In a recent post, Benediction Blogs On explored two issues of great interest to this site: anti-gay religious groups, and cross-border connections with religious right groups in America. In February, a Canadian organization called New Directions decided to publicly separate itself from the Focus on the Family-linked U.S. anti-gay group, Exodus International. Exodus wasn’t happy and its president fired back with a hostile article in Charisma.
BD describes the context and what came next:
For a small conservative evangelical Canadian ministry to tell the mighty Focus on the Family they can no longer walk together is not a small thing. To do so means facing retaliation, be it financially or in US religious media.
The men running Exodus play political hardball. They do not accept or tolerate disagreement, their ministry is about conflict, their politics are about conflict and their lives are conflicted. God help anyone who in their eyes and parlance “err too much on the side of grace”. If evangelicals keep doing that, they’ll be out of the spotlight and out of a job.
Now I read that if New Directions hadn’t made a thoughtful and I think theologically wise discussion to leave the umbrella of Exodus, they would have been kicked out. Good. I’m glad to read the New Directions board made the choice they made when they did. They are now free to help those they are meant to help and carry their own knapsack. The games and bullying of politicized fundamentalism do not have to weigh them down.
Read more at Benediction Blogs On.
Good for New Directions ( I think.) There is no such thing as “ex-gay” , anymore than there is “ex-straight”.As a Canadian who has lived in America ; I’d like to remind folks from personal experience that there are many conserative believers who are absolutely intransigent in their Biblical convictions . To me , the only difference between the True North Strong and Free and our gargantuan neighbour to the south , vis-avis ‘deeply held beliefs’ , is the numbers of people affected. There are hundreds of thousands in the US who accept verbatim , dubious theological slants and interpretations , from some of the most unsavoury characters who have ever touched a Bible.One of the earliest was caught eventually in financial and sexual scandals back in the 1920′s.Her name was Aime Semple Macpherson and she came from Ontario.
Bart,
Thanks for the background. We can, I suppose, be grateful that the “ex-gay” movement has not gained more traction north of the border. I’ve never bought this notion that one can be “ex-gay” either.