From Exodus News:
The Exodus subheadline reads, “Media spin reaches new pseudo-scientific heights.” But the spin isn’t coming from the media; it comes first from the scientists.
With this minor miscue, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas and executive director Alan Chambers proceed to open a small crack in the position that homosexuality is purely a result of choice and childhood experiences.
Exodus begins:
Exodus has always held to the Biblical view that men and women are created differently to glorify God uniquely: …
But that view is not traditional or Biblical; it is feminist.
… it is about time science started catching up [with Exodus].
Did Exodus intend this remark as humor?
Inspirational author and respected speaker Joe Dallas founder of Genesis Counseling in Orange, California, states, “Any research increasing our understanding of human sexuality should be welcomed, so I’m eagerly awaiting further developments regarding this study. But so far, this doesn’t tell us much that we don’t already know. Gender identity issues do tend to be deeply ingrained and possibly spring from prenatal or genetic influences, and all of us in Exodus circles have been aware for years that orientation is not a choice, though our expression of orientation definitely is. But for many of us, the question is not so much what tendencies we were born with, but rather, how should we live our lives regardless of those tendencies. This applies to gender identity, homosexuality and any number of similar issues. Science may tell us what is; Scripture tells us how to live with ‘what is.'”
Mr. Dallas overstates his case a bit: Not everyone in Exodus agrees that homosexuality is unchosen. And he borrows from gay-rights activists the belief that what matters is not what we’re born with, but how we live our lives.
Executive Director Alan Chambers comments, “I agree with part of what the study found: men and women are different from one another. As far as sexual identity being hard wired into our genetic makeup, could be. Geneticists have also said that there is a genetic link to alcoholism and kleptomania; just because something is genetic doesn’t make it optimal.”
This comment may be worth remembering the next time an Exodus press release expresses confused inconsistency over “choice” and the ability to “change.”
But one needn’t have a long memory: Exodus resumes its policy of confusion, self-contradiction, and mixed metaphor in the very next paragraph:
Exodus represents over 28 years of proof that a person’s identity and sexuality, while not a choice for most with regard to environmental development, is definitely a choice when it comes to identity, expression and the self-determined pursuit of reorientation. Human free will to follow Christ transcends the sum of an imperfect genetic code much less to 50+ genes in a mouse.
If that paragraph makes any sense, it has escaped XGW at the moment.
I was wondering how long it would take for them to respond the that article I read on cnn.
Ah the meaning of that one is do not dare attempt to live as an openly homosexual person despite the fact that you had no choice over being homosexual and are likely to remain homosexual for the rest of your life.
In short it means welcome aboard. Please fasten your celibacy belt and remain closeted at all times during the flight. Check your orientation. Make sure it is in the upright and heterosexual position. If you need assistance with either your celibacy belt or your orientation please ask the exodus attendant and have a nice lifetime. Juzz…I should have been a flight attendant.
As for free will I would love to see free will turn and keep off one gene much less fifty!
As with the Catholic Church’s position, I have to wonder if Exodus has really contemplated what they are arguing. If orientation is not a choice, and is hard-wired from birth, does that not mean it is part of God’s creation? Or are they arguing that God makes defective people?
The analogy to alcoholism or kleptomania is disingenuous – if people with that genetic “problem” do not face the “temptation,” they don’t have any issues. I have a good friend whose family on both sides has numerous alcoholics – he decided to abstain from alcohol as a teenager, and has never had a drink – he will not know if he is an alcoholic because he doesn’t drink. But a gay person, whether or not they have sex, will always know they are gay – it simply doesn’t add up.
I won’t deal with the implied theodicy issues of CPT Doom’s comment. But, I do want to disabuse the concept that this issue has not been contemplated in historical Christian theology.
In fact, it goes back over a millenium and a half. There a British monk, Pelagius, was debating an African bishop, Augustine. Pelagius said you could will or choose your way out of sin. Augustine said, no, you can’t because sin was innate. He coined the famous Latin slogan non posse non peccarre — not able not to sin. The Catholic church affirmed Augustine’s position and condemned Pelagius’ position.
The Protestants picked up on this, also. Luther had his slogan simul justis et peccator — simultaneously sinner and righteous. This is not symmetric. Here, sin is innate while righteousness is alien.
During this time period there were attempts to find a middle ground, e.g. the semi-Pelagianism of the Council of Trent, John Wesley, and Arminius. None of these asserted the full Pelagian position that the unaided sinner could will sin away nor that anyone could be perfect in this life.
In the 19th Century, there was an evangelist by the name of Finney. Finney introduced two things into evangelical thought. The first was social activism with the support of the temperance and abolitionist movements. The second was a introduction of Pelagianism into evangelical theology. Herein is the origin of Exodus’ obsession with choice. Up to this point, free will was choices were made according to your nature. If you had a sinful nature, you will make sinful choices but they remained YOUR choices. Something could be both innate and sinful and something could be innate and not sinful. In short, innateness proves nothing. But in Finney’s and Exodus’ thinking this is not the case. Thus, sexual orientation as innate has to be avoided at all cost. Sexual orientation must be a choice or the house of cards collapses.
I would like to address the question here of what if you are right (homosexuality is not sinful) or Exodus is right (homosexuality can be “cured”). All that occurs is that homosexuality is taken off the table. There is still a host of sins that are just as or even more persistent than your sexual orientation. We end up peeling the onion. The only way sin is dealt with is with a substitute and THAT is the core of Christian theology of all stripes, and not some pseudo-scientific, so-called cure to homosexuality.