Testimony originally posted on the Exodus website:
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Transforming A Worldview
By Rev. Karen Booth, Executive Director of Transforming Congregations*
Since many folk involved in Exodus-related ministries have struggled with same-sex attraction, I have been asked many times if that is true of me. It isn’t. My desires and behaviors since my adolescent years have been consistently heterosexual. In the past, however, those desires and behaviors haven’t been pure; I’ve hurt myself and I’ve wounded others through sexual sin, and I praise God that He has forgiven and freed and healed me.
I’ve also had a major transformation occur in my worldview regarding homosexuality. For the first two decades of my adult life – from my early twenties to mid-forties – I was on the “pro-gay,” or accomodationist side. I attended a very liberal seminary, so even in my early pastoral assignments I was quietly and uncritically accepting of homosexual desire and behavior. I thought I knew what Scripture taught, and I believed it to be entirely condemnatory. If the choice was only between condemnation and uncritical acceptance, I thought the latter was the most loving Christian response.
I also thought that I knew what science said about the subject. I believed the conventional wisdom that homosexuality is genetically predetermined and that folk with same-sex tendencies were destined to act on them. If that were true, then wouldn’t it be completely unfair of God to deem such behavior a sin?
On a personal level, I also had close friends and family members who were gay or lesbian. They were wonderful and loving people and it would have been extremely difficult to tell them that what they were doing was wrong. And finally I had my own past to contend with. Ten years ago, I hadn’t yet completely dealt with my own brokenness or the wreckage I had caused in other lives. How could I point the finger at anyone else?
Then in 1994, God began to challenge my pro-gay worldview. As with many liberals, I gave more authority to personal experience than I did to Scripture. So, God brought an old seminary friend back into my life. Mark (not his real name) was attending the same conference I was, and one afternoon he asked me out to lunch. He’d been openly gay at school, but now he proceeded to tell me how Jesus had freed and healed him. He had been happily married for several years and was in the process of starting a family. I was completely stunned and didn’t really believe him at first. But Mark kept at me until I had to give serious consideration to his story.
Many people respond to worldview shakeup by retrenching and by becoming even more narrowly fundamental in their thinking; I’m the kind of person who gets intrigued and has to find out more. So I started reading books and articles about homosexuality from the evangelical/transforming perspective, books by folk like Joe Dallas, Mario Bergner and John and Anne Paulk. That led me to Exodus International and shortly thereafter I went to my first national conference at Gordon Conwell College in Massachusetts. Amidst some of the most profound worship I have ever experienced, I listened and watched as hundreds of men and women committed themselves to finding freedom from homosexuality. Their stories convinced me that my friend Mark’s experience wasn’t just a fluke.
I still didn’t entirely trust Scripture, so I turned next to science. Digging beyond the superficial media reports, I discovered that there is no proven genetic link to homosexuality. I learned that the scientific studies that have been done – for example those with male and female identical twins – show more of an environmental than biological cause for same-sex behavior and preference. Since I was a biology major long ago in my undergrad days, God knew exactly how to reach me using this approach, too.
When I was finally ready to give credence to Scripture, God had someone all lined up waiting for me. That someone was Jim Gentile, my predecessor in this ministry. He came to Delaware to do a workshop on sexual healing, and there he shared the truth and promise of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Through this godly man, I heard for the first time that there is something in Scripture besides condemnation for the homosexual person. There is the hope, the possibility, and the reality of change. And I finally understood that God is calling the church to respond with something other than accommodation on the one hand, or hatred and fear on the other. Instead, He’s inviting us to join Him in a most exciting adventure – offering His transformational, merciful, miraculous and amazing grace to same-sex strugglers and the people who love them.
I share this testimony in the hopes that it will encourage all of us to “keep on keeping on.” Transformed lives are what God desires. Transformed lives are what people need. And transformed lives are what will convince a skeptical world.
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* Transforming Congregations merged with Exodus last summer.
About Randy Thomas
I’m having trouble with the use of the word change in this article. Exodus leaders are always saying that the media get them wrong when the refer to them as an organization that tries to cure or change gay people. They argue vehemently against people like Wayne Besen referring to them as an organization that tries to “pray the gay way.”
But, then I read an article like this where Karen says that being gay is more biological than hereditary (a conclusion that is still not settled upon), and in the very next paragraph she talks about “the hope, the possibility, and the reality of change” for gay people. There’s no qualification in there. No nuance at all. Reading throug the article, it’s plainly obvious to me that someone not involved in ex-gay or gay vs. ex-gay work would take this change to mean change from gay to straight.
I know it’s frustrating to have one’s message twisted. But, honestly, it’s hard for me to understand the complaint when the message continues to be one that is so misleading. You can complain all day that the press misrepresents you, but I can guarantee that most lay persons would see this message as advocating a change of orientation.
I’m having trouble with the use of the word change in this article. Exodus leaders are always saying that the media get them wrong when the refer to them as an organization that tries to cure or change gay people. They argue vehemently against people like Wayne Besen referring to them as an organization that tries to “pray the gay way.”
But, then I read an article like this where Karen says that being gay is more biological than hereditary (a conclusion that is still not settled upon), and in the very next paragraph she talks about “the hope, the possibility, and the reality of change” for gay people. There’s no qualification in there. No nuance at all. Reading throug the article, it’s plainly obvious to me that someone not involved in ex-gay or gay vs. ex-gay work would take this change to mean change from gay to straight.
I know it’s frustrating to have one’s message twisted. But, honestly, it’s hard for me to understand the complaint when the message continues to be one that is so misleading. You can complain all day that the press misrepresents you, but I can guarantee that most lay persons would see this message as advocating a change of orientation.
Hi Brady234, and thanks for your comments about my testimony. I agree with you that some of it is confusing and vague, but that wasn’t done intentionally. I wrote that testimony in 2003, shortly after I took over as Executive Director of Transforming Congregations (TC). Seven years ago, I had a much more simplistic understanding of many things, including what “change” means.
There was a panel discussion about the meaning of “change” at my very first Exodus Leader’s Conference. I still remember it well because I wrote about it in one of the first TC newsletters that I edited. (www.transcong.org/2003sep.pdf) It was the first time I heard men and women honesty acknowledge that they sometimes still struggled with the temptations of same-sex attraction and that the journey toward sexual sanctification was far more complex than I had thought. It has continued to be a steep “learning curve” for me, and because of that my testimony needs to be updated. A revision will be published when the new Exodus website is up and running.
Until then, these statements published on the TC website are pretty much what I personally believe now:
“Some folk on both sides of the debate would like (change) to mean – no longer having any same-sex attractions, getting married to someone of the opposite sex and having many children. But that doesn’t always happen, though Scripture (1 Corinthians 6) suggests that the potential for it is real and obtainable.
A lot of Christians have experienced a major shift in their desires to the point that they can have a satisfying relationship with the opposite sex. But they also honestly admit that as with any sin, there may be times of temptation – to greater or lesser degree. Others experience little to no attraction to the opposite sex, but live fulfilled, chaste lives in obedience to God’s will for human sexual expression. They don’t believe sexual intercourse is a ‘right,’ or the be-all and end-all of life. Nonetheless, all of the above is ‘change.’
Transforming Congregations would prefer to emphasize instead the Biblical concept of ‘sanctified sexuality.’ Sanctification is a process with successes and failures, and not perfectly realized this side of heaven.”
Hope this helps, Brady234. If you have other questions, let me know.
Hi Brady234, and thanks for your comments about my testimony. I agree with you that some of it is confusing and vague, but that wasn’t done intentionally. I wrote that testimony in 2003, shortly after I took over as Executive Director of Transforming Congregations (TC). Seven years ago, I had a much more simplistic understanding of many things, including what “change” means.
There was a panel discussion about the meaning of “change” at my very first Exodus Leader’s Conference. I still remember it well because I wrote about it in one of the first TC newsletters that I edited. (www.transcong.org/2003sep.pdf) It was the first time I heard men and women honesty acknowledge that they sometimes still struggled with the temptations of same-sex attraction and that the journey toward sexual sanctification was far more complex than I had thought. It has continued to be a steep “learning curve” for me, and because of that my testimony needs to be updated. A revision will be published when the new Exodus website is up and running.
Until then, these statements published on the TC website are pretty much what I personally believe now:
“Some folk on both sides of the debate would like (change) to mean – no longer having any same-sex attractions, getting married to someone of the opposite sex and having many children. But that doesn’t always happen, though Scripture (1 Corinthians 6) suggests that the potential for it is real and obtainable.
A lot of Christians have experienced a major shift in their desires to the point that they can have a satisfying relationship with the opposite sex. But they also honestly admit that as with any sin, there may be times of temptation – to greater or lesser degree. Others experience little to no attraction to the opposite sex, but live fulfilled, chaste lives in obedience to God’s will for human sexual expression. They don’t believe sexual intercourse is a ‘right,’ or the be-all and end-all of life. Nonetheless, all of the above is ‘change.’
Transforming Congregations would prefer to emphasize instead the Biblical concept of ‘sanctified sexuality.’ Sanctification is a process with successes and failures, and not perfectly realized this side of heaven.”
Hope this helps, Brady234. If you have other questions, let me know.