Christian ministry under threat...

[Paidiske]

So it is also evil to say to a homosexual that it is acceptable for them to engage in sexual relations with anyone other than a spouse of the opposite sex who they married lawfully. We do not have the right to change the inspired Scriptures based on changing cultural values, or to ignore the parts we dislike, as some liberal clergy advocate, for example, Rev. Jeremy, whose last name I forget, of First Methodist Church in Seattle, as I am sure you agree.

This does not bear any relation to what I am saying, though. Refraining from conversion therapy does not mean we give people carte blanche in terms of sexual morality.

Furthermore, you previously stated that praying for the deliverance of a person from the passion of lust, and the monastic practice thereof, is not conversion therapy.

Provided that it's about lust, in general, and not about trying to make a gay person straight, that's correct.

which cannot be considered evil

It might, however, be considered unwise, given the whole context.

I need to see the data you have on conversion therapy to see how they defined it and whether or not they factored in such things as Eastern Orthodox monasticism.

I have linked to a number of resources through the thread. I do not recall specific mention of EO monasticism as harmful in my reading, but nor do I recall that any practices undertaken in that context have been found efficacious in terms of changing sexual orientation or gender identity. It is possible that more study might be useful, but in the meantime, I would have to suggest that any such attempt is not more likely to succeed in that setting than elsewhere.

We can't sheet all of the blame on this to big non-denom megachurches; harmful practices have flourished in all sorts of contexts.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't object to anyone quoting Scripture, but I may object to particular ways in which people understand the Scriptures.

I do not, for example, accept a simple equivalence of attraction, desire and lust. I think each of those things is quite distinct, and I think much of the issue here is that people are equating attraction (finding someone or something pleasing or appealing), with desire (the will to act in particular ways). Yet I can find someone attractive and yet have no desire (will) to do anything improper with them.

We are on the same page, almost. The only difference is that I regard lust and the desire for sexual relations to be synonymous. This is based on our Lord saying that a married person who desires carnal knowledge of someone other than their spouse has committed adultery in their heart.

Attraction is completely legitimate, provided it is non sexual. For example, it is natural for parents to find their children attractive, and for adults to find other human beings and animals attractive, as well as all aspects of God’s creation. I would argue we are meant to be attracted to everything God has created, because attraction facilitates love, and we should love all of creation, especially life, and especially every human life. This attraction as you say is finding someone or something pleasing and appealing. And as you say we can have attraction without the desire for inappropriate relations.

For example, I find my Dodge Charger R/T with its V8 Hemi and superb gas mileage on the highway very attractive, yet I have no desire for a romantic relationship with it. Likewise with my computers. And even more attractive is my mother, and my relatives. My cousins are beautiful. My first girlfriend, Rachel, who is recovering from breast cancer, who was my girlfriend when I was 15 and 16 and she was a year younger, who is now single, has two beautiful boys, aged 8 and 14, who resemble her and her mother Christa. Their family has beautiful noses. Every member of my congregation is beautiful to me. I do not lust after any of them. Indeed I would rather die than engage in sexual relations with any of the above, and if someone attempted to force me into such at gunpoint, I would recite the creed in the hope of receiving a crown of martyrdom.

Lust would be if desired carnal knowledge of any of these people or things, and concupiscence would be if I engaged in such relations or fantasized about them in an inappropriate manner while engaging in an act which is one of the two possibilities for the sin committed by Onan. Thus, inappropriate contentography exists to stimulate the passion of lust and to enable concupiscence without the necessity of another participant or while engaged in relations even with one’s lawful spouse while fantasizing about someone else.

Do you follow?

 

[The Liturgist]

I have linked to a number of resources through the thread. I do not recall specific mention of EO monasticism as harmful in my reading, but nor do I recall that any practices undertaken in that context have been found efficacious in terms of changing sexual orientation or gender identity. It is possible that more study might be useful, but in the meantime, I would have to suggest that any such attempt is not more likely to succeed in that setting than elsewhere.

If you could do me a solid and link me to the 2009 study you referenced, or just repost all the links, that would really help me, as I am still in severe pain.

Likewise I can produce case studies of persons delivered from the passion of homosexual lust in Eastern Orthodoxy, and possibly in Oriental Orthodoxy, although the smaller size of the Oriental Orthodox communion makes case studies harder to track down, and likewise those who were blessed with heterosexual romantic desire and were able to marry.

I believe @tall73 and @Carl Emerson have already provided case studies. Perhaps we should take a step back and review the data.

 

[Paidiske]

Do you follow?

I think our understanding of the terms is close, if not precisely the same. The key point I was making though, is that I do not see one's sexual orientation as being inextricably lustful.

If you could do me a solid and link me to the 2009 study you referenced, or just repost all the links, that would really help me, as I am still in severe pain.

I will demur until after Sunday, because I am now running against the clock with everything to be done in coming days and I'm not keen to go back through and find all the things.

I believe @tall73 and @Carl Emerson have already provided case studies. Perhaps we should take a step back and review the data.

I have not seen reputable reports of successful conversion therapy. Peer-reviewed scientific journals would be a minimum standard for such an extraordinary claim. Random YouTube videos would not.

 

[The Liturgist]

Provided that it's about lust, in general, and not about trying to make a gay person straight, that's correct

Indeed, but if you eliminate lust you eliminate homosexuality, which as I have explained is a result of the confusion of normal attraction with sexual attraction, or to put it another way, a desire to have sex with what one is attracted to.

This does not bear any relation to what I am saying, though. Refraining from conversion therapy does not mean we give people carte blanche in terms of sexual morality.

Indeed, and I support refraining from conversion therapy, as I have defined it. I believe for conversion therapy there are multiple requirements: basically, the first requirement is that a group seeks to change the sexuality of persons either to heterosexual or homosexual, or to change their gender self-identification either to the correct God-given gender as indicated by their natural anatomy and DNA, or to the incorrect gender (note this does not apply in the case of intersexed individuals or hermaphrodites, who unfortunately are born with a birth defect resulting in ambiguous genitalia and are very often infertile).

Secondly the group needs must use manipulative or dishonest tactics or shaming in order to convince people to undergo the “therapy.”

Thirdly, the group must have a methodology, which usually involves behavioral conditioning as outlined by the American psychologist BF Skinner, which was shown to be obsolete in favor of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It can also involve bogus exorcisms and weird occult practices masquerading as Christian or other religious practices.

It is the last category which makes it therapy, per se, because it is the bogus psuedoscientific or superstitious element which defines the therapeutic standard.

Prayer at the request of an individual does not meet this requirement.

It might, however, be considered unwise, given the whole context.

Indeed, it is unwise unless safety protocols such as the ones I have outlined are undertaken.

However I believe we are extremely close to a consensus.

 

[Paidiske]

Indeed, but if you eliminate lust you eliminate homosexuality, which as I have explained is a result of the confusion of normal attraction with sexual attraction, or to put it another way, a desire to have sex with what one is attracted to.

The point, though, is that working to overcome lust, without making it about orientation change, is not conversion therapy.

Secondly the group needs must use manipulative or dishonest tactics or shaming in order to convince people to undergo the “therapy.”

Here we disagree. There are people who offer or attempt conversion therapy without being manipulative or dishonest, but out of genuine (if misguided) desire to bring about good.

It is the last category which makes it therapy, per se, because it is the bogus psuedoscientific or superstitious element which defines the therapeutic standard.

Here we disagree too, because - even as we have seen in reflected in this thread - there are loose and informally defined practices which still amount to an attempt to change someone's sexuality or gender identity.

Indeed, it is unwise unless safety protocols such as the ones I have outlined are undertaken.

Even with such protocols I would have concerns.

However I believe we are extremely close to a consensus.

I think so. I am, perhaps, more cautious in drawing the boundaries, but you at least see the need for the boundaries.

 

[The Liturgist]

I have not seen reputable reports of successful conversion therapy. Peer-reviewed scientific journals would be a minimum standard for such an extraordinary claim. Random YouTube videos would not.

Right, but we’ve already established at least in the case of Orthodoxy that we aren’t talking about conversion therapy.

Also, scientific journals can be biased, and any analysis would be based on statistics. It would not take into account isolated incidents, however, these isolated incidents are sufficient to show that the passion of lust can be conquered, and in its place healthy sexuality introduced.

And the claim surely is not extraordinary. You know, homosexuality is rare in Orthodox populations outside of Greece, especially among the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians. I have never heard of a gay Copt, Armenian, Syriac Orthodox or Assyrian, although I am sure that small numbers exist. I believe that this is because of the moral values and piety of these communities. This is not to say they aren’t sinners, but rather, the continual persecution endured under the Muslims, the Communists, and now Putin’s fratricidal war in which he is forcing Christians under the Moscow Patriarchate in the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, which are the largest religions in their respective countries and are analogous to the Province of Canterbury and the Province of York in the Anglican communion, has imparted a spiritual strength to Eastern Christians.

I believe it was either St. Polycarp or St. Irenaeus who said that the church is most beautifully alive when its members receive the crown of martyrdom.

At any rate, I propose that Orthodox spirituality in its fullness has the effect of curtailing homosexuality, not completely but to a large extent, because of its non-forensic, clinical approach to sin, where sin is viewed as a disease rather than a crime, and its focus on conquering the passions from which sins are produced.

 

[Paidiske]

Right, but we’ve already established at least in the case of Orthodoxy that we aren’t talking about conversion therapy.

Let me rephrase that. Peer-reviewed scientific publication would be the minimum reputable source I would require to accept any claim of successful change of desire from homosexual to heterosexual, or of sense of gender identity from transgendered to cis-gendered.

Also, scientific journals can be biased, and any analysis would be based on statistics. It would not take into account isolated incidents, however, these isolated incidents are sufficient to show that the passion of lust can be conquered, and in its place healthy sexuality introduced.

It's not necessarily true that isolated incidents would be overlooked, but if they were dramatically outweighed by accounts of trauma and poor mental health outcomes, that would still be good reason to avoid the practices under discussion.

And the claim surely is not extraordinary.

"Extraordinary" might be subjective, but it'd be pretty extraordinary to me.

I believe that this is because of the moral values and piety of these communities.

Not because it's safer to be in the closet, in those communities?

 

[The Liturgist]

The point, though, is that working to overcome lust, without making it about orientation change, is not conversion therapy.

Indeed, we agree, and we agree conversion therapy is bad. Where we do not have concord yet is in my opinion that the law in New Zealand is overbroad.

Here we disagree. There are people who offer or attempt conversion therapy without being manipulative or dishonest, but out of genuine (if misguided) desire to bring about good.

Actually, we agree - the people are being manipulative and/or dishonest, but not consciously. They are in a state of Prelest, a Church Slavonic word meaning spiritual delusion. We often hear the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Prelest is an example of that.

I will demur until after Sunday, because I am now running against the clock with everything to be done in coming days and I'm not keen to go back through and find all the things.

Me too actually. We don’t really have time to debate this, nor should we, during the Paschal Triduum.

Even with such protocols I would have concerns.

If you outline those concerns I would be prepared to further revise this protocol in order to ensure maximum safety if this request happens, and to place it as a canon in the nomocanon adapted from the Pedalion which serves as the rule book for my congregations, which I can also provide to you for inspection.

Here we disagree too, because - even as we have seen in reflected in this thread - there are loose and informally defined practices which still amount to an attempt to change someone's sexuality or gender identity.

Actually, once again we do not, but I gave the false impressiom that we did, because in hastily writing the reply I failed to consider the existence of these.

My point is there must be practices, driven by some belief that if you take a homosexual as input, provide some sort of bogus therapy, and get a heterosexual as output, and if the system fails to work it is because the homosexual did not try hard enough or was not sincere.

 

[Paidiske]

If you outline those concerns I would be prepared to further revise this protocol in order to ensure maximum safety if this request happens, and to place it as a canon in the nomocanon adapted from the Pedalion which serves as the rule book for my congregations, which I can also provide to you for inspection.

Basically, my concern would be that any prayer which directly requests a change of sexual orientation or gender identity (whether expressed in those or equivalent words) would reinforce all of the damaging and religiously-freighted tropes about people dealing with those issues. My recommendation would be to make prayers in such situations more general - seeking God's blessing on and will for that person, seeking the wisdom and courage to walk in integrity, etc etc - without specifying exactly how God should do that. And trusting in God's grace to know what that person needs and can bear.

My point is there must be practices, driven by some belief that if you take a homosexual as input, provide some sort of bogus therapy, and get a heterosexual as output, and if the system fails to work it is because the homosexual did not try hard enough or was not sincere.

I'm not sure it even needs to be quite that blunt. Any belief that if the system fails to work the person continues in a state seen as defective, less-than, dishonourable, etc etc, would be adequate to be problematic.

 

[Carl Emerson]

It seems clear to me that you will have to do more work on coming to agreement on definition.

Please can we adjourn and take more care over this important matter - you are both under time pressure.

 

[The Liturgist]

Not because it's safer to be in the closet, in those communities?

No, because the Orthodox and Assyrians do not practice shunning or honor killings. Indeed the Orthodox Church is the only church which still observes the ancient canon laws, which include a canon that states if a priest strikes anyone in an attempt to induce repentance or for other reasons they are to be deposed.

I do know of homosexual Eastern Orthodox, and they have not reported mistreatment. Indeed I conducted thorough analysis to determine if the people are actually in the closet as opposed to being straight and concluded that while there are some in the closet, they are fewer in number. More research is needed to verify this data, but experientially at least, it is rare. One would expect to see, as one sees in Roman Catholicism, a more vocal pro-homosexual lobby.

As it happens, there is but one major group, in the Eastern Orthodox Church only, which is called Axios, which is the proclamation used when ordaining priests, bishops and other clergy, meaning “He is worthy!” And the members of this group have not been excommunicated.

The Eastern Churches really are extremely kind and gentle. I believe your negative experiences with them are unusual or perhaps the result of misunderstanding. People like John Macarthur or Mark Dever or the 9Marks people I have told you about are much stricter and more severe, as are I would argue most Protestant denominations, because like in the Roman Catholic Church, which is also more strict, there is not a concept of oikonomia and the canons are understood not as rules but as guidelines. There is no Sunday mass obligation that must be fulfilled, there is no mandatory penance with confession, there are no automatic excommunications or automatic excommunications reserved to the primate unlike in the Roman church, and you cannot be disfellowshipped unless you are anathematized, which is extremely extremely rare, and even someone under anathema can repent and be readmitted. I don’t know of anyone being anathematized in their person for the last 50 years or so. There is also no concept of “church discipline” as understood by groups like 9Marks. Priests who are authorized to hear confessions can absolve all sins (in the Greek and Antiochian churches, you can tell these priests apart because they wear an epigonation, a diamond shaped shield which attaches to their phelonion (chasuble), but in Northern Slavonic churches like the MP, which you can always identify because in these churches Metropolitans outrank Archbishops rather than vice versa), the epigonation is an award for service and most priests can hear confessions due to the high frequency with which one is supposed to confess in those churches).

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm not sure it even needs to be quite that blunt. Any belief that if the system fails to work the person continues in a state seen as defective, less-than, dishonourable, etc etc, would be adequate to be problematic.

I agree.

Basically, my concern would be that any prayer which directly requests a change of sexual orientation or gender identity (whether expressed in those or equivalent words) would reinforce all of the damaging and religiously-freighted tropes about people dealing with those issues. My recommendation would be to make prayers in such situations more general - seeking God's blessing on and will for that person, seeking the wisdom and courage to walk in integrity, etc etc - without specifying exactly how God should do that. And trusting in God's grace to know what that person needs and can bear.

But my problem is that if they directly request such a prayer, since the request is not evil, I cannot ethically refuse it. So all precautions need to surround the prayer.

I would be prepared to divide the process into two phases, first, a prayer for delivery from lust, and guidance towards that end, and if they felt they had conquered that passion but found themselves devoid of sexual attraction, and they desired matrimony, a prayer that they be granted such. And to do this with all additional safeguards.

The thing about praying for God’s will is that we already know that it is the will of God that they be delivered from homosexuality; we do not know if He desires them for celibacy or matrimony, but we do know that he does not want them to be homosexual. For as the Book of Common Prayer says, “God desireth not the death of a sinner.”

 

[The Liturgist]

It seems clear to me that you will have to do more work on coming to agreement on definition.

Please can we adjourn and take more care over this important matter - you are both under time pressure.

Indeed, we are entering the Triduum and today for me is Maundy Thursday.

So the ideal time to work this out would be next week.

By the way @Paidiske I still want to do the Divine Office project we discussed and I desperately want you on the LiturgyWorks team to increase diversity, because right now we have only one female member, who is chairman of the sacred music committee.

 

[Paidiske]

No, because the Orthodox and Assyrians do not practice shunning or honor killings.

Hmm. From what I have witnessed, I am not sure that there are not adverse relational repercussions for people in this regard.

But my problem is that if they directly request such a prayer, since the request is not evil, I cannot ethically refuse it.

You cannot exercise discretion in how you pray for someone? Really?

By the way @Paidiske I still want to do the Divine Office project we discussed and I desperately want you on the LiturgyWorks team to increase diversity, because right now we have only one female member, who is chairman of the sacred music committee.

Talk to me after Monday! I have to go wash feet.

 

[The Liturgist]

Hmm. From what I have witnessed, I am not sure that there are not adverse relational repercussions for people in this regard.

Well, there are no honor killings or church-sanctioned shunnings like Scientology style disconnection, or the way the Bahai Faith treats “covenant breakers”* or the way the Amish and Mennonites and Chassidic Jews practice shunning. Now, families of people who out themselves are likely to be upset, but that is hardly unique to Orthodoxy; I would be extremely upset if any of my relatives declared themselves to be perverts, but I would myself control and suppress the anger so that I could work towards facilitating metanoia.

By the way, the ancient canons which as guidelines still inform the Eastern Orthodox church impose penances on married couples who engage in arsenokoetia that are more than twice as long in duration (St. John the Faster prescribes for homosexual men who commit arsenokoetia a penance of three years of abstinence from the Eucharist, with either 200 or 300 prostrations per day and xerophagy (eating only bread and water) between sunset and sunrise.

You cannot exercise discretion in how you pray for someone? Really?

Forgive me, because this seems to me, unless I am missing something, is a bit of a red herring, but yes, of course I can. However, I am required ethically to pray for anything which is good. My discretion is limited to discerning whether a prayer request is good or evil and if it is good, how best to pray for it, which is why as I said I could if requested by a homosexual to pray for their conversion initially pray that they be delivered from the sinful passion of lust, and then once lust is dealt with, they will no longer lust for strange flesh, and if they feel that they may be called to Holy Matrimony but are devoid of romantic interests, I can pray that if they are called to Holy Matrimony, they become interested in women.

I don’t see how this two stage approach could possibly be considered conversion therapy, because you have already conceded that prayers for someone to be delivered from lust are not conversion therapy, and the second phase, if they are delivered from lust, leaves it up to God’s will if they have a vocation for Holy Matrimony to allow them to become interested in women in the undesired absence of romantic interest.

At any rate, I shall talk to you in Gregorian Bright Week, which is Coptic and Julian Holy Week, as I myself have feet to wash and a vesperal liturgy with tenebrae to serve, followed by a presanctified liturgy and the Royal Hours and Holy Sepulchre service on Great and Holy Friday.

*The Bahai religion, like Mormonism, has very nice people, and has been horribly persecuted in Persia, its native land, but it is a nasty cult and I pray that it fails so the Christian Church can get its beautiful temples and consecrate them, the same goes for Christian Science which is a terrible cult, worse than the Bahai, with a beautiful Byzantine style Mother Church in Boston; fortunately they are already dying off, and the Unitarian Universalists, who unfortunately are growing, and even worse, own some of the most beautiful and historic churches in New England, which they stole from the Congregationalists when they committed apostasy, and then took over and apostasized the Universalist church, which was heterodox only in respect to their universalism, which is a widely held error particularly common in Eastern Orthodoxy, for example, the noted scholar Dr. David Bentley Hart, who wrote the brilliant refutation of Dawkins, cheekily entitled The Atheist Delusion, is a Universalist. Indeed a higher percentage of Eastern Orthodox are universalists than I think any other religion despite it having been anathematized at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and Dr. Hart has not been excommunicated. Indeed there are Universalist priests. Of course I am sure we botj agree Universalism is an error, although we can hope and pray for Apokatastasis, but as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware wrote, the one thing God cannot force us to do is love Him, because true love is reciprocal.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I disagree with that, because Christians have prayed for the repentance of sinners and the conversion of non-believers for, as far as we know, the entire history of the Church.

The sole exception is we do not pray for the devil, for reasons explained by His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, an English convert to the Greek Orthodox church: he asked a fellow bishop known for being an admirer of St. Gregory of Nyssa, in an attempt to strike up a conversation during a six hour drive, “If, as St. Gregory of Nyssa suggests, even the devil might be saved, why is it that we don’t pray for him?” The Greek bishop simply answered “Mind your own business” which His Eminence regarded as a good answer, because Satan is our adversary and whatever future plans God might have for the devil and the demons are neither known to us, nor are they frankly our concern or our business.

Because repentance and conversion are achieved by the work of the Holy Spirit, prayer for the person for whom we desire repentance and conversion is still directed to God, and not used as a direct "force" to induce the person to repent and be converted. Just because we pray for an unconverted person doesn't mean that they will automatically be converted as the result of our prayer.

What I object to is someone telling a person, "I am praying for you" as if they can get God to side with the "prayer" to force the latter's will on them. in other words it is "I demand that you do what I want you to do and I am praying that God will make you do it."

 

[The Liturgist]

Because repentance and conversion are achieved by the work of the Holy Spirit, prayer for the person for whom we desire repentance and conversion is still directed to God, and not used as a direct "force" to induce the person to repent and be converted. Just because we pray for an unconverted person doesn't mean that they will automatically be converted as the result of our prayer.

What I object to is someone telling a person, "I am praying for you" as if they can get God to side with the "prayer" to force the latter's will on them. in other words it is "I demand that you do what I want you to do and I am praying that God will make you do it."

Ok, I don’t know anyone who does that, but maybe that’s because I move solely in the circles of the most traditional liturgical churches where the average age of the standard hymns is about 1,200 years.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Are you responding to a question, a members comment, can you clarify?

What I mean is that there is a difference between making a request to God through prayer, respecting God's sovereignty, and using prayer as some kind of force to exert one's will on another person. For example, "Homosexuality is wrong and I am going to pray for you right now that you will change your sexual orientation to what I think it should be." This is equivalent to casting a spell on someone to achieve an expected result.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Because repentance and conversion are achieved by the work of the Holy Spirit, prayer for the person for whom we desire repentance and conversion is still directed to God, and not used as a direct "force" to induce the person to repent and be converted. Just because we pray for an unconverted person doesn't mean that they will automatically be converted as the result of our prayer.

What I object to is someone telling a person, "I am praying for you" as if they can get God to side with the "prayer" to force the latter's will on them. in other words it is "I demand that you do what I want you to do and I am praying that God will make you do it."

If this is a common problem, do you think 'conversion therapy' is widespread?