I’ve received a lot of feedback on Ryan’s Father, my novel which came out in 2014. Ryan is a young Christian man who loves the Lord and wants to serve Him. But when he is forced to admit he has same sex attraction, he begins a journey he thought he’d never take.
Mostly I’ve received positive feedback about how this subject needs to be broached from a Christian worldview. I’ve heard from two gay men that said my book was an encouragement and brought hope. But another gay man who, I might add, is a precious Christian who loves God, told me he no longer believes a homosexual can change and is now living in a relationship with another man. My heart goes out to him.
One of the points he brought up was how he’d gone through ex-gay therapy which only drove him to depression. I looked up this reparative, so called “pray the gay away” therapy. Much of it is based on behavior modification such as spending time with heterosexual men and avoiding women unless it’s for romantic reasons.
What does all of this have to do with spiritual armor? I think reparative therapy is missing something. Ephesians 6: 14-17 says, “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”
Romans 1in the Word tells us that men committing indecent acts with other men is a perversion and a sin. But Romans 6 tells us we are no longer slaves to sin. God wouldn’t say we are no longer slaves to sin if He didn’t mean it.
It seems to me that the ex-gay therapy is lacking an important element. The sword of the Spirit. Prayer is mentioned at the end of the above Bible passage, but as important as prayer is, it’s not part of the armor. Hold God to His word. Seek change based on what the Bible says, not emotions or prayer alone. Utilize the Spiritual Armor of God.
Some years ago I did apologetics online through Facebook. It was on a group site called “10,000 Christians Worshiping and Praising God”. When I first started reading, I assumed I would be sharing with other Christians. However, it turned out to be a Christian-bashing site. I had no choice but to use sound scripture to respond to some of their comments. I did this for several years until I was blocked from the group.
Along the line of your post, I’ll never forget the poor young homosexual woman who wrote in. It seems that her family had sent her to a church meeting in which they were supposed to “cure” her of homosexuality. They took her and a number of other teenagers into a basement and compelled them to strip naked.
They were to watch films of homosexual acts while a garden hose drenched them with water! This supposed aversive conditioning was intended to turn them against homosexuality.
All it did was turn this poor girl against the church and God. I tried to explain that this is NOT how godly people should treat anyone and begged her to find a church that offers loving and legitimate counseling. I wish so much that I had thought to present the Armor of God to her.
Linda, I pray the young lady got out of that church and fast. Such an ungodly thing to do to someone. Thank you for sharing today and I’d love for you to read my book Ryan’s Father. I strove to present a Biblical view of homosexuality couched in love.