Working on a university campus has its privileges. Among them is exposure to visiting lectures by any number of scholars, all free to the public. It’s a great perk for a pastor.
Recently, however, a speaker was scheduled who troubled me greatly. It seems that it is still acceptable to invite speakers who believe lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons are sinners until/unless they repent and become heterosexual. To make matters worse, this woman has no training in psychology or psychiatry, and yet “counsels” people out of homosexuality. I’m a bit dismayed that a university group chose to invite such a speaker.
Under other circumstances, I would not even give the name of this speaker, much less post a web listing, but her thoughts – and those of her late husband – are so sad that I decided to display them at the end of this post so that readers may check them out. If you read her husband’s post, you’ll see that this “ministry” believes same-sex orientation is a function of demonic possession.
In listening to Joanne’s story, it is clear she suffered a lot of abuse, and for that I am truly sorry. But to determine that – in her mind – a disordered sexual orientation is caused by trauma is simply ridiculous to those of us who grew up in “Beaver Cleaver” environments. Indeed, while I knew I was “different” by a young age, the only abuse I’ve ever suffered was at the hands of presumed Christians who believe that God hates me.
She clearly has a dim view of humanity, a view that assumes original sin in all its worst manifestations. I agree with comedian Eddie Izzard who argues that most sins are in no way original. If you want an original sin, he says, admit to poking a badger with a spoon. There’s an original sin.
I like the thinking of a second century pastor, Irenaeus of Lyons. He believed that God created humans as children, a not unreasonable assumption I would say, given that all the rest of us begin that way! The sin that ultimately occurred was that humanity attempted to grow up too fast, to assume it understood God without having gone through the maturation process necessary to really “get” God. A figure like Jesus, then, gave us someone who could once again show us what it meant to be made in God’s image, and he did go through a maturation process of his own.
Joanne lives in fear of a god who would have doomed her to hell if she had not stopped living as a lesbian. She could not conceive of having a relationship to God not based on fear. As a result, I think, she and others who believe this way cannot imagine treating LGBT people as humans created in God’s image. Instead, she can only interact with them if they wish to denigrate themselves, to insist that there is something wrong about them. She refused to admit there was any scientific evidence showing a genetic component to sexual orientation in humans. Unless she wants to insist that animals, too, have free will to choose a “disordered lifestyle”, then what must she do with the research demonstrating same-sex relations among hundreds if not thousands of animal species?
http://www.life-ministry.com/
http://www.life-ministry.com/thoughtsfromron.htm
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