd – and in some instances comical – and which demonstrate the Church’s schizophrenic approach to gay issues. Take, for example, Father Harvey’s rationale about the “intrinsic evil” of same-sex sexuality:

If [the] two purposes of communion of bodies in love and children are not accomplished, the act is evil.

OK – on the face of that, it’s ridiculous. Father Harvey is saying that any sexual union that does not result in children is evil. So if you are infertile for any reason, no marriage and sex for you. (UPDATE **)

Now, I’m sure Father Harvey would say that he’s talking about the act itself which never results in children as opposed to the individuals who may not result in children. But I’m not a big fan of arbitrary rules against gay people that are justified by arguments that are not also applied to straight people. And I think it is a HUGE jump from “does not result in children” to evil.

In an amusing (to me) anecdote, Father Harvey also discusses a man that he counseled every week for 30 years:

I know somebody in his 80s now and he’s not bothered by this presence at all.

I’m not sure if Father Harvey knows that time probably was as much a part of this man’s “success” as was the good father’s 30 years of weekly counseling.

Courage shares the Catholic Church’s tremendously arrogant assumption that they hold all knowledge, that their teachings are by definition “natural”, and that truth can be determined by Papal Decree rather than by objective observation*. And they also trumpet the “objectively disordered” (as if the Church were objective about anything) and “intrinsic evil” language of the Church and, indeed, seem to be lodged in the homophobic end of the Church in the United States.

But to its credit, Courage does seem to be more interested in their constituents than in politics. And their site, though strongly endorsing NARTH, does not seem to be deluged in bizarre and hateful bogus “statistics”.

This interview is the first half of a two part article. I look forward to what ‘jems of truth’ Father Harvey will have for us next week.

* I’ll admit this is biased. And I apologize to any Catholics who are offended by this characterization. I am aware that there are a great many Catholics who do not operate from this position and that the Church as a whole has been extremely instrumental in the nurturing and care of Western society. But I do think the current Pope does see the Church as always correct, the dictator of what is “natural”, and the authority on civil as well as religious issues. And that is the direction in which I see the Church moving.

** In commentary below, I’ve been informed that it actually is the policy of the Church to deny marriage to infertile heterosexuals. While this seems cruel to me, at least it is consistent. However, I’ve yet to see a cent spent by the Church to enforce this rule while many millions have been spent to seek to impose in civil law the church doctrines against gay couples.

From a story by the Orange County Register:

“The term `ex-gay’ is so offensive to the gay community,” Kuhn says. “Just telling them, `Don’t have sex; don’t be gay’ – that’s not relational. That’s paternal. That’s just not how God works. That’s how the church works.”

-Becky Kuhn, M.D., board member of Global Life Works

Oh and I should mention Becky is from Long Beach. I’m so proud!

Hat tip Scott H.

Pro-exgay blogger Disputed Mutability calls the Exodus leaders’ new book, God’s Grace and the Homosexual Next Door, “profoundly alienating.”

DM is especially dismayed at Exodus leaders Alan Chambers and Mike Goeke for their assertion that celibacy is sinful and for their sloppy repudiation of official Roman Catholic policy on both celibacy and the unlikelihood of so-called “change.”

Says Alan Chambers:

This is why I believe that it is so important to clarify that just living a celibate gay life is just as sinful as living a sexually promiscuous one. The sin is in identifying with anything that is contrary to Christ, which homosexuality clearly is. (218)

Says Mike Goeke:

Many who leave homosexuality behind are unwilling to accept that their only option is to live a life of celibacy, simply managing unwanted attractions. What they really want is a change in identity. They no longer want the gay label attached to them. (69-70)

The Exodus authors seem to be consumed by ideology and labeling, and this preoccupation with labels separates them from the shared day-to-day reality that gay and exgay individuals experience. When the authors advocate “true change,” aren’t they really trivializing true sexual change and turning it into a switch in political and religious afiliation?

In the comments on DM’s article, celibate same-sex-attracted Catholic Ron Belgau, who over the years has been affiliated with the pro-exgay Catholic group Courage, shares his own concern about Goeke’s statements.

I challenged a blogger the other day on his consistent use of the most juvenile, sophomoric insults to express his belief that homosexuality is a sin. On this particular occasion he had referred to a gay marriage as “the union of two men unto eternal donut-punching”. When I asked why he always expressed himself this way, he replied:

I say “donut punching” because the terms, “vigorous anal sex” (my web filter will probably block me from my own blog now) and “rectal semen deposits,” are too graphic. Take sex out of homosexuality and you have two guys who are just Best Friends Forever.

So, being gay is just about sex? I wonder, then, what he would think of the recent news that the Very Reverend Jeffrey John, the Anglican Dean of St Albans, has entered into a celibate civil partnership with another man. If homosexuality boils down to donut-punching, there’s nothing to object to here, is there?

Jeffrey John is an interesting case. In 2004 he was appointed as Bishop of Reading, only to be forced to stand down by conservatives in the Church of England, who objected to a gay man being made a bishop. He remains openly and unashamedly gay, but, according to the Bishop of St Albans,

Jeffrey John has confirmed to me that the nature of his relationship remains in accord with the declarations he made in 2004 upon his appointment as Dean of St Albans, and therefore complies with the discipline of the Church of England as set out in the Bishops’ Pastoral Statement on Civil Partnerships 2005.

In acceding to the sexual mores of the Church of England, I suppose Jeffrey John is an ex-gay – of sorts. Somehow I don’t think the other ex-gays will approve, however. But those who still have a problem with Jeffrey’s celibate civil partnership will at least have to admit that there is more to being gay than donut-punching.