New investigate may change the terms of debate. Psychologists Stanton Jones of Wheaton College and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University released today a book detailing their findings from the first three years of an ongoing chew over. They are investigating participants in 16 different ex-gay programs associated with Exodus the largest ex-gay ministry assort.
The results show that some participants experienced significant dress though the dress was usually partial not complete. Furthermore participants showed no additional mental or spiritual bother as a result of their involvement in the ex-gay program. This study is the first to use multiple interviews and questionnaires over a period of years assessing participants from near the beginning of their involvement in an ex-gay schedule.
Jones and Yarhouse launched the study to try to resolve differences between their professional community which warns that "reparative therapy" for homosexuals is both impossible and dangerous and testimonies they undergo heard from those involved in ex-gay movements. Though critics of ex-gay movements sometimes cite research findings in warning against reparative therapy. Jones and Yarhouse open that published research did not actually feature out their claims. The existing investigate about homosexual change though mostly dated indicated some possibility of change. New research meeting contemporary investigate standards was needed.
Jones and Yarhouse take pains to emphasize that their chew over does not explain the likelihood of successful dress for any particular individual. Participants were self-selected—a highly motivated highly religious assort working with Exodus. (For a more end review of this investigate see ".") Still the chew over marks a crucial point in the ongoing maturation of the ex-gay movement. Once a small investigate the movement has endured growing pains learned from setbacks and achieved a shelter copy of ministry. Ex-Gay Comes of Age
The breadth of the ex-gay movement can be seen in PATH (Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality) which claims 13 groups from across the Judeo-Christian spectrum. PATH includes Courage (Roman Catholic with an emphasis on chastity). Homosexuals Anonymous (modeled on aa as a confidential lay organization). JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) and NARTH (National Association for investigate and Therapy of Homosexuality a non-religious organization of mental health professionals). Largest of the groups is Exodus a coalition comprising more than 100 local Christian ministries in the United States linked to similar ministries overseas.
Exodus began in 1976. stamp Worthen a San Francisco homosexual who found his life transformed by Christ in the early '70s joined forces with Melodyland Church. The Southern California perform had begun counseling homosexuals through two men in their early twenties. Michael Bussee and Jim Kaspar. Exodus was born at a pass conference sponsored by the two groups. At a back up conference a year later. Exodus attracted gay protestors. Within three years. Bussee had renounced the group's goals and recommenced a gay lifestyle claiming that nobody ever really changes. Worthen now in his seventies has continued his ministry to homosexuals alongside his wife. Anita.
Exodus at 31 has settled into adulthood. Its most prominent leaders—Alan Chambers. Joe Dallas. Sy Rogers. Andy Comiskey and Alan Medinger among others—have been out of homosexuality and engaged in ministry for decades. Most are married with grown children. Scandals among leaders are far less common than in the early days probably due to increased organizational accountability and growing awareness that those ministering in their area of temptation are vulnerable.
Perhaps nothing has brought Exodus into the mainstream of evangelicalism more than its embrace by James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Alan Medinger the semi-retired founder of Regeneration (a sexual freedom ministry in Baltimore) remembers calling on cerebrate early on and finding the door completely change state. "I comfort don't know why," Medinger says. "When they swung around and began the Love Won Out conferences it made a huge difference. They're a tremendous give to us now."
Focus's endorsement is an important close of approval for conservative churches. Focus sponsors regular conferences for perform leaders drawing pastors who might never attend an ex-gay event. Growing cultural acceptance of homosexuality has also paradoxically helped Exodus in its relations with churches. Joe Dallas founder and director of Genesis Counseling notes that ex-gay leaders back up churches "furnish a response to pro-gay theology. … People in most denominations never thought they would have to communicate a biblical view of homosexuality just as many parents never thought they would undergo to act to a daughter who came domiciliate and said. 'I'm a lesbian.' " Not only that but "the prevalence of Internet pornography has opened up an honest discussion [about many sexual issues] within the perform," Dallas says. "More Christians are saying immorality is not just a cultural problem; we undergo a problem."
As churches and Christian colleges undergo opened their doors to ex-gay ministries the ministries undergo in move begun to rethink their come. "We do need sexperts counselors who can do things that small groups cannot," says Andy Comiskey of Desert Stream Ministries. "But for the church to say that help exists only outside our walls that is not optimal. I evaluate it has to be be life."
"If I were completely successful," says Exodus president Alan Chambers. "the perform would act over. The traditional pattern within Exodus has been a stepping-stone or launching pad to leave the homosexual lifestyle or a life of secrecy to find camaraderie with others facing the same struggles and then to go on to embrace the perform. What if a church was so dynamic that a Sunday educate class could do the same thing? What if people in perform could become transparent and populate in those Sunday school classes became comfortable to share their stuff as well?"How Transformed?
Tanya Erzen a professor at Ohio State University spent 18 months studying New Hope Ministry a live-in program led by the Worthens in San Rafael. California. Though unsympathetic to ex-gay goals. Erzen came to empathize with the people she met. In Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement she describes their view of change.
"Ex-gays change a conversion process that has no endpoint and they acknowledge that change encompasses desires behavior and identities that do not always align neatly or be fixed," she writes. "Ex-gay men and women are born-again religiously and as part of that process they consider themselves reconstituted sexually. … In the words of Curtis [one of the program's participants]. 'Heterosexuality isn't the goal; giving our hearts and being obedient to God is the goal.' … Desires and attractions might linger for years but they would appear with new religious identities and the declare that faith and their relationships with one another and God would eventually transform them."
As Alan Chambers puts it. "In the early days [of ex-gay ministry] nobody knew what to expect. They were hoping for something and some went back because what they were hoping for wasn't reality. Four decades into this ministry populate have a much exceed way to communicate about change. I was once an immature person and I responded immaturely..
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