The Mark of the Resilient Struggler
Instead of wading into the thick of the current debate over Mike Glatze (the former editor of a youth gay magazine) leaving homosexuality, it’s been fascinating to read the absolute vitriol (I don’t think I’m overstating this) poured upon him by “ex-ex-gays” on Ex-Gay Watch and Warren’s Blog. It is truly amazing the scorn and hatred being poured upon Glatze because he didn’t make the same life-choices as some of the commentators.
Update : It’s worth pointing out that on the thread on this on Warren’s blog there is debate over whether Glatze has become a Christian or LDS or even joined a different non-Trinitarian group. It’ll be interesting to find out more on this story.
At the same time, my home-group and I at church are working through the DVD that goes along with John Ortberg’s book “If you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the boat“. In particular today we were exploring how we manage when, having metaphorically got out of the boat to trust God (the book is based on Jesus calling Peter over the waves to walk to him), the wind gets stonger and stronger. In this section, Ortberg makes three comments about those who are resilient in the face of the struggle. I thought that these points were so applicable to the struggle of anybody who deals with sexual dysfuntion or brokeness, or whatever form (not least homosexuality) that I wanted to list them here below:
- First – Resilient people exercise control rather than passively resign – I think about my own journey and that one of the main turning points was when I decided that I was responsible for moving on in my life. Ortberg looks at Joseoph in Genesis and notes how, though he has been sold into slavery, he didn’t just let his life extinguish but rather he refuses to think of himself as powerless. He uses his gifts and talents to the best of his ability, eventually rising to the Chief Steward of Potiphar’s estate. Ortberg’s point is this – “Faith believes that with God we are never helpless victims”. He continues:
Growth happens when you seek or exert control where you are able to rather than just give up in difficult circumstances. It happens when you decide to be wholly faithful in a situation that you do not like and cannot understand.It happens when you keep walking even though you see the wind. Then you discover that, somehow, you are not alone. As he was with Joseph, the Lord is also with you”.
- Secondly – Resilient people remain committed to their values when tempted to compromise – I’ve met a number of people who, struggling with homosexuality, gave into their desires and compromised what they believe to be true. At the same time I’ve met men and women who, on coming out of homosexuality without any christian background before, clung on tightly to Christ and the Scriptural truths about sex and how holy sex speaks of God and unholy sex doesn’t. Ortberg points out that Joseph’s rise to power in Potiphar’s household brings him into the attention of Potiphar’s wife. Despite her advances he remains true to his God and his moral framework, regardless of where it takes him (in this case prison). Resilient people realise that to compromise on their values is to lose any basis upon which to keep struggling. And yes, the temptations that the world throws against us are many and powerful, but they aren’t as powerful as God. Ortberg, writing about Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife says:
We are told that he ran outside, but I wonder if when he got outside he found himself running to God. I wonder if he did not pour out his heart – his disappointment and aloneness that made temptation so painful. I don’t think it is ever enough just to run away from sin. Sin is a pretty dogged pursuer. Sooner or later, you have to turn and face the pain that makes the temptation so attractive. Sooner or later, you have to run to God.
And this is where so many people fall down. Read this comment on the Stand Firm thread on Glatze’s choices:
You just dont get it do you?
A husband already has a wife…a grace filled way to express intimacy in a sexual way. They have an mutually exclusive commitment before God. Heterosexual singles have the potential to find a mate and the same be true. Homosexuals according to your view….they can NEVER express themselves sexually without it being a sin. It seems God made NO provision for them not to “be aloneâ€.
Or is it the prejudice of people who refuse to see?… I wonder It is not an equal playing field if what you believe is true.
You compare apples to oranges and that is why it makes no sense to me.This is the moral compromise that some people make, because life without it seems so unfair. I’ve seen it time and time again and those who don’t take their values seriously almost always fall. And let’s not think that some people get a gift of celibacy and that therefore it’s easy. The gap in time between avowing myself to either celibacy or marriage to a woman was a decade. A decade of pain and joy, a decade of ease and stress. A decade of waiting. You know what, I would have waited until my death because I decided ten years ago that the pain and purgation was worth it in order to glorify God with my life.
- Finally – Resilient People find Meaning and Purpose in the Storm – Oh, how true this is!!! Suffering tends to bring on one of two responses. Either we reject any meaning in the storm, including God’s sovereignty and purpose, or we use the storm to discover what God is saying through it. Jospeh used his time in prison to seek God and as he did God revealed his purposes to him. Years later he could turn to his brothers and say “What you intended for harm, God used for good”. But how can we get to the point of saying that if we never hold on for the answer, regardless of how long it takes to come? Most of my personal pastoral insight and concern comes from having weathered the storm and waited for God’s explanation. I remember describing my experience to someone a few days ago, that engaging with my pain was like ripping apart my chest to reveal a wounded heart. But then , as the months went by and my exposed wounded heart was pushed and blown by my life and my memories I suddenly noticed a strange thing. As I chose to live with my emotional wound, I became more aware of other people’s wounds. I began to not just empathise but to actually see the wounds. I would see the wound and the weapon that caused it. People would walk up to prayer ministry and as they approached the front God would reveal their pain to me before they even spoke. I had chosen to seek meaning from God rather than reject him in the storm,and he gave meaning to the storm in a most unexpected way. Ortberg writes:
It may have been no accident that Joseph spent years as a slave and then as a prisoner in jail before he was ready to be exalted to a prominent position and be used by God. Sotrms have a way of teachnig what nothing else can.
Paul writes that “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” You can’t have hope and character with out seeking God in suffering. There is no other path know to the Christain disciple except to cling to God and to wait for him tobring meaning and purpose, in his own time.
I have a feeling that I’ve rambled, but hopefully I’ve made some sense. I know some of you will reject what I’ve written, but I can honestly say that doing what Ortberg advised (way before I ever read him) has developed me and many others in ways I or they would never have expected. You can call us liars, self-repressed bigots or whatever, but the work of God in our lives still stands. And please don’t read this as a condemnation of those who didn’t make the same choices that I did. Rather, please read it as an invitation to join us on the narrow path of true discipleship, of purgation, of the surrender of one’s sinful, fallen self to God. Through all the pain and misery and doubt and stress (and there is that on the path, don’t kid yourself) it is SO worth it. Let me leave the last words to Glatze:
I have seen it. I know the truth. God gave us truth for a reason. It exists so we could be ourselves. It exists so we could share that perfect self with the world, to make the perfect world. These are not fanciful schemes or strange ideals – these are the Truth. Healing from the sins of the world will not happen in an instant; but, it will happen – if we don’t pridefully block it. God wins in the end, in case you didn’t know.
Glatze didn’t simply make the decision to change his own life. He slandered all gays by describing their sexuality, their lives and their relationships as “lust and pornography”, and worse besides. He condemned society for giving equal rights to gays. He praised Poland for denying equal rights to gays. If he is getting a lot of vitriol at the moment, it is hardly because of his personal decision. It is because he decided to jump on the right-wing bandwagon and promote prejudice and intolerance very publicly. For that he’ll be criticized publicly.
If your condemnation of homophobia and advocacy of tolerance and equality for gays and lesbians means anything, Peter, you can’t seriously blame anyone for condemning his ugly words.
Dave,
You’re obviously very angry, because you disagree with Glatze’s analysis of the “gay life” (whatever that means – we’d probably both agree that that’s too vague a term to be meaningful). But the kind of thing that does Ex-Gay Watch and others no good are comments such as:
“Glatze has led a problematic life with issues that have nothing to do with homosexuality per se. Instead of dealing directly with these issues, he blames same-sex attraction.” – This seems to be as much assumptively descriptive as the phrases used by Glatze that are being critiqued.
“Glatze equates all homosexual sex with lust.
Assuming he wasn’t deliberately lying, the only other conclusion that I can draw from this statement is that he experienced no romantic attraction to the same gender.
In other words, he wasn’t gay.” – Once again, a naive comment that within it assumes that sexuality is NOT fluid. You see, this comment just chucks stuff at Glatze without engaging with his points or treating his experience as real.
I’m sorry Dave, but when I read the comment thread on your site and then Warren’s I find it amazing that they’re full of stuff like ““I just wonder how these ex-gay ministries…ONLY manage to fill their clients with anger and hate.†Ouch…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this conversation that I genuinely believe you want across the gay / ex-gay divide will ONLY begin when you let the ex-gay voice be heard and be treated as valid experience. Because so many won’t, many of us on the other side have stopped talking – we feel as though you don’t actually want to listen. The minute we tell out stories they are denounced and derided. As long as your site and those on it continue to use the language of “pretend” and “self-repression” then you are no better then the 1980s framers of Section 28 in the UK.
Glatze’s characterization of gay lives is one issue. The other issue is his condemnation of equal rights for gay citizens, and his praise for the Government of Poland for resisting/denying equality. You have stood up for equal rights in the past, and condemned homophobia, and yet you apparently have nothing but praise Glatze.
I thought his column, and the accompanying WND interview, in fact told us very little about the ex-gay process, and came off mainly as a political diatribe to condemn homosexuals and congratulate prejudice and discrimination. If anything has made me “angry”, it is this.
Regarding XGW, as writers we have made a concerted attempt, especially recently, to avoid a broad, rash style. I hope as time goes by, the reporting at XGW can provide a model for other people’s responses to the ex-gay movement. As it is, I can’t take responsibility for how commenters respond, but I can take responsibility for my own writing, which I think has generally been fair and honest.
Dave,
I genuinely find you one of the more pleasant people at XGW to deal with. You’re always courteous unlike some. I appreciate that you want to make XGW a place that doesn’t have a “broad, rash style”, but headlines like “ex-gay blame game” don’t help.
The Polish issue is a delicate one. Underlying the statements by the PM is a European issue to do with centralisation of authority. Many people in the EU are upset that the Commission seems to want to dictate what is and isn’t acceptable moral judgement.
You and I can argue about equality till the cows come home. As far as I am aware Poland has no laws that permit discrimination against homosexual people – what the Polish Government is against is creating new sets of rights and civil arrangements that don’t exist at the moment for anybody – e.g. the right to marry someone of the same sex or to have spousal pension transfers to those you are not married to. The Polish government’s perspective seems to be that until homosexuality is proved as a natural biological human variant it will not be treated like variants which do have empirical scientific proof (sex, race, disability etc). That is a far cry from denying people their basic human rights – in Poland NO-ONE can marry someone of the same sex. You might interpret that as discrimination – I and others do not.
Correct me if I’m wrong on this.
I’ll be looking into the Poland situation over the next couple weeks, and I expect you’ll see something at XGW about it.
I actually agree with you about the headline for that article. Ironically, the title was one of the few elements of the article that was out of my hands, but suffice it to say, if I were running the story again, I wouldn’t use it.
Mike,
You kinda make my point for me. If I was to write, “In principle, homosexuality is dysfunctional and indicative of emotional immaturity”, you would jump on me in an instant because you perceive that I “demean and lie about the values and behavior of people like me and millions of other moral same-sex-attracted people of faith”. But that doesn’t actually tackle the issue of whether homosexuality IS dysfunctional. It simply demonstrates that you don’t like being called dysfunctional.
I don’t think any of my post or comments above have been discourteous. You may not agree with my experience and conclusions but that is a different matter entirely.
Peter, it would have been fairer if you were courteous in your own communications and if you encouraged courteous communication by Glatze.
For example, you could provide a summary of the actual criticisms, and you could respond to them point-by point, instead of changing the subject.
Contrary to the ex-gay hype that has surrounded his article, Glatze:
— has not said that he has left behind sinful addictive/compulsive behavior, just “homosexuality,” whatever that means
— has not identified himself as heterosexual or “straight”
— has not clearly acknowledged that he — not “homosexuality” — made his past behavioral choices
— has not explained the stark disconnect between his past gay-affirming testimonies and his sudden sweeping condemnation of all things “gay”
As a Christian, I encourage you and Glatze to convey your messages of hope and adequately-defined “change” in a fair and accurate manner that does not demean and lie about the values and behavior of people like me and millions of other moral same-sex-attracted people of faith.
So long as you communicate discourteously and encourage discourteous communications by people like Glatze, people like me will struggle — sometimes unsuccessfully — in our efforts to model Jesus and turn the other cheek.
When ex-gays speak solely for themselves, their experience may certainly be valid, but Glatze did not do that. He claimed to speak for the experience of millions of other people, even as he slandered them.
I would jump on that statement if it were unsubstantiated, which, as you present it above, it is.
Of course, it has been impossible for anyone thus far to professionally substantiate the claim that same-sex-attracted people are, in toto and by definition, emotionally any less mature than opposite-sex-attracted persons.
People as a rule do not like to be called dysfunctional without proof and by someone who continues to suffer from the very dysfunctions that are perceived in others.
As for Glatze’s gayness, he said he had not experienced homosexuality until age 13. That does not reflect the experience of most ex-gays, much less the experience of most gay people. Sexual fluidity is a valid area of discussion, one that I have encouraged. But Glatze is not issuing such an argument; quite the opposite, he is expressing absolutes of homosexual promiscuity/sin and heterosexual purity.
If I were ex-gay, I would be a bit uncomfortable seeing Glatze claim to speak for me or the ex-gay/strugglers movement. He seems no more stable in his struggle than he did as someone in the gay youth movement.
Back to your earlier point, Peter, about ex-gays needing to be validated for speaking from experience:
It is not, in fact, your experience (nor that of any ex-gay) that all or even most same-sex-attracted people are emotionally immature, promiscuous, faithless, selfish, or whatever.
Quite simply, this is because any given ex-gay only knows a handful of hand-picked gay people. Even if you personally know 200 gay people, that leaves hundreds of millions of gay people who lie completely outside your range of experience.
As I’ve often said: By all means, speak from your own experience. But neither you nor your counterparts on other sides of the culture war can reasonably expect to be validated if you generalize far beyond your experience, nor when your experience (on occasion) is disproven by measurable facts.
Mike,
You’ve widened the debate now to include “promiscuous, faithless, selfish”. I didn’t write those things, you did. I can’t have a conversation with you on this if you insist on criticising me for things I haven’t actually said. You can state that you believe I believe that all gay men are “promiscuous, faithless, selfish”, but you won’t ever actually see that written by me.
This is what I mean Mike – you criticise me for making blanket statements but then you ascribe to me views that I don’t hold. That’s why I’m now completely put-off commenting on XGW. No-one ever listens to what I actually write – they listen to what they think I think.
Peter,
It was Glatze who generalized about gay men being promiscuous, faithless, etc., not you.
However, it was you who defended Glatze and asked that we validate his experience.
My point was that Glatze did not speak from experience, and so your defense of his expressed experience was, well, umm, invalid.
Mike,
I talked about Glatze being vilified and then I’ve spoken about the post-gay journey in general. Glatze certainly speaks from his experience so why won’t you accept that story, even if it’s not similar to your story?
In my personal experience, gay sex is essentially lustful because it is not correctly orientated towards that which is other. Theologically it corrupts the hypostatic union (which married heterosexual sex witnesses to) and, while sometimes occurring within a relationship of commitment, is spiritually deadening for in the activity it denies the union of Christ and the Church. It’s amazing that once you realise the true spiritual dimension of what you’re doing, something that appears to be love actually reveals itself to be deeply introverted lust.
Now, that’s a theological argument. Whenever I argue something like that in an environment like XGW people never debate the theology – they always just criticise the bigotry of assuming that tow men who love each other might not actually represent God and his creation. Or, we end up removing the authority of Scripture in order to disable the argument.
If we could have conversations that stuck to the point then I wouldn’t mind – but at the moment I don’t think most of the people on XGW are in a place to do that.
Peter,
1. It is not your experience that gay sex per se is lustful — it is your experience that *your* gay sex that was lustful. You have not experienced gay sex as it is experienced by anyone besides you.
2. Theologically per se, gay sex per se does nothing — ** within **your** theology ** you can say anything you like. Scripture may well carry great authority, but since you are not God, and since you have not spoken with any scriptural authority, your sweeping statement about the theology of others brings us back to my earlier point. You frequently ask that people validate your own experience and theology — but you do not speak from your own experience, you generalize to the experience and theology of all, and you dictate the experience of others with comments such as this:
“It’s amazing that once **you** realise the true spiritual dimension of what **you’re** doing, something that appears to be love actually reveals itself to be deeply introverted lust.”
Peter asked:
“Glatze certainly speaks from his experience so why won’t you accept that story, even if it’s not similar to your story?”
As my previous comment suggests, Glatze can validly speak for his own homosexuality and his own behavioral choices, not anyone else’s homosexuality nor anyone else’s behaviors, all of which are different.
I hope Glatze will learn to do that; he hasn’t yet.
Mike A,
Do you want to have the theological discussion or will you simply dismiss what I say because it’s just my interpretation? You seem to have already decided that my theology is incorrect. When I refer to biblical passages and exegete them will you actually answer the points I raise? Can you for example find a gay equiavalent to Ephesians 5 to illustrate what male-male sex signifies spiritually? Are you really, as a gay Christian, interested in theology or only when it fits your perspective from beyond Scripture?
I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. I don’t want to appear to be antagonistic, but I don’t really have the energy to do a serious chat on exegetical theology which ends in “well I just don’t agree with that even if I’m not going to counter your hermeneutic or translation”.
Just curious, but did you happen to read all fo the hateful and vitriolic things comming out of Mr. Glatz’s mouth towards the gay community. He demonized and degraded over 8 millions people as if he knew them all, or even most. And then you wonder why some fought back? It wasn’t just the Ex-Ex-Gays and Gay community that thought what he said was in bad taste, it was also some Ex-Gays and conservative Christians. I am an Ex-Gay and could never support what he said.
Mr. Glatz sounds very much like a zealot. Unlike the well-though-out words of, say, someone like Alan Chambers, Mr. Glatz just opens his mouth and lets a string of hate-filled things come out. That doesn’t sound very Christian to me.
Peter Ould –
You do realize the Bible wasn’t written in English, right? Do you really want to get into a discussion of the original Greek, and what things like “male-male sex” in Greek might have meant or didn’t mean? That is where the problem lies. Lay people and Academics cannot come to a common agreement on what the Greek was actually saying. Several of the passages that claim to be talking about “gay people” are in fact talking of prostitution. The others are as debatable as well. You aren’t going to change ANY minds by going down this road.
Re: #18 Jayhuck, I’m sure you’re already at least aware that Robert Gagnon has researched and written extensively on the Greek text of the passages in Paul’s epistles that deal with homosexual orientation and behavior. Let’s not ask Peter Ould to reinvent the wheel, but go to Gagnon’s site (don’t remember the address offhand, Google should get you there in a minute).
Peter,
I haven’t dismissed your theology as incorrect, I’ve simply said it’s not the only theology. And I suggested that blanket statements about theology and sexuality fall outside the realm of any one individual’s personal experience.
Am I interested in reading a variety of theological discussions? Absolutely. I, for one, believe neither side of the culture war has a lock on the Bible. Am I qualified to lead a theological dicussion? No — my own time, energy and resources are also limited. So I recommend holding off on your own side of that discussion, if you wish, until someone emerges who hasn’t already exhausted their budgeted gay/ex-gay dialogue time for the week. ;-)
Many others besides Mr. Gagnon have written about the Greek text, and I don’t believe many of them agree – in fact, there are plenty of academics who disagree with Mr. Gagnon. That is my point – going down this road, whether you read Gagnon or another who disagrees with him is not going to get us anywhere
I think your analysis is spot-on, Peter. I haven’t read Mr. Glatze’s book but from the excerpts and biography I have read, his life and struggle made me think of students I taught in secondary school who were caught up in the gay culture, found immediate friends and supporters, but then found themselves lost later on when they realized that their lives didn’t fit whom they were as people and, especially, as people of varying degrees of faith. I walked with one of them, in particular, and knew — through him — how painful and life-shattering that realization is.
Furthermore, I was particularly struck by how you compared homosexuality with other life struggles. We all have them, don’t we? I, for one, am disabled by Systemic Lupus and, through this, learned VERY quickly that this struggle, this affliction, doesn’t afford me “rights,” per se; that because I, Julie, now have difficulties with mobility, access to health care, and finances, it doesn’t mean that society is going to change to accommodate me. I have to change; my life has to change; my expectations have to change, all with God’s grace and help.
I think that at the infancy of any struggle in today’s society comes the attitude of “I am different and y’all have to accommodate me!” The bumps and bruises from that attitude quickly provide the answer of “Well, no, we do not.” In a world comprised of probably thousands of different types of people, it simply isn’t possible or feasible to accommodate every particular need. Until that happens to the homosexual community or until they exhaust their demand of “rights” and find that they are still not content, they will not face themselves honestly. Basing acceptance solely on others’ official and enforced reactions to you isn’t healthy. Tolerance has been enforced and that is good, but now it’s acceptance and congratulations that are being demanded. It will be interesting.
Thanks for all the comments overnight,
JH – I appreciate your rejection of Glatze’s piece. It is quite vitriolic towards gays. But I was mostly concerned with the way people jumped on him and denounced his conversion. I’m also interested on a personal level that if you exegete arsenokoites and malakoi as not covering all forms of homosexual sexual behaviour why you decide to become ex-gay?
Julie – Thanks for your kind words. Yes, the journey of purgation, surrender and then new life under God’s sovereignty is wider than just the ex-gay struggle. That was my intent in writing the piece and you illustrate very clearly the life that acknowledges God first.
Rather, please read it as an invitation to join us on the narrow path of true discipleship, of purgation, of the surrender of one’s sinful, fallen self to God. Through all the pain and misery and doubt and stress (and there is that on the path, don’t kid yourself) it is SO worth it.
Amen Peter. When I’ve followed that path I’ve found it to be very worth it. And yet it’s still a struggle. These words, this reminder is helpful today as I struggle with a different (non-sexual) area of temptation. Thanks.
Peter (and Julie),
Mr Glatz is a guy who not only sounds like a zealot but who has slandered an entire community, who isn’t saying anything we haven’t heard before – and who, quite frankly, doesn’t sound like a Christian at all – except for the words, belief and Christ.
My amazement here isn’t just with the people who have tried to discredit his conversion, but also those people, especially here, who are simply idolizing him – as if he’s the new Ex-Gay and Christian poster boy – despite what he says or how he says it.
He’s not saying anything we haven’t heard a million times before from other Ex-Gays.
How many Ex-Gays, like Mr. Glatz, have we heard from who have said they had no more attractions to men, who were repulsed by the thought of having sex with men, only to become Ex-Ex Gay years later, or “slip up†and end up sleeping with a man? Enough to know this kind of quick change and zealot-speak is probably a cover for something else. This man is obviously troubled and he has decided to lay his troubles and his bad decisions at the feet of his orientation – which is sad