Commentary
Dispelling the myths about
OneByOne, Exodus International
By Kristin J. Tremba, Guest commentary, March 5, 2010
In January, Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor Rev. Ray Bagnuolo wrote an article called “Ex-Gay. Ex-Loving.” In his article, he made some inaccurate statements about the ministry of OneByOne and other “ex-gay” ministries, which stand to be corrected.
First, OneByOne has merged with Exodus International, the nation’s largest Christian referral ministry for those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction. This is not a “huge megalithic collaboration” as Bagnuolo describes. Our ministries are non-profits, dependent upon donations from Christian individuals and churches. We are not “huge” or “well-funded” at all. Over the past five years, we have attended Love Won Out Conferences, sponsored by Focus on the Family. These one-day conferences are primarily to help parents love their child and understand why he or she struggles with same-sex attraction. Love, in the truest sense of the word, is promoted at these conferences: Love that says I love you too much to condone sinful behavior.
Jesus loved the sinner, but never loved the sin. Bagnuolo writes: “Somewhere along the way you heard these words: ‘We love you but hate your sin.’ Nothing directed toward people who identify as LGBT could be more disingenuous, more filled with hubris than combining love for another with hatred of some part of their being.”
Our ministries do not hate a part of a gay-identified person’s being; we hate the sinful behavior that can destroy the person’s true being and separate him or her from God. According to Scripture (Old and New Testaments), homosexuality is a sin – it falls short of God’s purpose and will for our lives. God hates all sin so much that right after Adam and Eve ate the apple He pronounced that the wages of sin was death. However, even though God hates sin, He loves the sinner more. God loves us so much, He sent His son, Jesus, to pay the ultimate price for sin (death) so that we might be spared separation from God.
What I have just written is the basic Gospel message, and this is what our “ex-gay” ministry teaches. We also fully understand (from our own experience and other’s experience) that people do not choose to have same-sex attraction – that same-sex attraction, in the vast majority of cases, is an involuntary byproduct of a legitimate same-sex emotional need that has been left unmet (for whatever reason) and therefore has been sexualized. Healing comes when we recognize what has contributed to these unmet emotions and needs and when we find legitimate healthy relationships with those of the same-sex and with God, who is our perfect parent and heavenly Father. [The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is an excellent professional, scientific, and therapeutic organization (again, not “megalithic” at all) that provides much research and many articles helping the lay person to understand some of the root contributing factors of same-sex attraction.]
The “success rate” for ministries such as ours is not 1-2 percent, as Bagnuolo claims; rather it is 53 percent, according to the most recent study (2007/2009) by psychologists Stanton L. Jones of Wheaton College and Mark A. Yarhouse of Regent University. “The men followed 61 subjects over a span of six to seven years, recording their failures and successes in their attempt to leave homosexuality. Experts in the field call it the first attempt to follow subjects who are undergoing Christian counseling over a series of years. Such a time-consuming study is called ‘longitudinal’,” writes Michael Foust of the Baptist Press (2009). The study can be read in Ex-Gays: A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation.
There are also numerous secular studies that show a success rate among strongly motivated clients, despite what the American Psychological Association currently reports. In fact, “Anyone who says there is no hope [for change] is either ignorant or a liar. Every secular study of change has shown some success rate, and persons who testify to substantial healings by God are legion,” writes Stanton Jones, Chair of Psychology Wheaton College, quoted in “The Loving Opposition” Christianity Today, July 19, 1993.
Finally, Bagnuolo states that ministries such as ours merely encourage people to suppress their God-given same-sex feelings to maintain the status-quo. He also claims that we want to “keep the church free of LGBT folks by whatever means.” As one who has found healing from unwanted same-sex attraction, I have found that my feelings have not been suppressed at all, but transformed. I am not an exception, either. This is true for thousands of people. Did it require an element of denial or “suppression?” Yes. Jesus said that we “must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.” Jesus also taught that the more we turn from sin, the more it no longer masters us. This is very true. I am married now to a loving man, and I do not have to manufacture intimacy and sexual desire for him – they are there as a gift from God and as a result of obedience and hope that God could do “immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine.”
Do we want to bar people who struggle with same-sex attraction or who are gay-identified from our churches? The answer is emphatically, “No.” In fact, my job as the director of OneByOne in the Exodus Church Equipping Division is to equip and educate churches to be safe and loving places for gay people to come and hear the good news of the Gospel. However, this good news includes the message that we are to turn from homosexual behavior and ask God for healing from wounds, which contributed to our same-sex attraction. The same holds true for anyone who is expressing their sexuality outside God’s design, which is reserved between one husband and one wife in marriage. No one who engages in unrepentant sexual sin (heterosexual or homosexual) should be allowed into places of leadership and ordination in the church. Nor should we condone same-sex marriage as a viable alternative to heterosexual marriage. Marriage between two men or two women is not marriage as God and the Scripture defines it.
Does my believing this make me “homophobic” as Bagnuolo says it does? No. A homophobic person is one who has an aversion to and/or hatred of a group of people. I do not hate gay people. Do I hate homosexual behavior? Yes. Do I hate emotionally dependent relationships which lead to and define much of lesbianism? Yes. Do I hate sexual, physical and verbal abuse, which many gay men and women have experienced in their own lives and which has often contributed to their same-sex attraction? Yes. Do I hate how many people who struggle with same-sex attraction had inadequate emotional connection with their fathers and mothers? Yes. Do I hate how pornography (gay and straight) warps our sexual appetites and turns us away from God? Yes. But do I hate those who identify themselves as gay and who struggle with these things? Absolutely not. I was one of them. I know what they feel. I know what they want deep in their hearts, and I know only trust in and obedience to Jesus Christ can fill this need.
Bagnuolo writes, “You know, when Jesus set His face to Jerusalem, I am one of those who believe that He didn’t know exactly what was going to happen.” Strange that an ordained minister in our denomination should believe this when Jesus taught His disciples explicitly what would happen to Him:
“He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that He must
be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when Jesus turned and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:31-35).
The Word of God, the teaching of Jesus and the Holy Spirit makes it clear to us that homosexuality is not God’s will, that Jesus loves those who have same-sex attraction, that it is His will for us to turn from homosexuality to His perfect will for our sexuality, and that Jesus by His death and resurrection (of which He was fully aware), has made this possible for us as we put our complete trust in Him.
To learn more about Exodus International, of which OneByOne is affiliated, please read Julie Neils’s blog: “Big Foot, Nessie and Exodus International,” posted Oct. 7, 2009.