Aaaaaaand it turns out to be more of the same. Literally.
2011 = Simplify, Amplify and Intensify — Letter from Alan Chambers for November 2011
Nov 17, 2010
First, we are reminded of the mission of Exodus:
Mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality.
Implication: Homosexuality is a negative impact.
—
The agenda…
He [God] has impressed on our entire team the need to do 3 things with what we already have: simplify, amplify and intensify.
~Simplify:
We want to be clear about what we do and don’t do at Exodus. [emphasis added]
Clear:
definition: understandable, apparent
antonyms: ambiguous, indistinct, mysterious, obscure, unintelligible, vague
To use it in a sentence: Clearly, “change” is possible, “temptation” may last a lifetime and “the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality, it’s holiness.”
Everybody clear on the meaning of clear now?
~Amplify:
[T]he greatest area of need in our culture is outreach to young people. We will be changing the name of Exodus Youth to Exodus Student Ministries in order to encompass middle school thru [sic] college age students. [em orig]
As the article says, that means a messaging that’s more internet savvy, as well as “short to the point booklets.”
We also want to amplify the specialties that our member ministries provide
[“We now have a variety of ways that parents can help their homosexual children decide which indoctrination service ministry is best.”]
~Intensify:
We also want to strengthen our communication about the true point of this ministry … Staggering numbers of young people are abandoning their faith because they cannot reconcile their homosexuality with their Christianity.
And who better to intensify that increasing faithlessness than an organization that promises — by calculated implication — heterosexuality.
—
This is a scene from a movie called Disgrace. I watched it months ago and didn’t really care for it, but I had to rent it again so I could write this part down. It nails it.
Dad: When you were small, our next door neighbor had a dog. A golden retriever, remember?
Daughter: Jimby.
Dad: It was a male, and whenever a bitch went passed, it got excited, unmanageable, and with Pavlovian regularity, its owner would beat it so that at the mere smell of a bitch the dog would run around the garden with it’s ears flat and it’s tail between it’s legs, whining and trying to hide.
Daughter: I don’t see the point.
Dad: Well, you can punish a dog for chewing the slipper. The dog can accept that, but it’s desires are another thing.
Daughter: Is that the moral, that males should be allowed to follow their instincts unchecked?
Dad: No, that’s not the moral. What was ignoble about the spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate it’s own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten, it punished itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.
Fortunately the dog didn’t have a gun, or fingers to tie a noose. So the dog’s mother didn’t have to experience the HORROR of walking in on the sight of her son’s dangling or beheaded body.
—
So, it would seem that Exodus’ 2011 agenda is, in effect, a finessing of the message that one’s nature is something to be rejected — for life — in order to escape the eternal clutches of God’s loving wrath.
Sammy Davis Jr. “I Gotta Be Me”
[youtube width=”300″ height=”250″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5k2ZE6HAVo&feature=fvw[/youtube]
___
patrick.fitzgerald@exgaywatch.com
I am glad to hear that droves of young people are abandoning their faith. It leaves them open to experience their humanity, which is what we came here to do. If we wanted to be in the spirit world that’s pretty easy to do. But while we’re here, at least we can buck up to the choice instead of running around with pants in a bunch whimpering “get me out if here already”. Live it love it then leVe it when you like. These wining Christians really give humanity a bad name and drown the collective with their unwashed baby diapers. The hypnotics these folks are under thinking that the entire Bible is pure truth just because they got a good Jesus hit is truly insane, but typical of the desperate, though a complete loss of personal dignity and integrity with those who retain their clear thinking.
Hopefully, leading Exodus International inexorably to its final exit.
The existence of Exodus fills a much needed gap.
@iDavid
Last I checked, this was a watch-dog blog about the ex-gay movement, not a venue to bash the Christian faith. I know that several supporters, writers and readers of this blog are Christians. It’s one thing to critique the vague language and fundamentalist streak that characterizes the particular branches of Christianity that often are involved with the ex-gay movement. It’s quite another to do as you did your comment, and paint Christianity as harmful on the whole. It’s not really appropriate for this blog, either. At least, I hope an admin would agree with me on that.
@iDavid
XGW is not a venue to bash anyone’s faith, or their lack of faith. While I can wholeheartedly understand the desire to lash out when hurt, we can’t trash the integrity of an entire demographic without becoming hypocrites ourselves. This is exactly what has been done to us as GLBTs.
Feel free to share your own experience or pain in a civil manner, but please try to remember that each faith is made up of individuals.
CollegeJay and David Roberts. Please allow me to clarify; I did not mean all Christians as a sweeping dem.
I was aiming at Christian extremists who are hyper hypocritical in their seeming sea of confusion about sexuality, and the abrupt harm they cause society in general with their i.e. purported public ew factor over gay sex “men who lie with men” banter, while digging on homosexual behavior, i,e, gay porn and/or rent boys on the DL. The Eddie Long / Ted Haggard factor of the Christian world.
I certainly do not paint all Christians in this frame and apologize if I offended any moderates, including you CollegeJay if that’s where you stand? But my sense is that moderates, who do not ascribe to every letter of the Bible, know who they are and would not be offended by my post, though I could be wrong.
I appreciate this watchdog sight. I would say that if someone is doing extreme hypocritical acts or mental ideology and reacting strongly to my post, maybe it’s because the watchdog flash light is shining a little brighter than their hypocritical comfort zone might allow. No one likes being “outed”.
What I would find helpful and healing, is if just one of these people would deal, and figure out their problems then come talk about it. And even apologize for damage done. That is my definition of a true Christian, one who stops pointing fingers, one who deals with misplaced pride so he doesn’t continue to fall all over everyone, then helps others with new found wisdom.
Overt hypocrisy does hurt, David R. That is my experience. I believe it hurts us all.
Well said David Roberts. It is nice to hear from someone (who I assume to be) in the gay community who practices what he preaches. Because I frankly find the blanket demonization of Christians by gays to be hypocritical and off putting.
I don’t think there is any blanket demonization of Christians by gays. Some gays are that way, i’m sure, perhaps not justifiably so, but certainly understandably so.
What i do think? That this alleged “blanket demonization” of Christians by gay people, as claimed by christians, is just another blanket demonization of gay people that has no more basis in fact than all of the other claimns aobut the evils of Teh Gay directed at all of you poor Christian victims.
@ iDavid: well… now that you mention it, I have to say that this site (and some others like it, primarily Peterson Toscano’s blog and the Beyond Ex-Gay site) were a very important part of my own passage from ex-gay supporter to ex-gay doubter to LGBTQ supporter.
I’m Christian, fwiw.
I know it must seem as if everyone in the evangelical/fundie camp is anti-gay, but the truth is that there is a slow but steady increase in the number of people who are moving from an ati-gay to a gay-affirming position.
Unfortunately, the media doesn’t really report on that.
So… while I can see why it’s easy to paint everyone from a certain background as intolerant, the truth is that we’re much more of a mosaic than a monolithic entity. (I’m Protestant, though no longer evangelical – and as far as the change in stances, that also applies to many Catholics and Orthodox, as well as people of other faiths, like Judaism and Islam.)
To be honest, I did find your 1st comment off-putting. But then, the internet is hard that way, in that this kind of exchange is text-only, so there’s no tone of voice, no facial expressions, no gestures. Things that aren’t meant harshly can often come off as the opposite.
Hope that’s helpful!
all the best to you,
e.
@ iDavid (again): Here’s a blog that clearly shows one woman’s journey to LGBT affirmation: https://myheartgoesout-carol.blogspot.com/
I hope you’ll take the time to read it; her story (and that of her ex-husband) is, in some ways, common, but in other ways, very much not.
(I don’t know the author or anyone associated with her.)
Hi e2c,
Thanks so much for your insights into the fundamentalist community changing their views on gay people. That is huge. I am making the assumption you are straight from the way you framed your supports. Is that correct? (fwiw?)
I appreciate the benefit of the doubt about my first comment as my focus was truly on the sexual gay Christian hypocrisy done by gays of which I was unclear. I actually give a lot of leeway to straights as they can’t know what it is like to be gay, and they need time to acquire knowledge for understanding. However, gay-sex bashers who are gay are deeply confused and infectious to their own. It is one thing to have a straight unknowing person bash gay sex, it’s quite another to have a knowing gay person bash away. They are the twisted rope that hang our gay youth. This is a great worry to me. I truly hold for their redemption post haste.
On a higher note, the link you sent was evolutionary for me. The post that caught my eye was the Jim Swilly story. I’ve never had a married gay Christian pastor as a hero. Until now.
(https://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/aae/38-feature/1507-swilleys-story-a-gay-pastor-his-wife-and-a-deeper-ministry).
He is the first married gay minister to authenticate along with his wife. He is the only gay pastor and wife I can think of that got it right. And to think his wife was the one who pushed him into owning his sexual humanity. Fantastic. What a beautiful role model.
His take on biblical homosexual morality is stunningly accurate, a pastoral voice of wisdom with perceptions none have dared to enact until now. He says “homosexuality is not a moral issue, unchangeable states of being have nothing to do with morals”. Here-ye to that utterly complete and wholesome truth. I’m now (fully) ready to have a boyfriend/life partner and settle down and share my life instead of isolate my sexual romantic nature in “God’s” deep freeze. This story was that wide sweeping and timely for me. Finally, a married (now unmarried) gay Christian Bishop Pastor who nailed it.
He is an amazing hero and should be decorated for his bravery and candor. And we all know how gays love to decorate. 😉
It was a pleasure hearing from you and I will continue to research that link. Be well and happy holiday!
@BeninOakland
Re: Your comment.
————- Bulls Eye ————-
@iDavid : Great to hear back from you – and I’m really glad to know the blog I referenced has been helpful to you. (Haven’t seen that particular post myself, though I’m about to go and check it out.)
And yes, I’m straight.
cheers,
e.
@iDavid : That’s a very, very worthwhile article.
Though I’ve gotta say, I think lots of people are threatened by gay relationships, if only because their views on that are severely distorted. Am not so certain people are afraid of “gay sex” as they are afraid to:
1. find out that they’ve been wrong (and then have to admit it)
2. face their fear of The Other
3. deal with finding out that “The Other” actually might look a lot like themselves.
Hope this is helpful!