Part 2 of: EXODUS INTERNATIONAL IS HISTORY!

Doomed From The Start

In the Summer of 1969, NYC police had been carrying out a series of raids on gay bars.  Gay men enraged by the harassment started a riot.  With the Stonewall Riots the modern gay rights movement began.  In 44 years gay activists, in America, have achieved more civil rights gains than any other minority people group ever has.   I came of age during the greatest backlash against the gay rights movement; The Reagan Era.  Beginning in the mid 70's and continuing through the 80's, conservative Christians started speaking out, loud and clear, against what they saw as a great Christian nation about to morally crash and burn.  Leaders like Anita Bryant, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and D. James Kennedy started taking steps they thought would straighten out Christian America.  Jerry Falwell, perhaps more than any other conservative Christian leader gave voice to what he and others of his ilk believed:

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

~ Jerry Falwell

Conservative Christians had found their voice.  And with Jerry Falwell they also got a grassroots religious Political Action Committee (PAC); "The Moral Majority".   The Moral Majority grew in membership and power nearly as fast as the gay rights movement, a decade before them.  The Moral Majority received the most credit for Ronald Reagan winning two terms in the White House.   Coming of age as a gay man, in the Reagan 80's was a frightening experience.  The Reagan era and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic sometimes seemed like the end of all hope for gay people.  The 70's and 80's, far from bringing down gay rights activism served as a refining crucible, and in the 90's the LGBT movement gained ground even faster than before.  The political activism of the Religious Right started to stall.  Religious activism fragmented, The Moral Majority closed up shop, and the heir apparent, "The Christian Coalition" was lost almost before it started.

  

When conservative Christians were confronted with gay activism at the end of the 60's and then by legalized abortion, they were deeply offended.  I can't think of two other issues which could have made Christians as mad as a kicked hornet's nest.  When God finally brought me to salvation through Christ Jesus one of the first questions I had for God was, "Why?"  I not only didn't understand why I was gay, but I didn't understand the Church which was supposed to belong to Christ.  God went to incredible lengths to come and find me.  God worked through the only person who could have brought me to saving faith in him.  I've talked about my own abusers/users, but have said little about the "brother monster" I was to my little sister.  I knew my sister could never forgive me.  I could never forgive the things dad and uncle monster had done to me, so I knew her forgiving me was impossible.  One night out of the blue my sister called me, told me she'd received Jesus Christ, and that she forgave me.   I was in terrible trouble.  I knew it was impossible for my sister to forgive me.  I knew the only way for her to forgive was for a higher power to give her that forgiveness for me.  I was an atheist, but now I had absolutely no doubt God existed.  God, despite the very best efforts of Christians to keep me away from salvation, got me anyway.

 

I've had a very unconventional Christian experience from the very beginning.  About 6 months after coming to Christ I thought I'd better find an Exodus chapter and join up.  I'm very thankful the only chapter close to me was 50 miles away, and I couldn't afford the gas for the 100 mile round trip each week.  But that wouldn't have made any difference anyway.  I never had a moments peace with the idea of approaching Exodus.  I kept clear, but did find a ministry outreach to men struggling with Same-Sex Attraction supported by a local church which was not Exodus affiliated.  I'd been truly free for about 5 years at the time, and hanging out with those "strugglers" was an incredible eye opener.  There was very little struggling, and a whole lot of sex and porn for these guys.  After the weekly meeting we'd go hang out a nearby restaurants for "fellowship".  During the meeting they all talked about their struggles, but at the restaurant it became more about their escapades.  When I talked about the freedom Christ had given me, they laughed and sneered at me.  It didn't hurt my feelings.  I'd never cared about what gay guys had said to me.  They weren't struggling, they weren't even trying, and they made no bones about it.  To this day I don't understand why these men bothered with this group.  They'd have been a great deal more honest if they'd skipped the restaurant and went to a hotel for an orgy. 

 

As the old saying goes, "You can't get blood out of a turnip."   These gay guys weren't ever going to change, because none of them knew how to be anything but gay.  Get a big group of Christians who want to leave homosexuality, put them in a room together, and you've got a dating service for religious gays, but not change.  When Exodus started the intent was to come along side church leaders to advise and guide them when dealing with same-sex attracted people.  The problem, of course, was that churches didn't want to be advised they wanted a place to dump LGBT people.  Exodus, instead of sticking its guns, caved, and Exodus hobbled along for far too long.   If Christians want to see change in the lives of Christians dealing with SSA then their going to have to get into the lives of these men and women.  The straight guys and gals, who've walked with Christ, and seen real change in their own lives are going to have to reach out and begin modeling, teaching, and leading SSA struggling Christians into healthy, God centered, God serving lives.

  

Like I said, I've had a very unconventional Christian walk.  While my fellow Christians were out picketing, politicking, and attacking LGBT people, "...for the glory of God," no less, I was busy asking a question..."WHY"?  Why had God removed his protective hand from America?  Why had God allowed America to legalize the mass murder of innocent unborn children?!  Why had God allowed gay activists to gain so much ground so fast.  I mean as a gay man, looking at gay activism from the inside, I was always amazed at what gay activists could accomplish.   And as a gay man gay activists and their power scared me to death.  I've never known such ruthless and mercenary people, gay activists.  "WHY!" nagged me all the time, and still does today.  There's another old saying, "Ignorance is bliss."  After God started giving me the answers to my questions, I learned the true meaning of "Ignorance is bliss."  I've actually prayed for God to put me back into ignorance, but God doesn't work that way.
 
I have known for years that the Church needs LGBT people more than LGBT people need the Church.  The Church wouldn't go into the gay enclaves and the back alleys where abortions took place, with the love, mercy and world overcoming grace of God.  So God let homosexuals and abortionists come out after the Christians.   You see homosexuality and abortion are mirrors God is holding up to the Church.  Our relationship with God has increasingly become a reflection of the kind of breakdown which come with abortion and homosexuality.  There is the loss of identity; loss of world overcoming faith and love, even for the worst of sinners; a loss of purpose and dynamic; a loss obedience to Christ's teaching; a loss of dedication to doing things God's way; a loss of understanding that we are aliens in a foreign world, and that no kingdom of the world is or could be Christs kingdom; and we've become blind, deaf, and hardhearted to the brokenness of sexually immoral people because instead of compassion and faith in the cross of Jesus Christ we are overcome with offense.  The Church will find her way back to God when she takes up the plight of least and allow God to love and overcome through them.  When confronted with what seems impossible, but God's love overcomes the impossible the result is incredibly life transforming. The world needs the love, mercy, grace, and eternal salvation of Jesus Christ, and the Church needs to, once again, take her place where God has called us to be.  "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  Jesus has called to join him in his yoke; become his coworker with him. 

What can I tell you, Christian?  Either become available for God's purposes, and dedicate yourself to working God's way, or be tossed onto the ash heap of history?   Of course, many, perhaps most of you, will disagree with what I say here, and/or excuse yourself from responsibility.  The only way to discover the truth of what I'm saying here is, ultimately, to do what I'm saying.
  
The end of Exodus International is an exciting opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ.  Exodus could never bring about the change God can bring through his Church.  As the Church learns again that God's love is a power, which cannot fail, to free people from the slave master, sin.   The change Exodus sought, but so rarely realized is achievable through Christ in his Church. 
 
If you want to become a billionaire you have to learn from people who already know how to amass wealth.  If you want to know freedom from homosexuality then you can't hang out with gay people, even religious gay people.  Freedom only comes from the heart of the One we are told is love; God.  With his Son, God established how he would work in the world, and how he would love the world to salvation through that Son, in his Church.  People cannot be segregated, because we don't like their sin, or because we, "don't know what to do."  Not knowing what to do is not an acceptable excuse to God.  God's love will either set us all free, or we'll all go down together.  It is a terrible sin to attempt to shift responsibility for loving broken people into a new kind of closet; Exodus.  Nice try, but Jesus will judge us for our unloving disobedience of his command, "Go!"  Jesus also told us, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."  Not only does God send Jesus to save the world, but also to establish how God will work in and through us.  Just as Jesus always did what Father wanted, precisely the way Father wanted it done, but so it must be for the Church of Jesus Christ.  We must follow the example of Jesus.  Not only do we answer the call to "Go", but we pursue that call by carrying it out the way Christ carried out Fathers call.  Like Jesus, "We can do nothing by ourselves, and we too will do only what we see the Father doing."