Exodus appears to be leaving its network of ad-hoc “ex-gay” ministries in the dust as the political organization and its primary benefactor, Focus on the Family, reach out instead to antigay churches with false messages about the struggles of same-sex-attracted persons.
Just last month, Exodus quietly laid off two key ex-gay outreach workers amid severe budget constraints and lackluster fund-raising efforts among its member “ministries” and antigay churches.
Yet now Focus on the Family boasts:
In the last six years, the organization [Exodus] has grown from 117 member agencies to 234 — including churches, counselors and parachurch ministries.
“When you call Exodus, we offer our point of view ‚Äî which is biblical (and) redemptive, but also practical,” said Randy Thomas, the group’s executive vice president. “We understand what it means to deal with same-sex attractions and have to live out our faith in light of those attractions.”
Exodus’ viewpoint is not Biblical: There is no Biblical basis for Exodus’ secular Freudian myth that sexual orientation is determined by lousy mothering or fathering or by sexual abuse. Nor is Exodus’ viewpoint “redemptive”: Exodus routinely excommunicates ex-gays from its movement when Exodus’ sham treatments and Scripture-lite prayers fail to achieve the promised “change” of sexual orientation.
Having failed (according to its own studies) to achieve “change,” Exodus has allowed its network of approximately 100 ad-hoc amateur ex-gay “ministries” to shrink in recent years, cutting services to these programs while Exodus has instead grown a sizable political network of antigay churches that are committed to prejudice, discrimination, and quack counseling against same-sex-attracted churchgoers and neighbors.
Exodus piggybacks a portion of it antigay church outreach on the marketing budget of Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ex-gay roadshow. Focus again boasts:
Focus on the Family’ Love Won Out team, which works alongside Exodus, is encouraged by the expansion.
“This is really exciting because churches are getting behind this movement of teaching people about healthy sexuality and teaching people that they don’t have to be gay,” said Jeff Johnston, gender issues analyst at Focus on the Family and part of the Love Won Out team.
Johnston’s unholy objective: Convince same-sex-attracted persons to call themselves heterosexual, lie to themselves and their families, deceive and marry hapless persons of the opposite sex, and conduct marriages marred by sexual dishonesty, celibacy, denial, and hypocrisy.
Addendum: It is sadly ironic that Exodus’ antigay church network makes churches unsafe for would-be “ex-gays”.
Tags: church, Exodus International, Focus on the Family, Love Won Out6 Comments »
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Michael, what a bitter diatribe! And every word of it is thoroughly justified.
Comment by William — January 10, 2009 @ 9:25 am
William, feel free to rewrite as a shiny happy blog post if you wish. That’s what the comment section is for…
–Mike
(Humming a certain classic R.E.M. tune)
Comment by Mike A. — January 10, 2009 @ 11:24 am
“–Mike
(Humming a certain classic R.E.M. tune)”
“…..oh no I’ve said too much……I set it up……I thought that I heard you laughing……I thought that I heard you sing….I think I thought I saw you try….”
LOL, yeah and I don’t like Exodus. I had to go through it too, it doesn’t work, and people could say what they want about it, but it doesn’t change anything.
Comment by James — January 10, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
Actually, I was humming the exaggerated happiness of Shiny Happy People, but Losing My Religion is appropriate, too.
Exodus does cause people to lose their religion, by convincing them that Christianity — or legitimate faith of any kind — is dependent upon falsified miracles and superficial appeals to a Bible that few Exodus leaders bother to read.
Comment by Mike A. — January 10, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
Mike, it sounds as though you thought that I was being ironic – and I realise that the brevity of my comment may have made it come across like that – but I can assure you that I wasn’t. I meant exactly what I wrote, and I fully endorse your condemnation of Exodus and similar ex-gay cults.
Those who run these cults doubtless mean well, but as the late Sir Oliver Lodge wrote of someone who had written an idiotic book, “I suppose he may be credited with good intentions; which I always consider the feeblest kind of praise, because the only people without good intentions are criminals; and I am not so sure about them.”
Comment by William — January 10, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
“Having failed (according to its own studies) to achieve “change,”"
—
The quote below is from Randy Thomas’ intro on the Exodus CD General Session 1-A By Joe Dallas: 2007 South East Regional Exodus Freedom Conference.
The relevant portion is in regard to the Jones and Yarhouse ” ex-gays study,” a critique of which you link to above. Bold mine:
:::
“My name is Randy Thomas, I’m the executive Vice President for Exodus International, and your M.C. for the conference. I’m glad to be here. You may no–you probably don’t know this, but I grew up in Brentwood Tennessee, so it’ good to be home.
[…]
Now, today, you may not know, or you might, today is a historic day for Exodus. For a long time, for 31 years, one of our major criticisms, coming from the world, is that we don’t have empirical data. That we haven’t done studies or statistics, or all this other stuff. This is a book, released today, of a longitudinal study following, uh–I forgot the number, it’ like 90–it started out with like 90 something–95 people, and it went over 5 years. Studying their lives, watching their testimony. Some people went back, but 74.5% of the people are still in the study, and they have gathered amazing, amazing data. And the methodology of the study is impeccable. It would stand up to any peer review who was an–any serious scientist would look at this and go, this was above reproach.
The past president of the APA, Mr. Cummings has said, Dr. Cummings I should say, sorry, uh–endorsed this book. And we don’t even know if he’ a Christian. He says that this is the study on homosexuality he’ been waiting for, for 35 years.
The conclusion, the nutshell, which is what I need, because reading this book would give me a migraine before page two. Lots of syllables, lots of syllables—in other languages. It’ not that hard, but it, the conclusion is that some people do find freedom because of religious motivation. Proof, proof.”
:::
I wonder if they’re still touting this scandalously flawed non-peer reviewed study as “proof” of change in sexual orientation.
Oh…It appears they are.
Comment by Emproph — January 12, 2009 @ 3:17 am