Evangelicals Concerned Inc.
"Are
You Tolerant? (Should You Be?)" by Daniel
Taylor, Christianity Today, January 11, 1999.
"When Clients Seek Treatment for Same-Sex
Attraction: Ethical Issues in the ‘Right to
Choose’ Debate" by Mark A. Yarhouse, Psychotherapy,
Summer 1998.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
He knows that it’s widely believed that "the greatest sinners [against tolerance] are evangelical and fundamentalist Christians." Though he’d "like to think" the charge is unfair, he says: "I hang around Christians too much. I hear too many sermons, too many Christian gurus … get too much Christian junk mail … to argue with a straight face that Christians are unfairly accused of intolerance. … Anyone raised in this subculture knows the stories, and many bear the wounds." He admits, too, that intolerant Christians "have been amazingly patient, even lethargic, about the evils of racism [many championed segregation] and positively resistant to righting the wrongs of sexism."
Defending his and other evangelicals’ intolerance of homosexuality, he says it’s unfair that "those accused of intolerance are usually thought to be guilty of … ignorance or callousness." But he recognizes the ignorance and callousness in past attitudes. Might it not also be ignorance and/or callousness in evangelical intolerance today? After all, they then had their (disputed) Bible verses for slavery and against integration and interracial marriage just as they now have their (disputed) Bible verses for sodomy laws and against acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage. They positioned themselves then as they do now: proud intolerance of the "unnatural" and "unbiblical."
If, as Taylor says, "God does not call us to be [merely] tolerant of our neighbors [but] to love them -- at least as much as we love ourselves," and if "Biblical love is always sacrificial love," and if "the simple fact is that people whose behavior we believe is sinful do not report that they feel loved -- or anything close to it," maybe it’s because some Christians are ignorant of and callous to deep biblical truth and the deep needs for sexual intimacy felt by homosexuals as much as by heterosexuals.
Yarhouse, who teaches counseling at the evangelical Regent University, accurately observes that psychotherapists trained in secular schools are often intolerant of evangelical Christian clients’ values. Not surprisingly, evangelicals are suspicious and avoidant of such therapists, seeking out, instead, therapists of their own faith communities. But if an evangelical with same-sex attraction consults a typically homophobic evangelical therapist, it can be a bad match. What if he or she consults a gay-affirming secular therapist? What does such a therapist owe a client who is distressed over same-sex attraction? Yarhouse argues that in terms of multicultural diversity and respect for clients’ values and autonomy, an admittedly expensive and long-term program of counseling aimed at changing homosexual orientation and/or behavior ("with no guarantee of ‘success’") should be offered.
But Yarhouse is too quick to dismiss the evangelical establishment’s coercion of gay members as well as their own internalized homophobia in prompting them to seek such change. He is naive in reporting that "success rates have ranged from between 25-50%" even when he adds "at best." These rates are meaningless since, as he says, "definitions of ‘success’ vary significantly" and "success [in older change-oriented therapies] was often measured by self-report and therapist-report, which are susceptible to over-reporting of positive outcomes and under-reporting of negative outcomes." He also notes "the dearth of controlled outcome studies." He acknowledges that "few researchers today publish [change] studies" and even in these, he says, there are issues of "how to interpret continuing experiences of same-sex attractions and arousal" in the "successes." He cautions that the Exodus-type "ex-gay" groups "are often affordable, but there is little empirical evidence at this time that they are effective." He warns of other risks as well: "The financial investment may pale in comparison to the emotional investment, especially depending upon the expectations of the client." Failure to change "may lead to anger and resentment … directed inward (taking the form of depression or suicidality), or [it] may be directed at the therapist, family members, society, God, the church, support groups, and so on." He avers that such clients may go on instead "to integrate their experience of same-sex attraction into a gay identity" but that "In any case," he concludes, "clients should have the opportunity to make informed decisions … [after] frank discussion of possible outcomes." Indeed.
Yarhouse teaches at Pat Robertson’s university! Does his honesty in acknowledging such dismal outcomes of professional and peer "treatment" to change homosexuality hint at a weakening of evangelical ignorance and callousness when it comes to homosexuality?