Christians recently gathered in London to learn how they will higher support people battling unwanted same-sex attraction.
They heard from James Parker, an ex-gay Christian from Australia who commonly speaks to churches and faith groups about how they will engage with these issues as a church and in wider society.
Parker told stories of hope about individuals who have been helped by therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, including individuals who were formerly drug dependent and caught up in prostitution, and other people who’ve turn into happily heterosexual or are experiencing greatly diminished same-sex attraction.
Despite these positive experiences of change, several Australian states have introduced draconian conversion therapy bans that threaten to impose huge fines and imprisonment for breaches, which potentially include suggesting chastity or offering prayer. Some supporters of a conversion therapy ban within the UK see the Australian states as a model for what may very well be introduced here.
“Even for those who want therapy and even when it’s proven to be useful and even for those who’ve got people supporting you and also you’re saying ‘please, please, please’, nope, that is criminal,” said Parker of the situation in Australia.
He called the bans “totalitarian” and said he feared a “slippery slope”.
“Will this bring about ultimately … the eradication of the Lord’s Prayer from the state of Victoria? Highly likely, yes,” he said.
Meeting church and faith leaders around the globe, Parker said that a lot of them are “scared” to talk up on the difficulty and that it’s as much as the grassroots to work for change.
“We are in World War Three, it’s just that it’s an invisible war and it’s literally [trying] to decimate a whole generation in our land,” he said.
Despite the challenges across many countries, especially within the West, he said that individuals proceed to be let loose.
“The hunger is on the market (for help) and the work is going on,” he said.
“There are actually a whole lot of 1000’s of stories on the market that we want people to start out sharing on social media … We need others to know that change is feasible and it is not about even being gay or straight.
“It’s in regards to the undeniable fact that all of us have to move towards a spot of holiness and all of us have to move away from those layers of maturing sin towards maturing dignity and righteousness as well.”
He urged churches to be places of welcome for LGBT people and to talk the reality in love, recognising that it’s a couple of person’s soul and that “souls need to know mercy”. Seen on this light, he said it was necessary to not be “preachy” or “imposing” but to do it in such a way as to open up discussions.
“God is asking people to Himself, God’s doing it but we the church for probably the most part aren’t able to receive them or to know them or to walk with them,” he said.
“I hope there’s respect, compassion and sensitivity in the way in which I speak. There comes a degree in all our lives when ultimately the reality must be spoken nevertheless it’s an ideal injustice to pour truth upon any person once they don’t have any understanding of mercy and forgiveness.”
He continued, “When you give people an environment through which to find a way to debate this stuff they usually feel that they are not going to be judged, then what happens is individuals are often really quite quick to inform you what a number of the hurdles are that they’ve never got over and want to recover from.”
He added, “If we’re not careful, we still see it as a ‘them’ and an ‘us’ … The more that we see this as a collective of all of us and never an ‘us’ and ‘them’, the earlier we will even see an advancement of the Kingdom and the healing power of the Lord capable of be at work.”
