Can evangelicals’ flip-flop on ex-gay therapy improve their credibility?
Galileo would be proud. Well, sort of. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Seminary, condemned “reparative therapy” that aims to make gay and lesbian people straight on Monday. But he added that homosexual orientation can change through divine intervention:
In the case of many people struggling with this particular sin [of homosexuality], we do not believe that some kind of superficial answer whereby they can turn a switch from being attracted to persons of the same sex to being attracted to persons of the opposite sex…By God's grace, that might happen over time as a sign of God's work within the life of that individual.
Other prominent conservative Christians have also changed their thinking on reparative therapy in recent years, including Alan Chambers, the erstwhile leader of America's largest ex-gay ministry. These hopeful developments demonstrate that conservative Christians are not content to live in the dark ages on important matters such as sexuality, but they are also cautionary tales. Because these leaders once drew unequivocal lines in the sand about issues like reparative therapy and stamped them with a “thus saith the Lord." Their current enlightment on these matters should warn Christians about sounding certain about matters about which Scripture is not clear and on which they are not experts.