We all know that Exodus International is undergoing some changes. We knew a major rebranding was coming, following last November’s revelation that America’s leading ex-gay organization had warned its allies it faced social and financial ruin.
We’ve seen Chambers’s efforts to present a more open and friendly Exodus to the world — including LGBT Christians — beginning with his appearance at the Gay Christian Network conference in January. Since then, we’ve seen Exodus distance itself increasingly from the claims of reparative and conversion therapy.
Conservative Christian psychologist Dr Warren Throckmorton is jubilant about Exodus International’s new stance, describing President Alan Chambers as “leading Exodus from the wilderness of reparative therapy to the promised land of Grace and soul liberty.” Once a reparative therapist himself, Throckmorton has long campaigned against the idea that no method, including clinical intervention, can change homosexual orientation.
At Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway is tentatively hopeful:
My very short take-away from my own first-hand experience at the conference is this: There really are significant changes afoot at Exodus. And having looked around and engaged in some rather significant conversations in St. Paul, I have come to the conclusion that change is possible at Exodus. But it has been neither instantaneous nor complete. And if it does come about, it will only be after a very long struggle.
Burroway’s colleague Timothy Kincaid has been enthusiastic for developments at Exodus since Chambers’s controversial GCN appearance in January:
Exodus did some soul searching. … And has become, in my opinion, a very different organization. I see change in Exodus. A change of heart, a change of priorities and a change of purpose. And I can understand and respect the Exodus that I believe they are striving to become.
Meanwhile, at Truth Wins Out, Mike Airhart gives Exodus little credit:
Exodus wants the public to believe that it no longer promotes harmful ex-gay conversion. But a review of the Exodus Twitter feed suggests otherwise. … Far from representing robust Christianity or sound mental-health advice, these glimpses at Exodus conference content constitute shallow, warm-fuzzy godtalk, framed into excuses to lie about one’s orientation, assume a false “identity,” infantilize one’s spirituality, and demonize sexual and spiritual honesty.
TWO’s Wayne Besen has been just as scathing:
What Chambers says often has little in common with what he actually does. He breaks promises, rarely follows through, pretends to love while actually bashing LGBT people, fabricates statistics, and paints a false portrait of LGBT life as depraved, shallow, and dangerous. … The point of this post is to warn people not to take Chambers’ pronouncements with a grain of salt, but enough salt to fill the Dead Sea. In the past, his word has essentially been meaningless. Even as he claims to be taking Exodus in a new direction, many of Exodus’ local ministries, where the actual “pray away the gay” programs occur, still engage in the old lies, gender stereotyping, and bizarre practices that Chambers now claims Exodus no longer engages in.
He does view Exodus’s prompt response to Dennis Jernigan’s remarks to the Jamaican media as “encouraging,” however, and concedes it as evidence that Alan Chambers “might be serious” about reform.
Evangelical biblical scholar Robert J Gagnon has now weighed in in his usual lengthy style, expending 35 pages denouncing Exodus’s new stance and calling for Chambers to resign. This highlights a theological controversy that has been glossed over in most media stories, but to which XGW will return soon.
Mainstream media coverage has been significant. The Associated Press and The Atlantic were among the first to announce the changes, late last month. The New York Times and NPR have both run major stories on Exodus this past week.
Among the best coverage has been Lynne Gerber’s piece at Religion Dispatches, which provides a very insightful timeline of how Exodus International has changed since its founding in the mid-seventies.
While Exodus’s rhetoric has been hazy at best over the past few years, there’s no question that it has now made a very clear and public break with the idea of sexual orientation change efforts, or SOCE. None of Exodus’s member ministries, says Alan Chambers, will be allowed to practice reparative therapy. Exodus “isn’t in the SOCE business,” he clarified in an email to XGW.
Ex-Gay Watch will hold Exodus to its words and will observe as closely as ever to see whether the organization’s words and actions reflect its new claims. We will also be watching to see what, in the absence of a promise of orientation change, becomes the core of Exodus’s message.
Given some discussions that I encountered this weekend, I give Exodus International president Alan Chambers credit for forcing the differences and disagreements among various factions of Exodus out into the open, where the public can see who believes what, who is rational and who wears ideological blinders. This is a healthy development for all concerned.
I remain alarmed at the stigmatization, false labeling, and immature spirituality that Exodus appears to have promoted at its recent conference. And I agree with Wayne Besen that his duplicity makes Alan Chambers difficult for any faction (or the general public) to trust.
Perhaps a new age of perestroika is dawning for Exodus. But let’s not forget what this development meant for Russia in 1985.
While he was much-loved by Russia’s ex-enemies, Mikhail Gorbachev was hated by most Russians for his catastrophic ineptitude, which led to economic and societal collapse (not to mention a mishandled disaster at Chernobyl). Order and prosperity did not return until the Russian oligarchs took command under the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin in 2000.
Whether the various successors to Exodus remain open, or become more brutal and ruthless than before, remains to be seen.
Correction in paragraph 3: “Once a reparative therapist himself, Throckmorton has long campaigned
againstFOR the idea that no method, including clinical intervention, can change homosexual orientation.”I think we need to start following Exodus Global Alliance more closely. Yes in Western nations gays are becoming more accepted; yes in these nations ex-gay “therapy” is becoming more scrutinized and then rejected.
But Eastern nations, African nations, and Asian nations are still at risk, posessing a much more heterosexist and at times conservative sexual and religious stance, and maybe a decade behind us in civil matters. EGA is wasting no time taking advantage.
For one thing, I’d like to clear up how they are connected to Exodus International. I mean, both names mean the same thing. I’m sure EGA, flying out of our radar, is flaunting what Exodus now has to hide.
Correction to my comment: I should have typed “glasnost” (openness), not “perestroika” (restructuring).
Restructuring tends to occur as a consequence of openness, which fosters factionalism.
I appreciate what Wendy Gritter has to say about the goings on with Exodus.
https://tinyurl.com/8xp5jcs
I’ve been reading as widely as I can to try to understand what this “reform” might look like with Exodus–my suspicion is that they will encourage LGBT Christians to attempt to live a celibate life, possibly under the guise of searching for a message from God, greater understanding of scripture, etc. If this is ultimately the case, then I hope they will be called out quickly and decisively by commentators. Celibacy is not a choice, it’s a calling, and a rare calling, at that. (There’s also a possibility that some are a-sexual, but this is also not something someone just chooses.) I remain dubious.
Lee, a Christian ministry saying that people should be celibate is nothing new. Many mainstream churches require celibacy for various reasons. Roman Catholicism provides obvious examples, but even evangelicalism requires it in some cases. Sometimes divorcees are commanded to remain celibate if their circumstances do not allow them to lawfully remarry according to the scriptures.
One could also argue that the church has historically, albeit quietly, called for celibacy for gays and lesbians, long before ex-gay ministries came along with their orientation change business. It all depends on the definition of the word eunuch in Matthew 19:12. Even the Gay Christian Network, a very gay-affirming organization, has a forum for people who not only feel called to celibacy, but see it as a scriptural requirement for all gays and lesbians. They haven’t attracted much controversy for this for one simple reason — they’re honest about it.
If Exodus plainly and honestly says that they can offer people help and guidance as they strive to remain celibate, I’m sure many will still disagree with them, but that’s not the point. The point is that, in truth, that’s what Exodus has always offered. Now they’re just being honest about it, and that honesty is so important, because it gives people the correct information and lets them make an informed decision about how they want to live their lives. That’s something that the empty promises of reorientation therapy and faith healing could never do.
I beg to differ, College Jay. The requirement of celibacy is still predicated on the damaging belief that an LGBT orientation is broken – and that normal human drives for intimacy may never be fulfilled on pain of eternal damnation. In other words, STILL emotionally and spiritually abusive and still heartlessly requiring the impossible and STILL asserting that “the only good gay is a self-loathing gay.”
No thank you. No thank you very much.
Truth in labeling? How about mandatory disclaimers like the Surgeon General’s warning on cigarette packs? “Following our advice may lead to severe mental health problems, including but not limited to: depression, inability to focus on life tasks, substance abuse, severe isolation, loss of faith, loss of social network, estrangement from family, suicidal thoughts, successful suicide.”
I’m just saying that it’s not that different from other viewpoints of Christian sexuality, which state that sex is damnable in all cases except for monogamous heterosexual marriage, and even then it’s only for having babies, so don’t get any ideas about buying birth control.
Now, you could argue that the Christian faith in general is emotionally and spiritually abusive and heartlessly requires the impossible, and I wouldn’t argue with you if that’s your experience. Many Christians have more than earned that reputation. I’m just saying that you’re not going to get most Christians to let go of their teachings about sexuality. It’s all based on faith, so how could you even try? The best you could hope for is for them to be honest about what they’re selling, so a young gay person can examine the evidence, look at what’s being offered and go, “Yeah, no thanks.”
Where a broad policy of coerced celibacy-until-marriage is concerned, it becomes difficult to separate churches’ harm to gays from the same policies’ encouragement of premature marriage (and resulting divorce), unsafe sex, and secretive abortion.
If Exodus thought its job was difficult before, they will encounter even stronger opposition to a universal policy of coerced celibacy.
According to the National Association of Evangelicals, eighty percent of young evangelicals violate that policy, and almost a third of evangelicals’ unplanned pregnancies end in abortion.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/evangelicals-sex-frank-talk_n_1443062.html
Coerced celibacy made sense in an ancient time when people married at age 13 and died by 40, and when most illnesses were untreatable. Evangelicals have failed to rationalize that policy in modern times.
I think we are more in agreement than not—I think the issue is obviously requirements vs. calling. Of these historical examples that Jay gave (divorcess, catholic priest, evangelical groups, etc) we’re looking at people who are most often trying to fulfill a requirement but who are not called. I believe what is called a “choice” made available to LGBT people is nothing more that manipulation and harm. Exodus, and others like them, say “we’re just making ourselves available to “support” people who are choosing to resist their SSA. As one who tried to make that choice through coersion and the threat of excommunication, I can attest to the abusiveness of leading people to believe that choosing a life of celibacy is a viable option if you can’t be heterosexual and married.