California and New Jersey have legislated against ex - gay conversion therapy for minors, on the grounds that attempts to change one’s sexual orientation are damaging to one’s psychological health. People of faith should also note that the lesson to be drawn from the experience of religious ex-gay ministries like Exodus International (and before it, Courage in the UK), is that these attempts are also damaging to one’s spiritual health. Distorting the Gospels’ primary message, they can be counterproductive, driving people away from God.

Box Turtle Bulletin has further commentary, and a full transcript of the conversation in the video:

Alan Chambers Describes What Happened To Exodus

Alan Chambers sat down with RELEVANT Magazine’s Eddie Kaufholz to talk about where Exodus went wrong. I think there are some very important nuggets here, particularly where he describes Exodus’s embrace of the “change is possible” message as being the only one that was acceptable to the church:

But it was the thing we found the most support in from the church. We’re a group of people who were ostracized and marginalized, mostly people from the church, who were looking for who were looking for support and affirmation and encouragement. And the support and the affirmation and the encouragement and the promotion that we got from the church was, “Change is possible. You run with that message and we’ll support you.”

It’s neat and it’s tidy so we ran with it. That’s not to say it wasn’t true in our lives. But the reason it didn’t work is because they promoted my story as the story. We promoted marriage and heterosexuality and “wholeness” and “change,” ambiguously, as the message of Exodus and the message of Jesus for gay people.

-full report at  Box Turtle Bulletin