Exodus International, the "ex-gay" conversion therapy group, shuts down: thoughts?

Let’s hope that this is a sign that tolerance is growing.

I had hopes that it might be sincere until I read this blog post by a Christian writer.

Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, I was shocked, shocked to hear that the head of the group is gay.

But all teasing aside, Alan Chambers’ statement is brave.

I could pick apart the details, but he just tossed away his career and admitted he was lying and begged forgiveness and promised to do better.

It’s even better that instead of just shutting down, that there was also an apology. The guy is showing that he knows what he was doing wasn’t right and put himself out there to pass on a good message.

I believe in miracles. I think they genuinely wanted to do what Jesus would do and the more they got to know God, the more they realized that he loves people exactly who they are, where they are and the way they are.

I salute Alan Chambers for his intellectual honesty. It’s hard to openly disavow a movement that has been so central to your being. But he’s switching from the wrong to the right side of history. The march toward equality and against bigotry has has its momentary setbacks, but over the long course of human history, it has moved steadily forward. It’s also a much needed victory in the Republican war on science. The Cure-the-gay movement was and is a scientific sham heavily embraced by right-wing politics in America and elsewhere.

I don’t think they are closing their doors. This is their website. And actually, @jaytkay, the head of the ministry does say he is attracted to men. It looks like he’s shifting his focus, sexually and where he gets his money.

@bkcunningham Yeah, it sounds like a huge marketing ploy for the next phase of his business, rather than a sincere conversion. It’s kind of sickening.

it seems like they wasted 25 years on a bad idea. Give the leader credit for having the guts to own up to its failure.

On the other hand, there are a half dozen other organizations that are following the same logic that Exodus did, so the net effect will be rather small.

Gay conversion? That’s tantamount to claiming you could “cure” lesbians by humping the arse off them.
I mean, i’m good, but not that good ~

Christians can grow and change and evolve like everyone else. This subject has been very difficult for us, but eventually the hope for most of us, is that the love of Jesus can be shown through our examples.

@KNOWITALL – sorry, I can’t buy the “it’s been difficult for us” excuse. Christians (and members of any other religious group choose to believe what they believe.

You are an intelligent, educated person. You have the intellectual capacity to understand complex concepts – gravity, physics, magnetism, and so forth. No doubt you went to college and studied something.

Therefore you also have the intellectual capacity to question religious belief and authority – is the bible really 100% true? Did the Red Sea actually part? Does God really disapprove of gays?

If there is some sort of difficulty to christians, it is that they have been so brainwashed by belief – which is a departure from all of their other thought processes – that they have to come to grips with the concept that their belief system may, in fact, be wrong.

I don’t thing it is the subject of homosexuality—per se—that has been difficult, but that doing the “right” thing is counter to a belief system you have had all your life.

@elbanditoroso Well, I guess I’d have to counter that with the fact that tons of adults don’t know the difference between right and wrong or we’d have empty prisons.

The Bible specifically says several things about this issue and for Christians to go completely against what we are told our God wants, is very difficult. It takes not only education but empathy, sympathy and maybe a little courage, too. Remember, Christian leaders are still debating and studying this issue because so many Christians are struggling to make sense of it. It’s not like a lot of us don’t know or have gay friends ourselves, so it’s a big issue.

Perhaps, like the civil rights movement, it’s something we have to let evolve with a few strong people leading us in the right direction before it’s generally accepted.

I evolved on the issue and I don’t think I’m an idiot and I had no ulterior motives.

@Judi I don’t think non-Christians understand our point-of-view much. It’s only our eternal life we risk – lol

It sure is “hard” (to respect people as human beings rather than categories that you have been taught to hate or disdain).
I hear this time and time again, from people I thought were my friends to my own family members.

@bookish1 Can I ask, respectfully and with love, if you understand that the Bible clearly states certain sexual preferences are ‘sin’? Does that help you understand it at all, so it doesn’t feel so personal?

The Christian community in general MUST resolve this issue, and quickly. Remember, just a few decades ago a mixed race couple had to live in fear of discrimination, racism and reprisals.

I have hope still that people will change, but I hate seeing people like you and my friends get hurt continually. :(

Saying that this one man is not sincere does not mean that all Christians who change their point of view on this matter are insincere.

“ ‘Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus. “For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.’

“Chambers continued: ‘From a Judeo-Christian perspective, gay, straight or otherwise, we’re all prodigal sons and daughters. Exodus International is the prodigal’s older brother, trying to impose its will on God’s promises, and make judgments on who’s worthy of His Kingdom. God is calling us to be the Father – to welcome everyone, to love unhindered.’

“For these reasons, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to close Exodus International and begin a separate ministry. ‘This is a new season of ministry, to a new generation,’ said Chambers. ‘Our goals are to reduce fear (reducefear.org), and come alongside churches to become safe, welcoming, and mutually transforming communities.’

“Local affiliated ministries, which have always been autonomous, will continue, but not under the name or umbrella of Exodus.”
Source

“The work ahead is enormous, and we need your committed partnership to accomplish these vital goals. Will you help us to bring a message of Christ-like compassion to those with same-sex attractions? Click here to give safely and securely online.” Source

@bkcunningham I see this as progress since these people are recognizing they are not loving unhindered. :) Baby steps.

For those who are saying that Chambers has “evolved”, I wish you would read the link that I posted above. His words in the press releases (as well as those quoted by @bkcunningham above) do not show a genuine “switching of sides” as @ETpro put it. At all.

@glacial Whoa, just did, that sucks. Bubble busted.

@KNOWITALL: It is personal when your own mother tells you to have conversion therapy, while ignoring the portions in Leviticus (the priestly code of conduct for Jews and not Christians) that prohibit the eating of shellfish.

@bookish1 Yeah, I’d think it would be hurtful, I’m sorry.

I wonder if @rarebear ever found out from his seminary friend how the ‘rules’ we follow are chosen by laypeople, priests, etc…

@KNOWITALL: Thank you. I don’t know if you know this, but I used to be a devout Christian myself, and was a very active attendee at a mainstream Christian church. I was not told that homosexuality was a sin, or that I might place my salvation in jeopardy by not hating gays, or being one myself. This stuff is cultural and not a religious issue by default.

@bookish1 No, I didn’t know that at all. I used to be as well. A lot of Republicans feel that way.

People are people. Some are nice. Some are not nice. A label like Christian or Republican or homosexual or straight doesn’t make you nice or mean. Some Christians are jerks and some gay people are jerks. Just because you are an LGBTQ doesn’t make you a great person. Same as being a liberal or a Christian. Everybody is different.

@bkcunningham Good point as always!! :)

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
― Anne Lamott

I think it’s more complicated than some people are assuming. I actually have some ‘insider knowledge’ about what led to this whole thing, weirdly. A FB friend of mine is very good friends with a VP at Exodus. She met him many years ago – while he was still living as a gay man – and her best friend became this guy’s boyfriend back then. The two guys even lived together. Years later, she and the VP are still good friends but have taken quite different paths in life. Hers was away from the church and his was toward it. She has always been very accepting and that’s one of the reasons she left her religion behind. Meanwhile, due to his new-found religion, he rejected his gayness, got ‘therapy’, got married and eventually ended up working for Exodus.

Fast forward to January of this year: Her best friend (the VP’s long-ago live-in boyfriend), committed suicide “after a long battle with internalized gay hatred.” It was devastating for all who knew him, of course, but it hit the VP especially hard. Meanwhile, three years ago Exodus agreed to be on a TV show, which apparently was a serious ongoing dialogue and exposed the Exodus people to the pain experienced by their ‘patients’, face-to-face. According to the VP guy, the leaders have been talking for a long, long time about where to go from here.

The bottom line, so far as I can tell, seems to be that while they still believe that the bible condemns homosexual behavior, the bible also tells them we are ALL sinners. It tells them not to judge, not to inflict pain, but to love. They seem to be reconciling the messages with their actions, in an effort to be more Christ-like rather than simply “Christian”. Some important things the president of the group said:

“Today it is as if I’ve just woken up to a greater sense of how painful it is to be a sinner in the hands of an angry church.”

“More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives.”

“I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek. My beliefs about these things will never again interfere with God’s command to love my neighbor as I love myself.” (Emphasis mine, as this seems to be the most pertinent part.)

TL;DR: Even though they haven’t necessarily changed what they believe, they are changing the way they will act on those beliefs. I’m hopeful that they mean it, and that they will now treat a person who is gay the same way they will treat any other “sinner” (i.e., everyone). If they want to be more Christ-like, this is a huge step.

Personally I think that the biblical prohibition of certain sexual practises comes under the same category as laws like not eating shellfish or pork. These laws were writen down in a period of history where people did not have the understanding of such things as hygeine, safe food preparation and safe sex practises that we have today. Eating shellfish and pork was proscribed because people who did so (in a hot climate without access to refrigeration), got sick. Anal sex was proscribed for similar reasons.

Nowadays, we have refrigerators, we have anti-bacterial cleaners for kitchen surfaces, we have antibiotics to clear up those nasty std’s and we have condoms to prevent us catching and spreading them. There is no longer a need to call the eating of shellfish or pork as sinful because it is now safe. Exactly the same can be said for those certain sexual practises. Yet Christianity continues to be hypocritical, accepting one but not the other.

It’s just another example of complete logic failure.

I read a bit more of John Shore’s blog and while I thought the link posted by @glacial is eye-opening, I really like one of his other posts on a similar subject

@bookish1 Your answer reminded me of this scene from Queer as Folk. It illustrates the point quite well. :)

Ok, if my Hebrew history serves me correct, and Im hoping that it does, I believe along the lines of what downtide said… The Hebrew people of the time saw that kind of sexual activity as being associated with Paganism. That is to say; they saw it associated with every other culture that didnt practice the same beliefs as they did. They were a semi-nomadic people who were trying hard to maintain their own cultural identity and not utterly assimilate with either the Phoenicians, Greeks, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medians etc. This was one of the many ways of attempting to do that. “Stay like us, and dont be like them.”
There was not the psychological understanding of homosexuality as there is today either. There was no distinction between peoples “sexual preferences.” Also worthy of note, is that pederasty was fairly common among the Greeks, and while a good portion of those relationships were actually non-sexual (it wasnt until the height of Roman culture that it would become the norm to be sexually based, as prior to that it was seen as a practical way of passing down ones knowledge/trade to a new generation but occasionally of course old men seem to have had trouble keeping things civil) you could surely see how that would be… uhhh… disconcerting to outsiders unfamiliar with the practice.

To answer the question though, I am ecstatic to see the further erosion of these these organizations. They do tremendous harm to peoples sense of self worth, especially young people in the midst of forming their own personal identities, sometimes to the point of suicide. Good riddance. I do think it is a gradual matter of time for things to keep getting better. Things have progressed so far even since I was in high school in the late 90’s early 00’s, were worse before that in the 70’s 80’s, and in the 50’s being gay was equivocal with being a sexual predator. So yes, its getting better. Are these types of people genuine? Oh, I would like to think so, but I wonder that that is just naivety. Perhaps some are, some arent….