On why we need to hear those voices

"We need to listen to the stories of the vast majority of those who have tried conversion therapy and have found that it has not worked."

The odds of any group or program providing purification from sin don't seem to work. Of all the people who lose weight, 95 percent gain it all back, and then some.
While AA and NA have a great reputation, they have a similar 95 percent failure rate.
But as a church we continue to listen and to encourage the alcoholic and the drug abuser to do as it says in Proverbs, "A righteous man falls seven times and gets up again seven times." Confess the sin, rethink what caused the fall and aim to avoid that temptation.

Sin is sin. That is the whole point of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. Because we get stuck in Romans 7, Christ had to die for all our sins, those before we meet Christ, those after we meet Christ. We are to avoid becoming like the Corinthian church whom Paul scolded for their stance on the couple involved in sin in their church. And after things were straightened out, Paul told them to re-instate with love.

It seems like every generation has a sin which they overlook because obviously it is just too impossible to expect the reality to change. Just because we live in a culture that accepts living together and adultery does not mean that the church should compromise. Instead we need to continue to lovingly encourage, admonish and direct participants to choose God's way, even if their heart is broken because they can no longer spend any time with the one person in the whole world who understands and loves them.

Perhaps the emphasis is in all the wrong place with all the conversion groups: NA, AA, OA, Exodus, ... We are not converted, we are transformed to live out our belief in a God bigger and greater than all our sins. A God who chose to become a man who was TEMPTED just like we are yet did not sin.

If we do not believe that and live that belief, how are we any different? How do we exemplify that we walk in The Way. Christ said something about it being a narrow path, that few find it. What does that mean in relation to all the besetting sins we struggle with as humans? We sin, we confess, we ask for others to hold us up in prayer that we make it through another day without falling into that sin again.

The difficulty in most every church setting is that we do not dare say, "I have sinned" because we do not have the practice established of saying, "yes, that was wrong, but God is greater than the sin and we will commit to pray for you now and in the future." Isn't that what James means in chapter 5?
"19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins."

That is what we are to do next ... believe in a God who hears and answers our prayers, a God who wants to hear how we fail and know that only HE can make it right again and go with us through the next temptation.

That is the difficult part for the church, whatever the sin, to say "we have sin, we will hold this person accountable, just as we lovingly hold our children accountable and will continue to point them to ways to resist the devil and to turn to Christ instead."
Once an alcoholic, always and alcoholic, but only the cruelest of people would insist that a dry alcoholic must have just one sip to be sociable.

When we have a besetting sin, then let's sit down and discuss what triggers the sin and empty out the refrigerator, refuse to carry around enough money for a hit of cocaine, or just drive by the liquor store this one time or hang out at a favorite place for picking up a one-night stand.

Takes a lot more energy to do all that, but somehow I keep thinking that the first century church actually believed Christ left them with the Holy Spirit to empower to do just that. Just wish I could see it happening.

Hmmm.... the point as far as I am concerned is not conversion to a life style but adherence to abstaining and choosing to do so as an act of obedience.
What one feels like doing does not have to dictate what one does --- not even under the argument that everyone wants to be loved.

Nor should we shrug off abstinence from this (or any other sin) as an impossible expectation. In doing so the message becomes, "I can't change so accept my sinful lifestyle and do not hold me accountable for that sin."
How is that any different from any other sin.
The sin is not the thought, or the compulsion. The sin is the action, compounded by becoming open proponents that others should do likewise.

Remember this long-term activist's experience and thoughts.
http://www.openweblog.com/users/jottingjoan/200...

yes. we need to listen to the ex-ex-gay Christians because they bear the wounds of the church. they are us. we are them. in Christ there is no longer gay or straight. we must be continually converted to Christ by the stranger/the other/the neighbor else we cling only to the idolatry of self.

i have many ex-ex gays in my congregation and there is such beauty and hope for us all in the fact that they, despite everything, still seek Christ in the body. they have every reason to stay away, yet they don't. the church should be grateful for that, for it is true mercy for us all.