Attack on Christian freedom by state and business agencies should warn the faithful church to re-think ministry strategy

Jul 28, 2020 by

By Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream:

The well-funded, carefully orchestrated and determined campaign to foster disapproval of, and then to ban, so-called ‘conversion therapy’ across nations of the developed world, has been a key component in driving the massive cultural change that has been called the global sexual revolution. This campaign has achieved its latest ‘success’ in persuading a number of multinational corporations (Barclays, Paypal, Twitter, Mailchimp) to suspend services and accounts used by Core Issues Trust. The way this was done, obviously coordinated, in response to aggressive lobbying on social media accompanied by a deluge of personal insults and even death threats to Mike Davidson and colleagues (see report here)is sinister and has implications for all faithful Christian ministries and individuals who dare to challenge the narrative of celebration of sex and gender chaos, and who try to help individuals caught up in it find wholeness.

The detailed and comprehensive entry on ‘Conversion therapy’ in Wikipedia is an example of how supposedly neutral sources of facts and news (which now includes academic research) has been entirely taken over by one ideological position. The Wikipedia report blatantly breaks the site’s own rules by being entirely one-sided, making assertions which ignore any evidence to the contrary. As part of its own evidence to support the consensus that any attempt to change sexual or gender orientation, for whatever reason, is ‘harmful’, it cites the number of national psychological associations and now governments which have banned the practice, not mentioning that these bans have come about as a result of intense, aggressive lobbying, and suppression of alternative views. This is now a familiar practice in a number of fields: the distortion of science and blocking essential freedoms, by preventing academics, publishers and legislators from producing evidence contrary to the “politically correct” answer.

Wikipedia says: “On 3 July 2018, the UK Government announced it would work towards a total ban on ‘conversion therapy’ across medical, non-medical, and religious settings. However, by the time of the 2019 general election, the issue was no longer a priority for the governing Conservative Party.” It is not difficult to see how, once the new government has dealt with its main political and economic priorities, opportunities would arise again for LGBT activists and their allies to push for profoundly illiberal legislation which would threaten freedom of speech and religion in almost a mirror image of jurisdictions informed by extreme Islamic ideology. There, LGBT people are persecuted and one may not change one’s religion; here, we are fast approaching a place where those holding to traditional sexual ethics are persecuted, and one may not change one’s sexual orientation.

It is absurd that at a time when the UK government is struggling to deal with serious crises of public health and economic slump, it is devoting time and energy to ban a niche practice which mostly involves a programme of talking and listening for those wanting to explore the possibility of moving away from unwanted sexual orientations and identities. Over the past few years, disapproval and intimidation has proved so successful that there are almost no organisations which openly provide this therapy apart from Core Issues Trust. To use parliamentary time to legislate purely to ban one tiny organisation would really be a sledgehammer cracking a nut – but of course once such a legal ban has gone through, it can be used to witch-hunt other more low key practices such as ‘recovery’ courses and one to one pastoral care and prayer offered by many churches.

Anglican Mainstream has over many years rehearsed the arguments for freedom of choice in terms of seeking counselling in sexual matters; why it is totally dishonest to conflate practices such as electric shock aversion therapy, often administered by state-sponsored organisations without client agreement and discontinued decades ago, with counselling and prayer for those distressed by same sex attraction, addictive and harmful sexual behaviour, gender dysphoria and who seek change voluntarily. We don’t need to go over again the many examples of bans on the latter forms of therapy and pastoral care being based on flawed academic research and in some cases, blatant lies (such as the case in USA where a key piece of evidence, a testimony of abuse at a ‘conversion therapy camp’ for young people, turned out to be based on an entirely fictional comic movie).

Abuses have occurred in this area  just as they have in every field of therapy and pastoral care, which is why groups like Core Issues Trust have consistently argued that those who provide talking-therapy assistance for those wanting to explore the possibly of sexual orientation or gender identity change need proper training and supervision, rather than the practice being driven underground.

Some Christian groups, otherwise in agreement with the bible’s clear teaching on sexual morality, have distanced themselves from Core Issues, the therapy it advocates and the ex-gay movement. They argue instead for a pastoral approach within church in the context of discipleship, helping those with same sex attraction to come to terms with their orientation and pursue a life of celibate singleness in a supportive Christian community. But such an approach, which may be excellent in itself,  is not in any way incompatible with also providing prayer and counselling for those seeking change of orientation – which might include people in a heterosexual marriage. The testimony of a single gay man or woman guided by the bible and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live chastely is indeed a “better story” than the one offered by the secular culture, but so is a testimony of re-orientation of self-image as a man or woman, and transformation of sexual desire. And that counter-cultural narrative of living according to biblical faith can help Christians to understand and address false ideologies prevalent in the culture.

The attack on Core Issues Trust is a warning that the faithful church does not exist in a benign or neutral space, but in a culture where hostile forces want to silence the voice of God when it becomes too challenging. If the church turns its back on those making a stand like Mike Davidson, or evangelists ‘cancelled’ from university campuses, or evangelical adoption agencies forced to place children with foster parents with sexually immoral lifestyles, or clergy resigning their posts in the face of theologically revisionist Bishops, is it being faithful? If the church glosses over the seriousness of the threat of the contemporary ideological revolution for the sake of presenting a ‘winsome’ face for evangelism, is it being biblical? It may be that a church which refuses to fulfil its calling to prophetic ministry in order to try to protect its evangelistic and pastoral work, is actually not being properly evangelistic or pastoral at all.

On a practical level, the faithful local church needs to do three things urgently.

First, to offer support, in prayer, finance and encouragement, to those facing attack from the new ‘thought police’. Second, to teach congregations regularly and thoroughly about the context of hostile and restrictive secularism in which we live, to pray and work out together how to live differently not just as passive exiles with a different message, but actively as resistance, seeking to challenge and undermine false ideologies and the suppression of truth. Thirdly, to look to a bigger movement which is combining the evangelistic, pastoral and prophetic, such as Gafcon and its regional branches, and to join it.

See also:

The flawed logic of the ‘conversion therapy’ inquisition, by Paul Huxley, Christian Concern

Ozanne YouGov Poll Challenged: Letter in the Church of England Newspaper

Tell Barclays Bank to respect religious freedomPetition from CitizenGo

Why don’t ex-gays’ stories count? by Michael Brown, Christian Post

‘Gay conversion therapy should not be banned’from Christian Today:

 

 

 

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