Courage founder: “Gay cure” not possible ; The Belfast based man who believes he can help gay people turn straight ; Gay clergy banned in Australia; Was Jesus gay? Probably – by Paul Oestreicher; ‘The Vatican has told them to get rid of me’ ; Welsh Vicar quits Church over homophobia; Wrestling with the Church
Courage founder: “Gay cure” not possible
Jeremy Marks who founded Courage in the UK to help gays and lesbians overcome homosexuality writes ‘I began to think that perhaps we’d got it really wrong.’ in
The Guardian:
In the 1980s, I started a group called Courage, to “cure” homosexuality. Although today the “ex-gay” ministry seems offensive, back then it was cutting edge, in that we were reaching out to the gay community. The rest of the church just said, “You’re wasting your time, they’re going to go to hell.” We didn’t have a “deliverance” approach, but there were some ministries that regarded homosexuals as being possessed by a demonic spirit that could be cast out. We adopted the psychoanalytic idea of an unfortunate family background: distant father, overbearing mother – and this was just a boy looking for a father’s love. The idea was that if placed in an affirming male environment, you’d grow out of your desires.
I’d known I was gay from about the age of 13. I got on well with girls, but I didn’t feel the sexual chemistry I felt when I watched Richard Chamberlain in Dr Kildare. In those days you could never talk about it. It was a lonely, frightening world. …. By the end of the 1990s, the only ones doing well were those who’d accepted they were gay and found a partner. It was as if a great burden had been shifted, that they thought, “Now at last I know who I am. I know I’m in love with somebody and they love me.” I thought, this is the kind of result we hoped they’d achieve living an upright Christian life, but they’re finding that contentment just being themselves. I began to think that perhaps we’d got it really wrong.
I still run Courage, but now it’s with a belief that you can be gay and Christian. We offer a chance to meet other gay Christians and support committed same-sex relationships. It’s been difficult for my wife, because she’s naturally very concerned that I might therefore decide, “That’s it, I want to go and find a man.” But we’re coming up to retirement age and I wouldn’t feel happy just to leave her – feeling abandoned after all we’ve been through together. Ours may not be the traditional heterosexual romance, but the care for one another’s wellbeing is just as real. I try not to look back, but I know I’ve missed out in a big way – and so has she.
She should have been with some heterosexual guy who adored her, as she should be adored
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/20/i-tried-to-cure-gay-people
The Belfast based man who believes he can help gay people turn straight
Telegraph -“ I don’t want to be outrageous,” says Dr Mike Davidson softly – but it is hard to believe him. The 57-year-old Christian counsellor and campaigner has upset a lot of people lately, with his claims that homosexuals can become straight if they get enough help, therapy and prayer. The doctor has been called deluded and his work condemned as “inflammatory, homophobic and harmful”.
The Mayor of London has just banned advertisements that Davidson and his allies planned to put on the sides of buses, declaring: “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!” They were meant to mirror a campaign by the gay rights group Stonewall, but Boris Johnson pulled the ads after taking offence at the suggestion he saw within them.
“It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone can recover from,” said Johnson, who feared “a backlash so intense it would not have been in the interests of Christian people in this city”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9218545/The-man-who-believes-he-can-help-gay-people-turn-straight.html
Gay clergy banned in Australia
The Church of England Newspaper – April 22 -The annual meeting of the Australian church’s House of Bishops in Melbourne has adopted a protocol reaffirming the church’s position banning the ordination and deployment of non-celibate gay clergy.
On 29 March 2012 Anglican Media Sydney posted to its website the statement adopted by the meeting. It noted that “in comparison with other Bishops meetings, especially those associated with the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Australian agreement is being seen as a conservative stance.”
The protocols “express the common mind of the bishops as determined by consensus at our National Meeting” the bishops wrote, noting that they had agreed to “abide by them and renew this commitment annually by consensus.”
The bishops said they “accept the weight of 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 and the 2004 General Synod resolutions 33, 59 and 61-64 as expressing the mind of this church on issues of human sexuality.”
They “undertake to uphold the position of our Church in regard to human sexuality as we ordain, license, authorise or appoint to ministries within our dioceses.”
And they “understand that issues of sexuality are subject to ongoing conversation within our Church and we undertake to support these conversations, while seeking to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
In a statement given to Eternity magazine, a spokesman for the primate, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall said “In effect it is an undertaking not to ordain, license, authorise or appoint persons whom the bishop knows to be in a sexual relationship outside of marriage.”
Spokesman for Changing Attitude Australia did not respond to a request for comments, nor did the Bishop of Gippsland whose licencing of a partnered gay priest to a parish living last year prompted sharp criticism. Bishop John McIntyre told the ABC radio service the appointment of a partnered gay priest did not violate the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution on human sexuality, “because I didn’t actually ordain this man. He was ordained over 30 years ago in the diocese of Melbourne.”
The new protocol, however, clarifies the understanding of the issues for the Australian church as it forbids the call and employment of clergy whose personal lives do not conform to the church’s teaching on marriage and sexual relations.
Was Jesus gay? Probably
By Canon Paul Oestreicher, Guardian – I preached on Good Friday that Jesus’s intimacy with John suggested he was gay as I felt deeply it had to be addressed
Preaching on Good Friday on the last words of Jesus as he was being executed makes great spiritual demands on the preacher. The Jesuits began this tradition. Many Anglican churches adopted it. Faced with this privilege in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington, my second home, I was painfully aware of the context, a church deeply divided worldwide over issues of gender and sexuality. Suffering was my theme. I felt I could not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at the hands of the church, over many centuries.
Was that divisive issue a subject for Good Friday? For the first time in my ministry I felt it had to be. Those last words of Jesus would not let me escape. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple. ‘Behold your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”
That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm, loved in a special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three women but only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his execution. That man clearly had a unique place in the affection of Jesus. In all classic depictions of the Last Supper, a favourite subject of Christian art, John is next to Jesus, very often his head resting on Jesus’s breast. Dying, Jesus asks John to look after his mother and asks his mother to accept John as her son. John takes Mary home. John becomes unmistakably part of Jesus’s family.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/20/was-jesus-gay-probably?
Father Bernard Lynch: ‘The Vatican has told them to get rid of me’
The Independent – Today, his ministry includes counselling gay priests who are in the closet in a Church that describes homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered”. Yet he claims that as many as 50 per cent of Catholic clergy are gay. It is an example of how this
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/father-bernard-lynch-the-vatican-has-told-them-to-get-rid-of-me-7619004.html
Welsh Vicar quits Church over homophobia
ATV – A Vicar in Wales has quit the Church claiming his decision was prompted by homophobia within the religion.
Reverend Andrew Morton has decided to quit the Church over homophobia within the religious organisation especially relating to the current debate over same-sex marriages. The coalition government is holding a public consultation on introducing civil marriages for gay and lesbian couples but it is an issue that has divided the Church. The Catholic Church and the Church of England are officially opposed to the ideas but there are those within both organisations who are less hostile to the plans. Other religious groups such as Quakers, Liberal Jews and Pagans have openly welcomed the plans though argue they should go further and allow religious gay marriages as well.
http://www.atvtoday.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4259:welsh-vicar-quits-church-over-homophobia&catid=5:lgbt&Itemid=11
Wrestling with the Church As an African-American Transgender Woman
Huffington Post – As an African-American transgender woman, I am spiritually sensitive and truthful, yet many religious organizations and churches reject and ostracize the transgender individual. Many churches claim that the life of the transgender person is doomed and headed to hell. The accusation of the church is that the transgender person lives in darkness and shame.
I was raised in a strict, Christian home by God-fearing parents, with the love and support of a strong church family. The Bible, the word of God, was our guide to following the teachings of Jesus Christ. As a family we were deeply involved in the church and were taught to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ. I enjoyed my 18 years in the church, because it taught me to be truthful and honest, to treat others with love, and to always love the Lord.
I knew even during this time, from the age of 6, that I was a different bird and a special child, but I did not have the knowledge to identify my inner feelings, which I now recognize as confusion around my gender identity. The church says transgender people are living a life of deceit and untruthfulness, against God’s will, according to the Holy Word of God. Religious leaders and pastors have told me many times that the fact that I’m transgender will bring shame on the church and be offensive to many within the church body. But my response has always been this: how can truth and light be wrong in any individual’s life?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-newman/church-religion-african-american-transgender_b_1354437.html