"Ex-gay Ministry...Satan in Christian Clothing

“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Matthew 7:21-23

Jesus makes inescapably clear the uncomfortable truth that not everyone who claims to do ministry in God's name is serving Him or doing His will, even if they appear to be successful in their ministry. He goes as far as to label those who minister in his name without doing God's will "evildoers". We can see examples of this in "ministries" such as those weird quasi Christian cults that sometimes grace current affairs shows on a slow night, we see in in ministers (particularly in America) who get on their TV shows to express and promote racism, anti-Semitism or bigotry, we see it in the Prosperity teachings of the likes of Joel Osteen or the infamous actions of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. But sometimes these "evildoers" are more insidious, slipping through the cracks, and worse sometimes mainstream Christianity is fooled into endorsing or supporting their ministry.

But what makes a ministry "evil"?

There are some pretty basic things we can use to judge if a ministry is not good. If God is not glorified, if His people are not built up, if Jesus is not the focus and the centre it is not good. If it does harm or is not consistent with the example of Christ's life on earth then it is not good. I would go so far as to say that if it pushes people away from Christianity then it is not good, certainly the gospel divides and even lovingly proclaiming the gospel can push people away in some respects however there is a difference between someone walking out knowing they need to do something and not being willing to do it and a ministry which leaves people's faith in such a state that they want nothing to do with Christianity...which I guess isn't pushing them away from faith so much as tearing it apart.

I contest that a ministry that is focused on the individual, is not Bible based or drives people from the church goes beyond merely being "bad". The Enemy seeks to tear down God's church and drive out His people, which makes any ministry that does these things satanic...they are doing Satan's work not God's.

Satanic!?!?!

Now I obviously don't mean Satanic in the sense of the pentacle loving, occult ritualist, Latin speaking Goths that Hollywood is so fond of. Rather I think that those who do ministries such as these do not even realise that they are serving the one they call "enemy". Those running the ministries may think that they're serving God but in fact they seem to be actively going against his Biblical commands. Which I guess is why we call Satan "The Deceiver" and the "Father of Lies".

Getting to the point...

In my experience of pastoral care as well as chatting with both Christians and non-Christians of varied beliefs and backgrounds, one sure-fire inevitability is that the topic of homosexuality will come up. It's a pretty common topic of conversation at the moment and when Christianity and homosexuality comes up in conversation it's usually not long before someone asks about ex-gay ministries. Just in case the title was vague I classify ex-gay ministry under the heading of "satanic “and "evil", hence at points the use of quotation marks around the word "ministry".

Over the remainder of this post I intend to systematically and clearly demonstrate why I believe this.

First however. What the blazes is "Ex-gay Ministry?

Colloquially and somewhat crassly referred to as "pray the gay away” ministry, ex-gay ministry is an umbrella term for ministries which are focused on helping people eliminate homosexual desires and develop heterosexual attraction. The ultimate goal is to help people transition from same-sex attraction to opposite-sex relationships. These ministries offer anything from simple prayer to support groups to counselling/psychological intervention and rely heavily on people who formerly identified as same-sex attracted who claim to have eliminated that attraction and testify to the success of the ministry. These people are usually one of the weakest points of the ministry, numerous news stories of these spokespeople being found engaged in "compromising activities" can be found online, some of these stories have literally caused the end of the program the person caught out was endorsing.

So...Those Objections...

1.     It doesn't work.

This is pretty self-explanatory based off the heading but I want to explain and back up the statement. Let me be abundantly clear right from the offset, I do not deny the possibility that someone could experience a change in their sexual orientation or attractions, all things are possible with God after all. I believe that human sexuality has a degree of fluidity that allows for change and that God can and does use that.

HOWEVER!!!

There is no empirical or statistical evidence that these ministries have any significant success in achieving their goal of changing an individual's sexual orientation. This is best supported by a statement by the National Association of Social Workers (USA) that "No data demonstrates that reparative or conversion therapies are effective, and in fact they may be harmful”*. Many who claim to experience change as a result of ex-gay ministry have found themselves backsliding which is pretty brutal for them and can shatter any family they have built in the interim. The internet is full of stories of people who have not maintained the change they have claimed to experience, there is a whole section of the Wikipedia page on ex-gay ministry which talks about these people. The best example to support this claim is the former CEO of well-known ex-gay ministry Exodus International, Alan Chambers, who has publically admitted that though he loves and is devoted to his wife he still feels an attraction to men.

While all things are possible with God, ex-gay ministry fails to substantiate its claims and sadly there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that it is not a successful vehicle for bringing about change in sexuality.

*Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel.

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Published by the American Psychological Association

2.     It Rejects the Sovereignty of God

All ministries make promises. The problem with ex-gay ministry is that the promises they make do not align with God’s, because the promises they make are either supplementary to God’s promises (as if His were insufficient, and lacking in assurance in this one area) or completely replace God’s promises (neglecting the sufficiency of all of God’s promises which are a triumphant “Yes!” in Jesus Christ).

Now, if a promise made by a ministry either supplements or replaces God’s promises, the result therein is that that same ministry also rejects the sovereignty of God and tries to replace it with their own.

Please do not get me wrong: it is good for us to pray to God and to ask Him for things, and we know He hears our prayers and He loves us. However, it is evident that ex-gay ministry promises that through them (i.e. through the ex-gay ministry) God will change someone’s sexual orientation. This is not a promise that they can make. Just as much as I cannot promise that through my praying for you, you will come out of bankruptcy, be free from anxiety, marry that boy or girl, or no longer have to live on the streets. It is simply not my call to make – it is His.

Our prayer should always be "Thy will be done not mine".

Here is what God does promise to change. He says “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

This promise is not specific to sexual attraction, but rather about how God will (because HE promises to) take our sinful heart that is hardened to Him and rejects Him and replace it with a heart that loves him.

And sure, it is total possible that sexual attraction can change, I’ve already said it above and the evidence of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth attests to the fact that change has happened in certain people in that church. But it is not a promise that explicitly is made in the Bible and therefore is not a promise we can nor should be making on God’s behalf, nor holding God accountable to.

The comfort in that is this: God is ultimately in control. And that is a beautiful thing because He is trustworthy and good, regardless of whether one’s sexuality changes or not. Heck, I know people who are same-sex attracted who consider their sexuality to be a way in which God glorifies Himself through them, their life and their choices. Not because of their sexuality but because it gives them a witness to the people around them that Jesus is far more important, and He has the call on their identity and their entire lives. To me, that is trusting in the sovereignty of God.

3.     It can turn faith into religion*

"God wants the best for his people. If you're Christian, if you truly love God then He will change you. If you pray enough, if you truly have the Spirit, if you fast enough or memorise enough passages of scripture, if you just believe enough then God will give you what you want” Sound familiar? It's pretty much the Prosperity Heresy that is preached in some churches where money is God and God is your servant.

It's unbiblical and goes against so much of what Christ says to the religious leaders in the Gospels. It's about doing things to get things. That paragraph looks like a massive digression hey? But many ex-gay ministries do the same thing, it becomes about doing their therapy, their prayer support group, their program, their ministry and by doing these things you will get the outcome you want. It's all about doing. This isn't how Christianity works!! We can be in relationship with God because of what Jesus did on the cross. He did the doing! We can't do anything to match that and in doing so save ourselves, we can't earn that freely given gift, it's a gift and we have done nothing to deserve it. There is no ritual that can make God love us, no prayer that can fix the damage that The Fall did to our relationship with God, no words or actions that can magically make things right with God. If there was then there would be no need for Jesus.

To promise that doing something will make God change someone's attractions undermines the message of the cross and ignores the price of our salvation. If God does change someone's sexual attraction then we can give God glory for an undeserved blessing and give that was entirely undeserved.

*There are some ministries which do focus on grace and how grace transforms. This blog post is too general to address the flaws and positives of individual ministries.

4.     It takes advantage of desperation

The majority of people who go through the therapies and programs offered by ex-gay ministries come from Christian saturated environments. Christian homes, Christian schools, Christian communities or churches. Because of their desires or attractions they are often ostracised, bullied, harassed, abandoned and in some cases even disowned because they don't fit in. They are desperate to be "normal" and to be just like everyone else. They know that God's will for creation and their lives isn't synced up with their own desires and actions and consequently the offer of change that ex-gay ministries gives is attractive. For many people the programs are a last ditch effort to become the person their society is telling them they need to be, some are motivated by the belief that this is their last hope for avoiding eternal damnation.

While these ministries grow out of good intentions, as I have shown above and will show below, they are taking advantage of the desperation and despair of those who use them. It may not be deliberate, as I've said many of these people honestly think they are serving God, but to go on ignoring the damage that these ministries do and the lack of evidence that they work is to go from sinning through ignorance to sinning wilfully.

5.     It is damaging

These actually apply to both those experiencing same-sex attraction and their supporters. The impacts of ex-gay ministry obviously hit chiefly on the people undergoing the programs but the people who love them and are supporting, financing, praying and encouraging them through the whole process are understandably also affected.

a)     To Faith.
If someone made a bunch of promises to you about what God wanted to do and in fact certainly would do, and then those promises weren't fulfilled would you follow their God? When promises are made on God's behalf and those aren't fulfilled people are left questioning whether God exists, and if He does how he could possibly be loving and caring if His promises are lies that He doesn't keep. If he wants them to change and He wants to change then then why is He leaving them in their current circumstances? Does He hate them? These questions, coupled with the failure of the religious actions discussed in point 3 to have any apparent affect unsurprisingly don't do good things for the life expectancy of one's faith.

b)     To trust.

i.          Of the individuals in the programs.
Those who go through the programs offered by ex-gay ministry generally have their trust broken. Their trust in God is damaged by His apparent refusal or inability to keep His promises. But so too is their trust in ministers, Christians and church hierarchy, really anyone seen to be endorsing the ministry they've been involved with. If the program used counsellors, psychologists or therapists then their trust in those professions can also be broken. The worst damage however is the hardest and most personal, if the parents or wider family supported or encouraged them to go through the program the trust of the whole family unit can fall apart. Likewise the above damage to trust can affect the friends, family and supporters of the individual going through the program.

ii.          Of the wider Christian community.
As has been touched on above, the trust of the friends, family and supporters of people who go through ex-gay programs can be damaged by these ministries. Imagine you're a parent; you support your child as they go through a program promising that God will make them heterosexual. You financially support them through the process. You do this because you love them and want what’s best for them. It fails. In much the same way as the same-sex attracted individual, a parent's trust in God, church and Christian leaders can be damaged. What if you've financially supported an ex-gay ministry? Would not the inability of that ministry to deliver its promised results damage your trust too? I wouldn't be financially supporting any ministries at all for a good while if I'd been burned like that and if I was to ever consider giving money to anything remotely ministry related I'd be doing a lot of digging and research before I gave them a cent.

c)     To Mental Health. Given what has been discussed so far I'm sure it comes as a complete shock that there is a strong potential for negative consequences with regards to mental health. The American Psychiatric Association has formally stated that undergoing ex-gay ministry can result in depression, anxiety and self-destructive behaviour. Often people are told as part of the program that "homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction".* Sounds like a recipe for mental wellbeing right? (this is sarcasm just in case anyone thought that sentence was serious)

*Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel.
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Published by the American Psychological Association

6.     Pretty much all respected psychological associations in Western nations oppose it.

I have referenced a paper several times already in this post that was published by the American Psychological Association. The paper deals specifically with sexual orientation and youth and has a section on "conversion therapy" which includes a list of American institutions opposed to ex-gay ministry, quoting formal statements by the institutions. Now obviously these institutions have bias right? Of course they do! They are secular associations made up of literally hundreds of people in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work, counselling etc. However before we dismiss their statements as a simple lack of Christian faith I think it's important to think about why they are opposed to this ministry specifically. They obviously don't hold Christian views on sexuality but reading the reasoning behind the opposition given in their formal statements it is clear that their objections aren't grounded in a secular dislike for religion but rather in the lack of evidence and the damage that is done. These institutions are not necessarily pro Christianity but they are not anti-Christian either. The sheer amount and range of opposition to ex-gay ministry is a pretty good indication that it's not psychologically safe for those who are participants.

What would Jesus do?
This really is the most important scale by which we should judge all ministries. I think Jesus would weep. We can see from Jesus' public ministry that he not only associated with people whose lives didn't match with God's will (prostitutes, thieves, tax collectors) but he loved them and went as far as to rebuke the Pharisees for their treatment of such people. Jesus shows us God's loving and missional heart for the deviants and the outcasts; he loves them in spite of their sinfulness and actively seeks them out. Does this mean he doesn't want them to repent and change their ways? NO! Of course he wants them to repent, he tells the woman caught in adultery in John 8 "Go, and sin no more" (John 8:11).

We were in the same category as that woman, as the other sinners that Jesus ministers to in the Gospels, those who aren't Christians but who are reading this still are. For us who are Christian, we have experienced change since meeting Jesus, predominantly through no work of our own. We need to trust God to work things out for His glory in His timing. God seeks out the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the broken and the needy. The Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14(v15-24) shows us God's heart for those who we would and do look down our noses at or reject. Notice something from Jesus' life and the parable as well friends, God brings people into the Kingdom of Heaven not by demanding immediate overnight change (although that sometimes happens) but rather by loving them and accepting their genuine offerings of faith.

What's the practical application of this all for us?
We need to be loving and supporting our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters. We know that God can, has and will continue to change people to be more like Jesus and we need to trust that if they're Christian then wherever they're at right now is merely part of a journey that's final destination is Heaven. If change comes then we can give praise and glory to God for his blessings, if it doesn't then we can praise God that He is good and faithful and that we can have confidence that as hard as it is now there is a day coming when everything will be made right. We need to support our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters by encouraging them, loving them and praying for and with them. We need to let God do His powerful work.

All of these things we can and should be doing without putting them through ex-gay ministries.

In Conclusion.

The outcomes of ex-gay ministry, the impact that it has and the damage that it does to faith, mental health and trust is totally unacceptable. There is no biblical basis for such a ministry which does far more harm than good and where the good elements of the programs themselves would be best done within the relational context of individual church ministry. It is my hope that the points expressed in this post have illustrated that I am not a nutjob extremist who sees Satan in every shadow but rather a concerned Christian who cannot sit by and watch a ministry do so much harm in God's name. It may look Christian, it may call itself Christian, it may profess Christ but I believe that it well and truly falls under the label of "evildoers" given by Christ in Matthew 7 for those who claim to work in God's name but don't do His will.