ANY practice which suggests that there’s something “inherently unsuitable or sinful” in individuals who discover as anything apart from heterosexual, or which pushes individuals to vary their sexuality, is each abusive and traumatising, the Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, said on Wednesday.
He was responding to an in depth query put to the Governing Body of the Church in Wales by the Revd Geraint John (Llandaff). Mr John wanted the bishops to support a more robust plan of action to guard LGBT+ people from conversion therapy, including “properly defining therapy in a Christian context (which would come with the concept of ‘praying the gay away’ under the guise of ‘healing ministry’).”
Previously, the Evangelical Fellowship of the Church in Wales had asked for clarification as to what the Bench of Bishops had meant when — of their response to the UK Parliament’s consideration of laws — that they had opposed conversion therapy “in all its forms”.
Bishop Cameron related what he had told the Fellowship on the time: “We consider this to be straightforward and plain. It is, in our opinion, abusive and must be banned. You ask whether ‘open discussion’ and ‘grace-filled prayer’ with someone who desires to explore biblical teaching on the difficulty of sexuality should, within the opinion of the bishops, fall under such a ban.
“Sadly, this positive-sounding phrase leaves far an excessive amount of to individual interpretation. These seemingly innocuous words could be used to disguise practices through which pressure is brought upon vulnerable LGBTQIA individuals to undergo efforts geared toward the conversion of their sexuality, including attempted exorcisms and worse.
“Such practices could be designed, consciously or unconsciously, to play on people’s sense of shame or anxiety, and signal that, unless they conform to heterosexual norms, they will neither be true disciples of Jesus nor accepted members of the congregation with which they need to change into associated.”
This, Bishop Cameron said, could arise out of “a toxic mixture of motivation to avoid embarrassment, to please a revered spiritual leader, or to assuage long-standing guilt or shame.”
The Church’s job was to supply welcome, acceptance, and friendship, and, if requested, prayer that God’s grace might be operative within the situation, he said.
The Bench was currently working with the safeguarding service of the Church in Wales and the Doctrinal Commission to explore, define, and reply to the difficulty of spiritual abuse throughout the Church, the Bishop confirmed. They were also searching for to update, for a up to date context, the 2002 statement in regards to the Church in Wales’ position on the matter of sexuality.
He concluded: “I’m reliably informed [that] the Welsh Government is putting its own work on hold with a view to develop a joint Four Nations approach along side Westminster. The Bishops of the Church in Wales proceed our support for such laws.”
