wfn.org | Speaker says church must repent of hostile treatment of homosexuals

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Note #6233 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

25-October-2000
00372

Speaker says church must repent of hostile treatment of homosexuals

Conference focuses on mending Christians who are "sexually broken"

by John Filiatreau

HAVERTOWN, PA -- About 85 people gathered here Oct. 20-22 for a conference
on The Church's Response to Sexual Conflict: Becoming Healing, Listening
Communities, discussing how Christian congregations can reach out to men and
women who are "sexually broken," including homosexuals troubled about their
sexual orientation and behavior.

	The conference, hosted by Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Church in
suburban  Philadelphia, was sponsored by One By One, a group that bills
itself as "a renewal organization working within the PC(USA) to promote
ministry to individuals who struggle with their sexuality."

	The name of the conference includes a reference to a measure in which the
1996 General Assembly exhorted PC(USA) congregations to become "listening,
healing communities."

	The featured speaker for the event was Joe Dallas, the founder and director
of Genesis Counseling Center in Orange, Calif., who also is a past president
of Exodus International, a controversial organization that tries to reorient
homosexuals so that they can become -- to use a label Dallas applies to
himself -- "ex-gay."

	Dallas and most other conference speakers believe that homosexuality is not
an "innate" quality of a man or woman, but a "lifestyle" that reflects
personal choices, arises from humans' sinful nature, and can be changed by
the grace of God.

	While homosexuality was the principal topic, speakers also addressed
related matters including sexual addiction, pornography, masturbation and
sexual abuse -- often using the euphemism "sexual brokenness" for any sort
of sexual pathology.

	In a workshop titled Sexual Orientation: Is Change Possible?, Warren
Throckmorton, a professor of psychology who counsels people who want to
change their sexual orientation (from homosexual to bisexual or
heterosexual), explained a distinction that he said separates
"gay-affirming" people from those who, like himself, consider homosexual
behavior sinful.

	Most people who affirm gay men and lesbians, he said, are "essentialists,"
who believe sexual orientation is "an innate part of one's being," and
therefore is immutable. On the other hand are "constructionists," who
believe sexual orientation "is constructed some way through your experience
in life ... in the context of culture," is affected by "biological, social,
familial and individual factors," and "develops through the entire life
span."

	Throckmorton conceded that the essentialists have "won the day in the
professional (mental-health) organizations," including the American
Psychiatric Association, although in his experience, sexual orientation is
"very fluid" and "very flexible.".

	Employing a seven-step scale created by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey that
ranges from "exclusively homosexual" to "exclusively heterosexual,"
Throckmorton cited studies indicating that treatment enabled most subjects
to move from "almost entirely homosexual" and "more homosexual than not" to
"more heterosexual than not" and "almost entirely heterosexual."

	"Isn't that change?" he asked.	

	Throckmorton, who said he sometimes helps clients "review the relevant
scriptures," said treatment is not appropriate for all homosexuals, but is
indicated for "people who struggle with their sexuality and want to deal
with that struggle." He used the term "cure" several times, but said he
tries to avoid terms that "medicalize what is essentially a moral issue."

	In another workshop, Ministering to Family Members of Homosexuals, Dallas
said parents, other relatives and friends of gay people often make one of
two "mistakes" -- thinking "that, if we only love enough, we can get the
individual to do the right thing," and "trying to kill the love ... (by)
hardening themselves to kill the pain."

	He said sexual orientation is something "discovered, not chosen ... and
almost certainly beyond your capacity to choose -- not to say that it is
inborn or God-ordained."

	"As somebody who's been through it," he said, "I appreciate that much of
what lesbians and gay men experience is unjust and unfair."

	To someone dealing with a child's or close friend's homosexuality, Dallas
said, "It's as though someone died." He said they typically must go through
the emotional process experienced by people dealing with a loved one's
death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance.

	"Denial tends to be the first response," he said. "People often come to me
and say, ‘Can you help me with my daughter? She thinks she's a lesbian;
she's confused.' ... Actually, she's not confused, she knows exactly who she
is. She's a lesbian. ... Eventually they realize this. Then the rage comes
out. ... This can be the most destructive phase."

	"I remember telling my own parents in 1971 that I had had many sexual
relations with men, with older men, from the time when I was a child. My
father told me, ‘I'd rather have heard that you'd died.'"

	Dallas said it's important for parents and friends to set boundaries as
required by conscience or as necessary to be "reasonably comfortable."

	For example, "You might decide that shaking hands is acceptable, but
holding hands is not."

	Dallas, a onetime Assemblies of God minister, said of the PC(USA) and its
debates about homosexuality and the church: "It seems that two groups are at
an impasse that can't be resolved. I think they ought to say let's make a
decision one way or another. They have such fundamental differences that
they are not going to be able to coexist peacefully."

	In an interview, Dallas said he does not believe that homosexual
orientation is sinful, but he thinks homosexual behavior is sinful. He said
he was born again in 1971, and in 1972 he accompanied a girlfriend to
Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif. "That changed my life," he said. "...
(After that) I spent a good deal of time in prayer and repentance."

	"I don't think most gay people are as confused sexually as I was," he said.
"I was into the orgy scene, the bathhouse scene, the group scene. ... In my
honest opinion I was sexually addicted. I was hooked on hyper-stimulating
sex." He said it was mostly "the luck of the draw" that he didn't contract
HIV.

	Dallas said discussions of homosexuality are no longer as confrontational
as they were in the early 1990s. The day before the conference began, he
spoke at Princeton University, and the gay people who attended, he said,
"were as cordial, intelligent and polite as any group could be." "Things
have calmed down quite a bit," he said. "These days, people are more
gracious and hospitable. The debate is much, much more civil and productive
than it was before."

	In one of his plenary addresses, Dallas challenged participants in the
conference to "repent of hostility toward homosexual people." He said the
church sometimes has "cared more to see our opponents defeated than to see
repentance." To maintain its credibility, he said, the church must "repent
of whatever immorality exists within its own walls" and return to "biblical
standards of holiness."

	He said church members have promoted "lurid stereotypes" of homosexuals and
have often been guilty of "verbal irresponsibility," especially in printed
materials.

	He spoke of the mid-1980s, when gay people began to hear "strange and
eventually very terrifying stories ... about young gay men who in the prime
of their lives were getting something fatal." This was the start of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic.

	"We were so scared and so vulnerable," he said. "If there ever was a time
when the church could have moved in, evangelistically, that was the time. We
could have and should have been there. ... But we did not hear concern. We
heard gloating. We heard people say, ‘They have finally reaped what they
have sown.' That is a message that the gay community will never forget."

	He added: "There still seems to be a specific contempt that we reserve for
this sin. Some sins are Terribly, Terribly Wrong, and some things are just
wrong with a little ‘w.'"

	After mentioning some failings of which church members might repent,
including slander, gossip, lying, divorce and remarriage, he noted that
Americans expressed more "outrage" over actress Ellen DeGeneres' "coming
out" as a lesbian on a TV sitcom than over the torture and murder of Matthew
Shepherd, a young man who apparently was targeted only because he was gay.

	Dallas told of a pastor who, when gay people started coming to his church,
calmly "invited them to take a seat next to the idolators and gossipers."

	He concluded that the church must "repent of her hostility and recommit to
bold love ... (which) seeks to serve without compromising," "repent of being
intimidated by the gay-rights movement," and be "unsparing in both
compassion and conviction."

	"All of the healing lies within the body of Christ," he said, "-- if the
body of Christ only knew it."

	A number of other participants in the conference told stories of their
personal "faith journeys" from homosexuality and sin to sexual purity and
salvation through Christ.

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