Page 78 - Push Back

Chapter 8

Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the
tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to
Christ.

One of the errors I perceive in many Christians’ approach to the subject of homosexuality is that
they are viewing the issue through a humanistic lens. Many counselors and ministries offering
homosexual conversion therapy are employing methods developed by the American Psychiatric
Association. They have embraced the teachings of godless men and women, and are attempting
to bring deliverance to people gripped by the bondage of sin by treating homosexuality as a
sickness. The very word “therapy” used by many Christian counselors to describe their work with
homosexuals reveals that they have wrongly identified the root issue. The problem is sin, not
mental illness.

Alan Chambers, the founder and former president of Exodus International, one of the largest and
oldest Christian ministries to work with homosexuals, had adopted the methods and principles of
psychiatry in dealing with his clients. He had embraced the teachings of the APA prior to 1973
(the year the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was altered to no longer
define homosexuality as a mental illness). Up until that time, psychiatry had proposed numerous
theories to answer the question of what caused people to deviate from a normal heterosexual
orientation to same-sex attraction. The prevailing theory was that homosexuality was caused by
"close-binding" mothers, which are over-protective women who made their children weak and
feminine, and "detached, rejecting fathers."

Much therapy today consists of seeking to identify past experiences, or influences that have led a
person to adopt thoughts or behaviors that are undesirable. Therapists have employed hypnotism,
role playing, and an array of other practices, in an attempt to identify experiences from a patient’s
past that have led to their current condition. One effect of this approach is that the patient is
viewed as a victim of past experiences, of the actions of others, or of their environment. This