Veteran ex-gay leader John Smid recently acknowledged that, in his decades of ministry to make thousands of gay men turn straight, none had truly changed their sexual orientation, though many had changed their religious beliefs or their behavior.
Despite his own same-sex orientation, Smid plans to remain married to his wife, and he remains a Christian. Kudos, I say, to Smid for seeking to practice authenticity and congruence in body and spirit.
Longtime Exodus vice president Randy Thomas doesn’t feel the same way.
Thomas, who was nudged out of Exodus for unknown reasons this year, declares that Smid — one of his original ex-gay mentors — “renounced faith in Him.” In other words, Thomas lies about Smid’s faith and essentially condemns him to hell.
That condemnation, dear readers, is the mark of an insecure soul with little apparent grace – the most basic value of Christianity.
Thomas tries to reassure his readers that he won’t follow other leaders in “renouncing Christ or my beliefs.” But he already has. He renounced many of his Christian beliefs when he joined the extremist Exodus a decade ago. And Randy renounces the commonly accepted understanding of Christ every time he damns and ostracizes another soul for disclosing fraud and antifamily practices within the ex-gay industry — an industry that has already largely spat Thomas aside.
Thomas says: “A leader challenged me to make a decision that even if every Christian I knew fell away from the faith … would I stay committed to pursuing Christ?”
The lowercase christ that Thomas follows is not the New Testament dissident, outcast, redeemer, and savior. Thomas’s christ more closely resembles a modern-day Pontius Pilate who judges, ostracizes, jails, or crucifies any honest and moral soul who veers from the merciless policies of his empire.
Thomas lives his life as he thinks Jesus would: By emulating the cop who killed Him.
Here’s my honest advice to Randy, from one struggling Christian to another:
STFU, Randy.
Take your false piety offline. And since you’re incapable of writing without piety, shut down and delete your vain and selfish blogs. All of them.
Since you won’t qualify for appropriately compensated employment without a college degree (gotta love the free market!), apply for scholarships and financial aid, and go get an art degree. Learn how to illustrate, diagram, and animate for profitable businesses that are entirely separate from yourself and your very small view of the world. Open your mind to the beauty and love in people and places that are drastically different from your fear-ridden safe-house.
And by the way, fire the counselors who keep telling you to hide in your safe cocoon of smug ignorance and correctness. Sue the people who tell you to pray away your problems without professional help.
You’re middle-aged, man.
Grow the f**k up. While you still have time.
Signed,
Someone who needs to follow similar advice
Conservative values and Christ’s values are quite different. Christ’s don’t deviate from nature. Smid is finally getting that and now says quite naturally in cadence “I’m a homosexual”, that is honest natural and Christic. Randy on the other hand, perverts nature, calling himself as another drifting fringe dweller once said “I’m a heterosexual, Ummm, with attachments”. Very unnatural and anti Christic. Aka….AntiChrist. Yes Randy like all of us in one way or another, emulates the AntiChrist, because well, we created him. Randy just does it by perverting his natural Christic sexuality and infecting others causing them heartache and suicide. But then, that’s what some antichristic conservatives do. Alot.
[...] TWO: Ex-Gay Randy Thomas Betrays His Fellow Christians. Read more [...]
Dear Randy:
In the words of the great Mart Crowley, “Your grapes are, how you say, sour!” — Donald (Frederick Combes), THE BOYS IN THE BAND
What does Christ have to do with homophobia? He never talked about same sex relationships and he never “healed” anyone who was gay. He did heal the servant of a Roman officer who was concerned for his servant’s life. He lived a single life and hung around with a bunch of men and treated women equally. So what Christ is Randy Thomas talking about?
Michael
You can’t be much of a christian if you use the f word, now can you? Plus you display a very un-Christ like attitude.
John:
Christ made it very clear in Matt: 19:4-6 that
Marriage is soley between one man and one
Woman. Jesus never spoke about polygamy or
Incest,beastiality, or pedaphilia does that mean he approved of them? I think not. Your
Argument is fallacious and specious and has no merit.
Randy Thomas has always been a fraud. He made his living posing as an “ex-gay”. Yet, he “queens out” at every opportunity — even on YouTube videos.
He pretends to love LGBT people — yet lapped up his anti-gay lobbying on Capitol Hill. Randy pretends to be a deep brooding person — but boasts about his heady experiences with bigwigs in Washington. Anything to feel important…
Finally — what the hell was he doing posing as an “ex-gay”? Aside from those two failed dates he had with that big “ex-lesbian” down in South Florida — what heterosexual activity has he engaged in??
How dare Thomas insult Smid. At least Smid is being honest. Thomas is nothing more than an pathetic eunuch who wants others to be as lonely and miserable as he is.
B Anderson:
Who is “Christ”? There is no evidence outside your Holy Babble that such a deity ever existed. As for Jesus, he may have existed, but to assume that anything written about him or quoted as something he said is accurate is historically untenable and completely unsupported. Your argument is based on the huge assumption that an oft repeated set of stories and fairy tales is somehow true because it has been repeated for so long. B., do you nor realize that it doesn’t matter what your mythical deity “Christ” is quoted as making “very clear” in an anonymously penned iron-age writing? Simply because you have decided to subscribe to it despite any verifiable evidence that any of it is true, does not mean that the rest of humankind has to.
Use your brain.
B Anderson:
“Fallacious” and “specious” are really big words for such a little mind as yours.
B Anderson
Have you taken Rush Limbaugh (4 wives), Bob Barr (5 wives), or Newt Gingrich (3 wives) to task for violating your statement of “one man and one woman”? Have you railed against Pat Robertson for telling a man that it is ok for him to start dating a woman because his wife has advanced Alzheimer’s? Have you advocated – on the state or federal level – for amendment(s) to forbid divorce in any situation whatsoever? If you have done none of these, WHY NOT?
OHHHHHHHH, I see why…it’s OKAY for straight people to get married and divorced, but it’s not ok for gay ones… I unnerstand now :-)
If I were going to rail against something in a fundie chat room, you can jolly well bet that I would have thought it through thoroughly and covered most, if not all, the bases.
B Anderson, since you clearly don’t understand the concept of informed consent, I fear for the safety of your wife.
Phillipj
Pat Robertson was wrong, and unless sexual
Infidelity was involved those divorces were wrong as well.
I’ve noticed that Evan, when faced with some one whose intelligence is equal (or in my case superior) to his, he resorts to mocking, belittling and insulting that person. Typical
Liberal resppnse when they cannot handle a
Reasoned, logical and well thought out debate
Nah, I just make fun of you a lot, because your arguments are so stupid, and so thoroughly refuted on this and so many other websites, that to speak to you as if you were an equal debating partner would be a grotesque waste of time when I could be doing absolutely anything else in the world.
I notice that, even though you’ve changed the name under which you post, you still cannot spell worth a damn.
In my experience, people who feel the need to point out that they have a superior intellect, don’t.
Wayne, I totally agree w you. Then when you add the fact he’s a real girl’s girl, we have a Randy/Chambers psycho estrogen mess to clean up …..unfortunately ….. everywhere.
Evan — don’t you know that you are dealing with THE BRAD ANDERSON???
He is like — Einstein and Steve Jobs all wrapped up into one big ball o brain.
Intimidating….How does he do it?