Exodus held its annual “Freedom” conference this weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Exodus wants the public to believe that it no longer promotes harmful ex-gay conversion. But a review of the Exodus Twitter feed suggests otherwise.
Live tweets from conference sessions advised followers to:
- publicly lie about their sexual orientation;
- misquote the Bible;
- define their love for other people as sexual brokenness and evil temptation;
- practice the blasphemous belief that one’s own will is God’s will;
- dismiss sexual honesty as satanic;
- seek “healing” from an ex-gay “community” that has a 36-year history of injuring people in God’s name;
- believe that Christianity is about God loving oneself, not about oneself loving humanity and God.
Don’t believe me? Read the tweets below, and let us know in the comments if you think we’re misunderstanding.
Hope Harris
@hope_harris
#Exodus2012 3 ?’s the enemy uses ?ur identity, ? The sufficiency of Christ ? The worthiness of Christ#TheChristianLife
Retweeted by Exodus InternationalExodus International
@ExodusIntl
“If you r injured in community God asks you 2 do something risky: Come back into a new community 2 be healed.@MaryDeMuth#TheChristianLIfeExodus International
@ExodusIntl
I know who I am because I know WHOSE I am.#TrustGodExodus International
@ExodusIntl
“From a biblical view you are not oriented in any sexual way. You are oriented toward sinfulness.” – Rom 5:12; Rom 3:23#TheChristianLifeMike Filicicchia
@mikefili
God’s grace is more evident in the man who constantly chooses holiness over temptation than the man who is not tempted at all.#exodus2012
Retweeted by Exodus InternationalExodus International
@ExodusIntl
“God wants His kids to be whole and free.”@MaryDeMuth#exodus2012Exodus International
@ExodusIntl
“Even in the darkest place in my life there has always been Someone who loves me.”@MaryDeMuth#exodus2012
Far from representing robust Christianity or sound mental-health advice, these glimpses at Exodus conference content constitute shallow, warm-fuzzy godtalk, framed into excuses to lie about one’s orientation, assume a false “identity,” infantilize one’s spirituality, and demonize sexual and spiritual honesty.
The infantilized Christianity and anti-freedom doubletalk carries over into unofficial tweets from conference participants and fans:
Randy Thomas
@RThomasART
“I do not believe in any way that God is leading you to independence but to your freedom in dependence on Him.” Patrick Peyton,#Exodus2012Alan Chambers
@AlanMChambers
“God is more committed to your joy than you are” – Patrick Payton#exodus2012
In other words, it’s the same new-age romance-novel rubbish that religious and mental-health critics of Exodus have been citing for 15+ years.
Ugh.
But wait:
Alan Chambers
@AlanMChambers
“Life isn’t about what you feel but about what you decide” – Ricky Chelette#exodus2012
Thank you, Exodus, for agreeing with us about something. Now ponder this:
“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” — C.G. Jung
To repeat the very same action, no matter how one tries to dress it up differently, and expect different results, is madness.
Exodus would do well to take this advice to heart.
>”I do not believe in any way that God is leading you to independence but to your freedom in dependence on Him”
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
They sound like a cult
As an atheist I find this very amusing. As a humanist I find it very sad. It’s the same pointless narrative that millions of Christians play out:
You are “broken” and you need god, but relying on doesn’t actually change your behavior or it fails to change it enough, so you feel more broken and are encouraged to rely more on god.
The Abrahamic religions make you sick and then sell you the cure. It’s the biggest fraud in human history.
Steve, you’re right. These people are masters – and slaves – of doublethink. ;)
“Exodus held its annual “Freedom” conference this weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota.”
If they were honest, they would call it the “Bondage Conference” . . . because they seek to condemn people to the bondage of religion through the use of fear and shame. The only context in which religion involves “freedom” is to restrict it. It never involves expanding freedom, but it does involve expanding bondage.
I think calling it the bondage conference would turn too many of them on and undermine the whole event. And it might bring Porno Pete out of the woodwork, to take the naughty pictures.
Would it be historically correct to say that bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism are all, first and foremost, interrelated religious concepts?