The Not-So-Secret Records of The Church, Homosexuals, Transsexuals, and Pedophiles

May 28

We live in a sinful and broken world. One of the great tragedies of our time is the skyrocketing rate of minority sexual sins that have broken out in Western civilization. Transsexual behaviors, homosexual activities, and sexual assaults on children fill our news and dominate our politics. As these sins start to take their place alongside the heterosexual plague of divorce, adultery, fornication, pornography, and indecency that have been destroying the American family from inside out, it becomes even more important that God-fearing Christians find new ways to deal with the ever-increasing volume of sexual temptations, sufferings, and sins in our own lives and those of our neighbors.

Here is an example of how NOT to cope, which comes from a group of actual fascists attacking the church visible over this winter’s Large Catechism publication:

So, I made a big point of this in the thread. And this is where I was accused of semantics. The only people, not even three years ago, that used language like gender or sex opposite to their physical sex were people trying to push transgenderism onto other people.
– Ryan Turnipseed, “The New Catechism of the LC-MS [SIC]”, YouTube.com, Jan 23, 2023

The one thing that a counterfeit cannot stand is the truth. So, when someone like Ryan Turnipseed or Corey J. Mahler shows up on your social media feed and shouts that the LCMS has lost its way because until JUST NOW, no one would dare to speak about people with homosexual, minor-attracted, or transsexual feelings with compassion, much less dare to say that we ought to follow Jesus’s commandments and deal with our own sins before we worry about theirs… We here at Operation Valkyrie think you deserve to know the truth instead.

This week, I sat down with one of the confessional Lutherans who have been openly running ex-gay ministries, a legacy that has been going on for roughly forty years now. The truth is that Bible-believing Christians have been reaching out in love to same-sex-attracted, minor-attracted, and transsexual individuals with the good news of Jesus Christ since before most of the LCMS’s Mahlerite critics were born. Between my interview, transcripts of speeches, a few seminary records, and other research, here is a fantastic and encouraging example of how the LCMS and other Bible-believing Lutheran denominations have been actively reaching out to these communities without compromising the Gospel for generations. If you want to know more (and I certainly did), just read of the speeches provided below.

(The following story is just one thread of many examples we may never be able to share, because there is simply no way to track the hundreds or thousands of parish pastors, college professors, and other church workers who may deal with faithfulness and grace as same-sex-attracted, minor-attracted, and transsexual individuals bring their burdens and confess their sins at the foot of the cross, trusting in Jesus Christ for hope and salvation. I would easily believe that the silent cases that pastors deal with in their respective congregations may represent the lion’s share of such a ministry by the numbers, Keys Ministry is one of the largest and oldest in the country.)

Keys Ministry Speeches to Concordia, Ft. Wayne Seminary

Convocation
Keys: Journey to Freedom
Faculty Study Meeting
Theology Class
Ethics
Fireside Chat

CONVOCATION

My name is Karen Hart, and between 1990 and 2006 I was a licensed psychologist in Minnesota. I still retain my license from Minnesota, although I no longer have a therapy practice. Since 2006 I have been the director of Keys Ministries, which is a program to help same-sex attracted, minor-attracted, and transsexual people overcome their issues. I am an alumna of the program; I used to be bisexual.

My purpose is to provide the Church with the information it needs to most effectively carry out the Great Commission, especially in living and speaking a good witness to people with alternative sexualities. I shall have a few things to say about the genetic theories, which were never adequately proven, and the developmental theories, which have never been dis-proven. But my primary focus will be the issues involved in the change effort, what the experience of change involves, and how the Church can be an agent of redemption in Christ.

It is NOT my purpose to be political. It is almost impossible to discuss these issues without referring to political implications, but I do not believe the “culture war” will be won at the ballot box. I firmly believe that the Church must put spiritual concerns ahead of political concerns. It is more important to win souls for Christ than to defeat any group politically, and as long as we in the Church keep our priorities straight, the politics will take care of themselves. I hope to take a word of advice from the Apostle Paul and keep the focus on Jesus Christ and Him crucified (I Corinthians 2:2).

Let me begin by sharing some statistics. The Sex in America survey (1) showed that 1.4% of women and 2.8% of men were practicing homosexuals. It also found that from 10-16% of men had practiced homosexuality at some time in their lives and then given it up. That means that for every openly gay male you know, there are several other men who backed away from it. There is research that indicates that with increasing age, gay men are more drawn to become heterosexual (2).

With that in mind, what are the implications for the Church? Some of these same-sex attracted but celibate people may be in our churches, hoping to find answers. More importantly, they may be looking for friends: people who will listen to them as they share their struggles, pray with them, and walk alongside them as they work through their issues.

I have noticed that people in church have a tendency to assume that the gay people they see on TV are typical. What we see on TV are often militant social justice warriors stridently insisting they are okay the way they are and that we should just accept what they say at face value. The reality is far different. In many ways they seem to be quite ordinary. Many of them come from a church background, and they know what the Bible says. But all they ever heard was the Law. If the subject of homosexuality came up in their churches, all they heard was condemnation, criticism, and even ridicule. They were left with the impression that their only option was to first “clean themselves up” by getting rid of their same-sex attractions before they could approach God. They had never heard the Gospel.

I used to have to spend a lot of time debunking the genetic theory, but I no longer have to do so. The American Psychological Association has come out with a statement that homosexuality is caused by the interaction of biological and environmental forces (3). There is no gay gene. But the “born that way” theory is now in the thinking of our culture, even though the evidence never actually existed.

In the early ‘90’s, two gay scientists, LeVay and Hamer, found some correlations between sexual orientation and brain structure. They had 3 possible theories. One possibility was that the structural differences were present early in life, perhaps even before birth, and helped to establish the men’s sexual orientation. A second possibility was that a gene influenced both brain structure and sexual orientation in the men. The 3rd possibility is that differences in the brains arose in adult life as a result of the men’s sexual feelings or behavior (4).

There is a third possibility is very likely. Brain tissue can be altered by sexual activity. Let me read a quote, “…differences in sexual behavior can alter the neurons that make up the nervous system and the brain…sexual experience can alter the structure of the brain, just as genes can alter it…” (5). In other words, the differences in the brains of heterosexual men versus homosexual men doesn’t mean homosexuality is genetic. Sexual experience by itself can alter brain structure.

I have been reading up on brain plasticity during the past few years. Here is the bottom line. Whatever issue your mind is focused on, neurons grow to encode those thoughts. When your mind is re-focused on a different issue, new neurons grow to encode the new issue. The Creator of the brain provided a way for the brain to make changes. We used to think that the brain was pretty much fixed by the time a person was about 20 years old – now we know better. This has implications for those who want to overcome ssa/ma/tx.

The author of “The Brain that Changes Itself” denies that gay people can become straight, but he does leave open the possibility that sexual attractions can change. He points out that in a long-term marriage, people can continue to be attracted to each other even as they age. While two 20-year-olds who are getting married would never feel attracted to 50-year-olds, in 30 years they will feel differently. Their attractions gradually alter as they both age (6). I will be coming back to brain plasticity later.

But back to Hamer and Levay, who themselves NEVER claimed that homosexuality was inborn. In their own words, “We knew that genes were only part of the answer. We assumed the environment also played a role in sexual orientation…” (7). Also, Levay himself has come out in support of an individual’s right to pursue change from gay to straight. Although he personally does not approve of it, he does acknowledge that it is possible and that others have the right to make such a choice. In his own words, “…I believe that we should as far as possible respect people’s personal autonomy, even if that includes what I would call misguided desires such as the desire to change one’s sexual orientation.” (8).

Hamer and Levay’s research has never been replicated by other researchers (9). No study that suggested such a possibility has ever been replicated. Other studies have contradicted the Hamer and Levay research (10). So where did the idea of a “gay gene” come from? The media. They grabbed the idea and ran with it.

I keep referring to the interactive effects of nature and the environment, so let me tell you what the research shows. Two researchers found that for the average male homosexual, 10% is physical traits and inborn temperament, and 90% stems from an environment that chooses to respond unfavorably to the child (11 ).

Just in the last couple of weeks, some new research came out that makes an even stronger case against the existence of a “gay gene”. A study with almost a ½ million subjects compared genetic variations with sexual behavior, and found that for any individual who practices homosexuality, less than 1% of that person’s sexual behavior could be accounted for by genetics. (12). But do not hope for much coverage from the media. What I have seen so far is an attempt to interpret the research as indicating that thousands of genes may have to work together to cause same-sex attractions in an individual.

The developmental theories have never been disproven. They have only become politically incorrect. I also need to inject a few words of caution. I have no wish to blame parents. There are gay people out there whose response to the developmental theories has been to loudly assert that they had excellent parents who did nothing wrong. I wouldn’t contradict that. At the same time, there are overcomers who are quick to say that they did come from backgrounds of great pain, and that the developmental theories helped to put their lives into perspective.

The developmental theories give people hope. If there is a path in, maybe there is a path out. People who want to help same-sex attracted people need to be aware that many of them come from backgrounds of pain. One reason same-sex attracted people are sometimes so defensive about the developmental theories is because those have been used to try to “prove” that they are mentally ill and should change. So the developmental theories need to be approached with sensitivity.

Telling people that they are “born that way” was supposed to be compassionate, but I often wonder how much hopelessness and despair that theory has caused, especially in young people who are sensing themselves as sexual beings for the first time. Young people these days are being told that if they experience same-sex attractions, there is only one path for them to take – the path into the gay lifestyle, and that they should like it.

Parents of ssa children may need pastoral care as well. They may have hidden sins of their own, they may be carrying secret guilt, and they may have a legalistic view of God that is making Christianity unattractive to their adult children.

I will focus on gay males first, and lesbians second. One issue common in the developmental history of male homosexuals is a poor bond with the same-sex parent. Some fathers are chemically dependent, some are physically and mentally abusive to their sons, and some are abusive toward the boy’s mother. Some are just not a good role model on some dimension or another. Some fathers are not living in the home and not available to their sons. Some are gone a lot due to their jobs or military service. Some are unavailable due to illness (13).

It is not always the parent’s fault. Sometimes the boy perceived his father as unloving, and the father simply could not figure out how to communicate love in a way his son would receive. Sometimes a traditionally masculine father has a son who is born with a sensitive temperament, an aversion to rough and tumble play, and a lack of athletic skill. In spite of his good intentions, he just does not know how to relate to his unmacho son.

If a father suspects his son is pre-homosexual, or forms that conclusion because the son has untraditional interests, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a father with such a son wants to increase the likelihood of his son becoming heterosexual, he needs to show an interest in the boy’s art or music. At all costs he must avoid picking on the boy to “toughen him up”. This often backfires, and the chances of this boy turning out homosexual will increase. This is exactly what happened in the developmental history of so many homosexual men. If the father’s response is to just love the boy as he is, spend more time with him doing things the boy likes to do, the chances are high that the boy will turn out straight. Dr. Joe Nicolosi elaborates on this in his book “Preventing Homosexuality”.

Another significant milestone for the developing male is the necessity of becoming “one of the boys”. This is also in Nicolosi’s book. They need to develop same-sex peer relationships. Some boys have good relationships with their fathers but can’t become one of the boys, and they are at risk for becoming homosexuals. On the other hand, some boys have poor relationships with their fathers but adjust well with male peers. They are more likely to turn out heterosexual. Some boys have no adult male figure at all in their lives but still turn out heterosexual because they are able to become “one of the boys” and find acceptance in the world of men. There is research that indicates that same-sex peer bonding is even more significant than the father influence (14).

This is where the schools and youth organizations can be helpful. If schools and youth leaders discourage the kids from labeling each other as gay and putting each other down for it, and keep outcaste youth included in group activities, then that can likely prevent homosexuality from developing in at least some of our youth. Identifying any youth as gay can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that young person’s life.

For many pre-homosexual boys, whose fathers were unavailable for love and support, their mothers were. Some of these mothers were just doing the best they could, trying to give the love they saw the boy as needing. Some became overly dependent upon their sons because their marriages were unsatisfactory. Some joined their sons in putting down the father behind his back. Some dealt with their hurts and angers by male-bashing in the presence of their growing children, which is harmful for children of both sexes. If, because of her own wounded past, mother is uncomfortable with masculinity, she will discourage its expression (15).

Let’s move on to lesbians. A lot of lesbians had poor relationships with their mothers, or they grew up in homes where females were devalued and males were overly valued. They saw their mothers being abused by their fathers, so they decided that they wanted to be nothing like their mothers. They rejected their own gender. Many lesbians also grew up in environments that lacked safety and protection. They craved protection but did not receive it.

The fathers or surrogate fathers of many lesbians were sexually abusive. Some were contemptuous of women and expressed that verbally. Some were abusive toward the girl’s mother. Some left their pornography around the house with no respect for the girl’s modesty, and embarrassed the girl by making shaming comments about her developing body. The common denominator here is that males are perceived as selfish, unsafe, predatory, hostile, and unworthy of trust and respect. The growing girl decides “if no one is going to protect me, I will protect myself” (16).

There is a high rate of sexual abuse in the developmental histories of many gay males, and a very high rate in the developmental histories of lesbians (17, 18, 19).

We in the Church must never say that homosexuality is a choice. Ssa people usually put up a wall when they hear that. They insist they were born that way because no other explanation makes sense to them. It is far more realistic to recognize that while they were not born gay, many were born into it, or rather into an environment that set them up to have these feelings.

For some, there is nothing in their environment that fits these situations. Some had great parents, were never abused, and had same-sex friends. Same-sex attractions have been described as a room with many doors leading into it, and we have not yet figured out what some of those doors are.

But once you have developed some rapport, go ahead and ask what their childhood was like. Many times mere exposure to the developmental theories is enough to get them to question the “born that way” theory. I read a recent article that suggests gay people themselves may be giving up the “born that way” theory, because it has accomplished its purpose, which was a civil rights agenda. Herein lies an opportunity for the Church.

On the average, same-sex attracted people first became aware of their attractions by the age of 10, which is about 2 years before puberty sets in. Usually they were not happy with this realization. Pro-gay activists and social justice warriors regard themselves as having love and compassion, but how it is compassionate to give a 10-year-old the gay lifestyle as his or her only option? One study showed that 50% of gay youth hated being same-sex attracted (20). Another study placed the percentage as high as 75% (21).

I have spent a lot of time on the developmental theories, for two reasons. One is because our churches need to show some compassion to people who have often come from horrible backgrounds. We also need to be aware of what our youth may be experiencing.

Adolescents are not always certain of their sexual identity according to a study done by Remafedi (22). He found that by age 12, 25.9% of adolescents were unsure of their sexual orientation. By age 17, only 5% were unsure. Of the 95% of 17-year-olds who were sure of their sexual orientation, almost 99% were certain that they were heterosexual. About 80% of the unsure 12 year olds will turn out heterosexual if nothing happens to change that. In other words, the sexuality of 25% of our 12 year old will be “up for grabs” in the next 5 years of their lives.

Other research shows that about half of same-sex attracted male teenagers are no longer same-sex attracted as adults. A high percentage of same-sex attracted male 16-year-olds will be exclusively heterosexual by the time they are 17 years old (23). In other words, ssa youth need facts, reassurance, and encouragement to avoid experimenting.

Pro-gay activists like to accuse us of contributing to suicide in gay teens, but that is pure manipulation. A study compared homosexual teens who attempted suicide to the ones who did not. What they found was that the suicidal gay teen was more apt to have divorced parents, more apt to have been sexually abused, more apt to be using chemicals, more apt to have been arrested, more apt to be practicing prostitution, and more apt to be regarded as feminine by his peers. The earlier a teen is identified as gay, the more likely he is to attempt suicide. The earlier he begins to be sexually active, the more likely he is to attempt suicide. Also, 1/3 of the youth in his research group expressed that they hated being gay (24).

If a self-identified gay teen is suicidal, he should be asked about his home life, his sex life, and his chemical use. He does not need to be affirmed as a homosexual. If he is in his early teens, with good help and support, he will very likely find he is straight by the age of 17.

Homosexual fantasies and behaviors become a means of seeking relief from pain. But since the real root issues aren’t being dealt with, any relief is very temporary. What begins as an attraction can become addiction. Some Christians don’t like to refer to a sin as an addiction, but several verses in Romans 6 refers to us as slaves of sins who need to be set free. A book that does a good job of describing homosexuality as an addictive process is “Feathers of a Skylark” by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover (25).

Pedophiles need to know that they also can overcome their temptations and sexual addictions. We have been told that pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated, but the faith-based approaches have not yet received a fair hearing in our current culture. Some of us are seeking avenues for changing that (26).

With all this in mind, I will now describe the Keys program and how it can be helpful. Please check it out at www.keysministry.com.

NOTES

Sex in America: The Social Organization of Sexuality, 1994

My Genes Made Me Do It!: A Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation, by Neil and Briar Whitehead, pub. by Huntington House Publishers, 1999

“Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality”, pub. by American Psychological Association, reported in NARTH Bulletin, Vol. 16 (1), Summer 2008

“Evidence for a Biological Influence in Male Homosexuality”, Simon LeVay and Dean Hamer, Scientific American, May 1994

Nature, reported by Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1997

The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge, pub. by Penguin Books, 2007

Science of Desire, by Dean Hamer, pub. by Simon and Schuster, 1994

“Sexual Orientation: The Science and It’s Social Impact”, by S. LeVay

Scientific American, May 1994

Scientific American, November 1995, reported in NARTH Bulletin, April 1997

My Genes Made Me Do It!: a Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation, by Whitehead and Whitehead, published by Huntington House Publishing, 1999

“How do Genes Affect Same-sex Behavior?”, Science: Vol 365, Issue 6456, August 30, 2019, pp. 869-870
A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., and Linda Ames Nicolosi, published by Intervarsity Press, 2002

My Genes Made Me Do It!: a Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation, by Neil and Briar Whitehead, pub. by Huntington House Publishers, 1999

“An Empirical Study of the Mother-Son Dyad in Relation to the Development of Adult Male Homosexuality: An Object Relations Perspective”, by Gregory Dickson, Ph.D., reported in NARTH Bulletin, April 1999

Preventing Homosexuality, by Nicolosi

Queer by Choice, by V. Whisman, published by Routledge, 1996

My Genes Made Me Do It!: a Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation, by Neil and Briar Whitehead, pub. by Huntington House Publishers, 1999

“Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescence Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons”, by M. Tomeo, D. Templar, S. Anderson, D. Kotler, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 31(3), 2001, pp.535-541

“Predicting the Suicide Attempts of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth”, by D’Augelli, A.R., Grossman, A.H., Salter, N.P., Vasey, J.J., Starks, M.T., & Sinclair, K.O., in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35(6), 646-660,2005.

“Contributing Factors to Serious Attempts or Considerations of Suicide”, by Hammelman, T.L., in Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, 2, 77-89, 1993

“Demography of Sexual Orientation in Adolescents”, by Gary Remafedi, M.D., MPH; Michel Resnick, Ph.D., Robert Blum, M.D., Ph.D.; Linda Harris, Pediatrics, Vol. 89, April, 1992

“Sociological Studies Show Social Factors Produce Adult Ssa”, by Neil Whitehead, reported in Journal of Human Sexuality, Vol 3, 2011

“Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth”, by G. Remafedi, J. Farrow, R. Deisher, Pediatrics 87, 1991, 869-875

Feathers of a Skylark: Compulsion, Sin, and Our Need for a Messiah, by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., pub. by Hamewith Books, 1996

Darkness, Now Light, by Robert J. Van Domelen, pub. Regeneration Books, 1996

KEYS: JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

Keys was founded in the early to mid-80s by Rev. Rodel Eberle, who served an LCMS congregation in Wykoff, Minnesota, before retiring. He felt a burden to help same-sex attracted people. Back in the early 1980s, resources were few.

So Rev. Eberle looked to the Bible, which he considers the Keys program’s primary textbook. He wrote the Keys program based on the Bible, so the program is basically a Bible study. Each Keys lesson begins with a devotion that is about 2 ½ pages long. There are several Scripture texts to look up and write responses to. These are followed by several Study Guide questions.

There is a Plan of Action that goes with each Keys lesson. There are suggestions for how to get started, but as people make progress, they often come up with their own ideas about what would be a helpful plan.

In the fall of 2005, Rev. Eberle had a series of strokes that attacked his short-term memory. He then asked me to take over as the Keys director. I had been serving on his board since the mid-1990s. He had been working with the men who contacted the program, and I had been working with the women. Since the summer of 2006, I have been working with everyone.

Rev. Eberle went home to be with the Lord in December of 2017.

In the spring of 2007, I began getting letters from gay men in prisons. I continued to get an increasing volume of mail from men who were incarcerated, many of them for sexual crimes against children. Some were in for other offenses, but they experienced same-sex attractions, which they wanted to overcome. I didn’t go looking for a ministry to male prison inmates and incarcerated pedophiles, but the Lord set it up to happen the way it did. He died on the cross for those guys, too.

Some request information, I send them the introductory packet, and I never hear from them again. Some decide they want to get into the program. Some of those men have had no prior exposure to Christianity and are as ignorant as if they had grown up in the upper reaches of the Amazon. In my cover letter I explain the Gospel in the simplest terms. I make several issues clear. 1) The Bible is the Word of God and the Keys program’s primary textbook. 2) No one’s sins are better or worse than anyone else’s, and we all need God’s forgiveness no matter what we have done. 3) Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, He calls not the righteous but sinners to repentance, and His forgiveness cannot be earned by our efforts to do good works. I include the relevant Scripture references.

I need to make salvation by Grace Alone absolutely clear, because I would estimate that 95% of the people who contact me have a very legalistic view of how to approach God. They often have the idea that they must first “clean themselves up” before they can approach God. Their goal is to get rid of their same-sex attractions in order to become acceptable to God.

I further explain that our sinful thoughts are behind our sinful deeds, and that the battle will be won or lost in the mind. God’s truth from the Word will transform our minds. The Bible promises deliverance from homosexuality, but deliverance does not mean they will end up heterosexual. I share the statistics that 1/3 will end up heterosexual, 1/3 will reduce their same-sex attractions and gain a lot of good insights and spiritual growth, but will not develop opposite-sex attractions. Another 1/3 will drop out. I also assure them that I will actually be asking very few questions about their sex lives or fantasy lives. It is far more productive to focus on the thoughts and attitudes that set them up to be tempted.

So what are the Keys? They are 40 lessons long. I have been told that the Keys program is one of the most Biblical ex-gay programs available. I do not know if this is true or not. I do not want to take anything away from other ministries, but some of them rely heavily on support groups. There is certainly value in meeting with others who are fighting the same battles. The danger, however, is that the level of wisdom might not rise higher than the collective wisdom of the group. The other drawback is that very few same-sex attracted people live where there is a support group available. Keys relies heavily on the Bible.

The 40 Keys are divided into 5 units, each unit being 8 lessons long. Each Unit has a different theme. Unit I is focused on Getting Control of Your Life. In Key 1, Desire, one of the first questions asks what their motivation is for overcoming ssa/ma/tx. This question flushes out the hidden legalism. The most important thing to learn in Key 1 is the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. It also introduces the idea that the thoughts they think cause the feelings they feel. They can start identifying the negative thoughts that they think, and can start looking for Scriptures to counter those thoughts.

Unit I, Key 2, Faith, raises the question of what their faith is in? their own ability to live a good life, or the righteousness of Christ that covers our sins when we repent? This Key also addresses the concern that many have but do not always voice: what kind of a person will I become as I do the program? Will I like the person whom I become? When we truly trust God to turn us into who He meant for us to be, we will like ourselves. It’s a fact of human life that when we resist temptation instead of giving in, we feel more self-esteem.

In Key 2 I also introduce what I call the Emergency Prayer. It is based on Matthew 14:30-31. When Peter was sinking in the water and cried out, “Lord, save me!”, Jesus immediately put out a hand to rescue him. If at any time we are blindsided with an unexpected onslaught of temptation, and our minds are too fogged up with the temptation to even recall a memorized verse, we can always pray, Jesus, stop me, get me out of this, stop me even if I do not want to be stopped! One of my Keys brothers used this prayer frequently, and says he overcome his same-sex attractions primarily by using that prayer. He got married to a lady in 2018.

Unit I, Key 3, Scripture, explains using memorized Scripture to build faith, block tempting thoughts, and take thoughts captive to the Lordship of Christ. This is very important. In Key 1, they began identifying their negative thoughts. In Key 3, they are asked to find verses that speak against those thoughts. They need to learn to catch themselves as soon as possible when they start thinking negative thoughts, and de-rail those with memorized Scripture.

The most powerful verses, the ones that are the most helpful, are those that speak of God’s mercy as a free gift. I’ve had guys tell me that they beat themselves repeatedly with the verses against homosexuality, but that hasn’t worked. Of course it doesn’t, and Romans 7 tells us why. They cannot go wrong focusing on the cross and the Ransom paid on their behalf.

Beating themselves up over their sins and temptations doesn’t work, either. Jesus took the beating on our behalf. They need to focus not on their sins but on their Savior. I like to point them to 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 8:1.

Key 3 also introduces the idea that temptations are based on lies of the devil (John 8:44), and the truth from the Word will set us free (John 8:32). Jesus fought the devil with memorized Scripture, as should we. The lies that the devil tells us are very specific to each individual, and we can ask the Holy Spirit to expose the lies that we might not be consciously aware of, but still react to, and the truth from the Word that replaces those lies.

I spoke earlier about brain plasticity. The brain can be re-wired. When one consistently and persistently blocks negative thoughts and temptations with memorized Scripture, over time the neurons that encode those thoughts can atrophy, and the new neurons, that encode the memorized Scripture, will continue to grow. The Holy Spirit is growing our faith at the spiritual level at the same time the literal meat of our brain is growing as it encodes the Scriptures we read.

It is a trick of the devil to get us to think negative thoughts, which lead to negative emotions; once he gets us into a negative frame of mind, he then dangles our favorite sin in front of us and promises that it will make us feel better, at least for a while. This is how a sin becomes addictive. That is why it is so important to learn to block negative thoughts immediately with memorized Scripture. When we win the battle in the mind, we are less likely to act upon our temptations.

Key 4 is on Forgiveness. Rev. Eberle used to call this the Key of all Keys. So many same-sex attracted and minor-attracted people come from backgrounds of hurts. They may have been hurt by parents, other authority figures, older siblings, peers, molesters, former partners, and the list goes on. Minor-attracted adults often grew up in homes where there were no sexual or other boundaries. The bigger and stronger did whatever they wanted to with the littler and weaker. Sometimes we talk about forgiveness as if it were as simple as flipping a switch. It is more like peeling an onion, and a lot of tears can be shed.

Forgiveness is complicated. Forgiveness involves facing painful memories without flipping into anger in an effort to restore a sense of power that was taken away. Forgiveness involves surrendering one’s will to get revenge, whether in reality or in fantasy. Forgiveness means pouring out our pain and grieving our losses in the presence of Jesus, Who bore all our griefs and sorrows on the cross. Forgiveness means stopping ourselves from endless mental rehearsing of the wrongs that were done to us.

Unfortunately, so often people hear a legalistic interpretation of forgiveness. We are told that we have to forgive people or we will have a miserable life and end up in hell. Now how does threatening someone help one to become more forgiving?

Forgiving others needs to be based on what Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. When someone wrongs us, we want compensation. Jesus on the cross became that compensation. He who knew no sin became sin. He became the sins that others committed against us. He paid it all. We didn’t deserve Him to spend even a split second on the cross, but He put in 6 hours; we didn’t deserve for him to shed a molecule of blood, but He shed quarts. How much more compensation do we need?

If someone wronged us, and we forgive them, their sins no longer lie between us and them; their sins lie between them and Jesus. Our job is to pray for them to repent so they don’t go to hell. When something triggers a painful memory, instead of rehearsing our resentments, we need to shoot up a prayer for that person. That changes our attitude. That restores the sense of power of which the victim has been robbed.

Key 5 is Love. Are we willing to love others the right way, and not use them for sexual or emotional gratification? Many of these people never learned the difference between love and lust. When they begin to read the Bible, some learn for the first time that love means self-sacrifice, and isn’t just a word to use to get what they want from others.

Key 6 is Surrender. Trying to control everything in our lives is a much harder way to live than getting up in the morning and asking God what His will is for the day. Apparent setbacks and problems can turn out to be a firewall of protection against something worse. If you had purchased a ticket to sail on the Titanic, it might be a blessing in disguise if you lost that ticket.

Surrender involves recognizing that Jesus is the Potter and we are the clay, and that His agenda for our lives is easier than life outside of His will. Learning to live the surrendered life might mean facing a lot of fears and insecurities.

Key 7 is Re-building. The time, energy, and resources spent pursuing sin have to be replaced with God-pleasing activities.

At the end of each Unit is a Review Key, which is a chance to look back, assess one’s progress, and realize how far one has come.

That is just an overview of Unit I. Unit II focuses on Personality and Identity Change. This Unit focuses on letting God have His way with everything about them, not just their sexuality. Unit II is focused on the whole person. The same 7 Keys plus Review Key are gone over again, but at deeper levels and more focused on the whole person. If someone had a hard time with Forgiveness in Unit I, they will re-visit the issue in Units II, III, IV, and V.

Unit III focuses on Confronting Painful Memories and Lies. This involves facing painful memories from their pasts, and identifying the lies that were injected into their minds during moments of trauma, fear, pain, humiliation, etc., and speaking the truth from the Word against the lies. This Key encourages them to shut themselves up alone with the Holy Spirit and invite His searching of their minds. When a lie is identified and truth spoken against it, it is very freeing. When we identify the lies that were injected into our minds during experiences of abuse, it is much easier to forgive the abuser.

During Unit III, if they haven’t already, many overcomers feel a need for solitude, during which they can shut themselves up alone with the Holy Spirit and invite His deep searching. I often refer them to Psalm 139:23-24. “Search me, O God, and try my heart . . . . see if there be any wicked way in me.” I have noticed that somehow, when the time is right, the opportunities for solitude are made available, even in over-crowded prisons. One man unexpectedly was assigned to a single-man cell. Another was taken out of his kitchen job and assigned to yard work; he was watched from the guard towers several hundred yards away, but he was essentially alone. Some find themselves assigned to different shifts than their cellmates, or their cellmates are taking medications that cause them to sleep a lot, so the overcomer has privacy.

Unit IV focuses on Relationships and Standing Strong. Each Key focuses on a different male Biblical character, the challenges he faced, his weaknesses, his strengths, his faith or lack thereof, and how that relates to men today. I hope someday to write a parallel Unit IV, with each Key focusing on a different female Biblical character.

[In Unit IV, Key 1, Desire, focuses on King Saul. Key 2, Faith, focuses on the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace. Key 3, Scripture, focuses on King Jehoshaphat, who insists on hearing from the Lord’s prophet but then makes an unholy alliance with King Ahab anyway. Key 4, Forgiveness, you guessed it, is focused on Joseph and his brothers. Key 5, Love, is about David and Jonathan, who loved each other the right way. Key 6, Surrender, is about King Hezekiah, who receives a letter from the king of Babylon, lays the letter on the altar before the Lord, prays about the problem, and leaves the solution with the Lord. In Key 7, Re-building, we see Moses re-building his life in the backside of the desert. ]

Unit V is a miscellaneous unit. It includes a Key focused on spiritual gifts, another on the dangers of occultic practices, and other topics. The theme of Unit V is Moving Forward into the Future, now that the program is almost finished. Anyone who is still working the program has seen a lot of change in their lives. This raises the question of where to go from here. What is God calling you to do? Where does He seem to be taking you?

Not everyone gets through all 5 units. Some people gain their freedom from ssa/ma/tx after only one or two. Instant deliverance is rare, though it does happen. Most overcomers find that it is a process of two steps forward and one step back. Most do not overcome this easily. Weeks of calm can be interrupted by fierce temptation.

The first few weeks are always the hardest. The rate of change varies for everyone. The secular world objects to calling this an addiction, but anyone who undertakes to overcome this has no difficulty thinking of it as addiction. Giving up those old habits can feel like withdrawal from a drug. I compare the experience to the Hebrew tribes leaving Egypt. They left behind the flesh-pots of Egypt, but had not yet received their farms in the Promised Land.

Here are some does and don’t for witnessing to and discipling ssa/ma/tx people.

Never treat these sins and temptations as if they are worse than any other sins and temptations. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Never promise ssa people that this will make them straight. The opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality; the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. The question of what will happen to their sexuality is best surrendered to God’s will. First Corinthians 7 was written for some. Some find that they are happy being single and celibate. Some practice celibacy for years, and suddenly, without warning, they meet someone special and experience heterosexual feelings. Discourage dating until they feel ready for it. They need to work on their relationship with Jesus, not relationships with the opposite sex.

Do not be surprised if they try to shock you with dramatic presentations of the extent of their sins. However great our sin, Jesus is a greater Savior. Repeat as necessary. Watch for a distorted image of God. We often project onto God the traits we saw in the parents we had trouble with while growing up. Keep the focus on the Shepherd out in the hills looking for lost sheep, the Rabbi Who stood between the adulterous woman and the stones of the Pharisees, and the Atonement on the cross.

Resist the urge to hurl the fury of the Law at them in order to break them. Assume that Romans 2:15 will prove itself true. Any hostility or defensiveness is evidence of a guilty conscience. How do you know they are not already broken, but do not know what to do about it? I was broken long before even I knew it.

If they have broken up with a gay lover, be sensitive to the pain even though the relationship was sinful. No doubt there was good in the relationship as well, and their pain is real. Criticizing the former partner will not enhance your witness. But also be aware that gay people are most likely to be suicidal after the break-up of a relationship.

Do confront gay theology. It’s all self-will and proof-texting. It’s a form of work’s righteousness. Keep coming back to salvation by Grace Alone.

Also be aware that the person might actually be a Christian, but does not know how to use his or her faith to overcome temptation. The 1st of the 95 Theses is helpful.

Some of the negative thoughts that ssa/ma/tx people need to overcome include envy, self-pity, resentment, a cynical attitude that assumes the worst motives in others, a superior attitude that covers up feelings of inferiority, and pride. To work effectively with these people, you will need to practice rigorous self-examination and make sure you are free of those thoughts yourself.

The #1 reason people give up on overcoming and go back to the old life is loneliness. Overcomers need people they can call if they feel lonely or tempted. Our churches should be places where they can find friendship, belonging, loyalty, listening ears, and people who will walk alongside them as they struggle.

Let them see Christian families where husbands and wives love and respect each other and where children are a high priority. Invite them into your home. It is unlikely they will harm your children. Don’t be afraid to give an overcomer of the same gender a hug. If you don’t sexualize it, they likely will not.

Lesbians are often feminists. Feminism is a defense mechanism against an unsafe world. Let them see Christian men respecting women, and Christian women can let them see how their husbands’ godly leadership blesses the family. Help them understand servant-leadership.

Some lesbians have a hard time viewing God as masculine. Do not compromise the Word of God, but you can show them how God protects and honors women and treats them as His precious daughters.

Advise them not to date until they are good and ready. Do not present marriage and family as superior to being single and celibate.

Defend them if they are actually being treated unfairly. If they own a business and you shopped there before they came out of the closet, do not stop giving them your business.

Don’t wear your disapproval on your shirtsleeve. Jesus ate dinner with the tax collectors and prostitutes, and He never acted like He had to make a display of His disapproval. So why should we?

Gentleness and respect go a long ways. Unexpected kindness goes a long ways. Above all else, be Spirit-led.

The opponents of change will claim that people feel worse when they try to overcome same-sex attractions. The reality is that the overcomer is giving up the one source of comfort that he or she had, but has not yet received the benefits of overcoming. Be sensitive to this. Encourage them to lean hard on God, and stay in the Word and in prayer. These feelings are normal. They are normal for anyone giving up a habitual sin.

Half the battle is won when the overcomer realizes that he or she was not “born this way”. Many enter into the program uncertain if they will be able to overcome temptation of this magnitude; I certainly did. When the overcomer begins to experience victory, when he or she realizes that saying “no” to temptation is truly possible, and that one feels better about oneself when one does not give in, it’s an amazing experience. They begin to realize that the truth really will set them free. Once that begins, it becomes harder to go back.

So where is the program going? After Rev. Eberle turned directorship over to me, and I was working with increasing numbers of people, I realized that it was time to re-write the program. When Rev. Eberle wrote the program, resources were few, and what he did was on the cutting edge.

Since then, more research has been done and published. We have a better idea of what works and what does not. More books have been written by overcomers, more have shared their testimonies, and the ex-gay movement continues to grow. I wanted to re-write the Keys program to reflect the increased knowledge about the issues and to be inclusive of lesbians, minor-attracted adults, and transsexuals.

I started to re-write the program in the summer of 2009, and finished all 40 lessons about 18 months later.

For some time, I had had the idea of putting the Keys program on a website for anyone in the world to read, download, translate into his or her own language, and start using. The Keys is a powerful program, but I can see where someone unfamiliar with the issues involved in same-sex attractions and minor-attractions might do more harm than good.

So what I did was begin to write a Handbook. My plan was to write a Handbook chapter to go with each Keys lesson. This is so that anyone has a guide for helping someone through the Keys program, even if the mentor has no counseling background and is unfamiliar with the issues. Each Handbook chapter parallels the Scripture verses and Study Guide questions in the corresponding Keys lesson. To do this, I went back through all the files and identified what responses were the most common, and what points needed to be drawn from each Scripture passage and Study Guide question. At the end of each Handbook chapter, I include a section entitled “Additional Points”, which elaborate on the issues the overcomers often have to deal with.

My dream was to have a website with all this available. A few years ago, a sex offender in prison told me that when he got out of prison, he would build me a website. A few months after his release, we got started. He did the technical part, and I did the writing. He uploaded everything I had done so far. The website went live on the internet in October of 2016. As of right now, Units I, II, and III are uploaded with links to their Handbook chapters. Unit IV is done but has not yet been uploaded.

One precaution I took was to ask three LCMS pastors to read the Keys and the Handbook chapters, and serve as my theological editors. One had to drop out, but I still have two who take the time to do this. Unit V is currently in the hands of my theological editors.

Why am I doing this? Over the years, several pastors and lay people have asked me if there was somewhere they could go to get a copy of the Keys. Well, now they can. I am making this available on the internet so that any pastor, missionary, campus pastor, military or prison chaplain, Christian counselor, or lay mentor, can download the Keys, translate it if necessary, and begin using it. The Keys and their Handbook chapters can be used as a self-study program if no mentor is available. It is hard enough to find a ministry here in America – it is much harder in other countries.

But by now, 95% of the world’s population has internet access. Consider the same-sex attracted person in a Muslim country, where, if his sexual orientation were known, he would be subject to the death penalty. In the privacy of his computer, tablet, or smartphone, he can find help without anyone needing to know. Consider someone in a remote rural area who wants help, but has no way to get it. Consider the minor-attracted adult, who has never acted upon his feelings, but who is afraid to go to his pastor and confess his temptations, and who lives in fear that someday his self-control will slip and he will molest a child. And if any of these do have a pastor or missionary to go to, that pastor or missionary needs a resource.

The prison ministry volunteer who is approached by a penitent sex offender needs a resource for helping that man overcome his lust for young boys. There is a prison in Texas where the Keys program was spreading like wildfire among the sex offenders in the faith-based unit; the ministry volunteer spent much of his time training the inmate facilitators because new groups kept forming as more and more men joined the group. In prison, sex offenders sometimes have to stick together because no one else wants to associate with them; when a resource becomes available to one, he refers his friends. That is what happened in this prison in Texas.

I heard a few years ago that some students at the University of Virginia demanded that the administration hire a therapist for the student counseling service who would undertake to provide counseling for students who wanted to overcome same-sex attractions. Those students needed a resource. I was not yet ready to provide it to them. I once sat in on a meeting of students from the University of Minnesota who wanted to start their own ex-gay support group. They needed resources, but again, I was not yet ready to provide it.

I was contacted a few months ago by an LCMS pastor in another state, who had a parishioner who had been arrested for child molestation. This parishioner had been a pillar of the church, but had been hiding a secret sin. This man will likely go to prison, and his pastor wants to be able to help him even after he is incarcerated. That pastor now has a resource to help this man; he might also end up helping some of this man’s new friends in prison.

Before I close, there are several features of Lutheran theology that I think make it ideal for helping someone overcome any addictive sin. In a sense all of our sins are addictive; the Bible makes it clear that we are slaves of sin.

The first doctrine is salvation by Grace Alone. Most of the people who contact me are motivated to do so because they want my help to “clean up their lives” so that they can approach God. They have been told that at least part of their salvation depends on their own success at overcoming the sin in their lives. They need to know that salvation is a free gift to penitent sinners.

Another Lutheran doctrine is that faith is passively received. I can’t tell you how many same-sex attracted and minor-attracted people have asked me how they can have this problem, since they said the sinner’s prayer. They ask me if they said the sinner’s prayer correctly, or if they should have said something more, or worded it differently.

But Lutheran doctrine tells us there is nothing in us that is able to go in pursuit of God, to believe that we are sinners, to come under conviction of sin, to believe that Jesus on the cross made full atonement for our sin, or to believe by faith that we have been forgiven from the cross for all of our sins. It takes a huge burden off these people when they understand that all they have to do is confess their sins, and God is faithful and just to forgive their sins. It takes a huge burden off them when they realize that they are incapable of faith on their own, that faith is not something they have to develop by psyching themselves up. All they have to do is read the Word, and the Holy Spirit will work through it to cause their faith to grow.

Some believe that their sins are too bad for God to forgive. Some of them have been told that by legalistic pastors. Some churches teach that some people are predestined for heaven and some predestined for hell, and some of these same-sex attracted and minor-attracted people have been told that they are in the latter category. If they have not been told that, they draw their own conclusions that their inability to overcome their sins is proof that God has rejected them, will send them to hell, and that they are beyond the reach of His mercy. Lutheran doctrine rejects double pre-destination.

Not only are we saved by Grace Alone, we are also sanctified by Grace Alone. But there are churches that give people the impression that we might be saved by God’s mercy, but can only be sanctified by getting back under the Law. Now how well did that work for the Galatians? Paul calls them foolish, and says that while they began by faith, they then tried to be perfected in their flesh. The 1st of the 95 Thesis is very clear.

There are also churches that imply or state that the Sermon on the Mount replaces the Law of Moses. Now who can live up to the expectations of the Sermon on the Mount? The Sermon on the Mount shows us how helpless we are in our sins, and how much we need the mercy of God.

Some churches teach that there is a ladder between us and God, that it is up to us to get as high up the ladder as we can, but since we cannot get all the way up, Jesus comes partway down to carry us the rest of the way. This implies, however, that it is up to us to do our part. How do we know if we have done enough at our end, and if we have lived up to Jesus’ expectations of us? Lutheran doctrine assures us that we are stuck in the mud at the bottom of the ladder, unable to get even to the first rung of it, and that Jesus had to come all the way down the ladder to carry us all the way back up. Nothing is left in our hands by which we can earn even partial salvation. It’s all Jesus.

To sum up, I am working for the day when going to a support group to overcome same-sex attractions, minor attractions, and transsexuality is as common and acceptable as it is for the chemical addict to attend Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous. These people may be the biggest unreached people group in the world. I would love to see the Keys or something similar in every prison unit, every college campus, every large church, or every small town where churches combine resources. I pray for Keys to go global and viral, and save millions of lives and souls.

Thank you for inviting me.

FACULTY STUDY MEETING

1. Can ssa pastors and deaconesses function in ministry?

What is their attitude about it? Do they believe that they were “born that way”?

Are they only attracted to adults? Ssa and ma are two different things, but there are some who overlap. The eyes can see teenagers as adults and attractive sexual objects.

Do they understand the difference between temptation and actual sin?

Do they have some self-awareness as to what is behind it?

(Draw the tree.) Is that pastor or deaconess dealing with sins of the mind? How is that person’s self-examination going? How transparent are they before God? Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 10:5 apply here.

Do they have more than head knowledge of the Gospel? I was once contacted by a fallen pastor who had molested boys in his youth group. He could quote Martin Luther perfectly, and explain the theology of the cross, but it seemed to escape his awareness that he was wrong for molesting boys in his confirmation class. He fooled himself into believing that he was doing them some good thereby. He opted not to do the Keys program. He was more interested in finding out if I could help him get onto the clergy roster of the AFLC, since he was off the LCMS roster.

I have a friend who did work the Keys program, and who had been a youth minister. He was in charge of a Bible camp, and oversaw the spiritual direction of a thousand boys every summer. He felt justified in selecting one of them for his bed partner, since he was doing the rest of the boys so much good. This man came to real repentance.

How do you deal with pastors who get caught using heteroporn? The same principles apply.

When my husband, Ken, was dean of a Bible camp, one of his male counselors was found to have an addiction to heteroporn. Ken removed him from his office. That man repented, sought help, and overcame. A year or so later, Ken allowed him to go back to being a counselor. This man is now in seminary. I know his wife; she is confident he made a good recovery.

Former president of the AFLC – Snipstead. He kept it a secret until his wife was diagnosed with AIDS and he was confronted by his doctor. Some of his friends have heard me speak. They wish he would have talked about it instead of holding in the secret. They attended his funeral, which was also attended by reporters from gay publications. The presence of his friends was a good witness.

I am acquainted with a couple of ex-gay pastors. Rev. Eberle worked with a few ssa seminary students years ago.

Ssa pastors, seminary students, and deaconess students can get into the Keys program. They need to find a good mentor. I wrote the Handbook to teach the mentors. Anyone who has overcome an addiction can be a good mentor: chemicals, gambling, porn, etc.

Years ago, I gave a talk at the Lutheran Brethren seminary in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. The speaker before me was an ex-gay LB pastor. He was single and celibate, and okay with that. “I am just like you guys, except I have these feelings.” One of his former professors said, “We knew that you had a problem, but we thought it was low self-esteem. How could we have helped you?” Keeping the secret had been the worst part.

This issue isolates a person, unless one comes out and joins the gay community. Church should be the place for the ssa person to get understanding, belonging, loyalty, friendship, and people who will walk alongside of him or her and just be friends. Loneliness is the #1 reason that people give up the struggle against ssa and go back into the gay lifestyle. Hidden legalism is another big reason. When you hear on the left-wing news media that some ex-gay leader has gone back to the gay lifestyle, look for the hidden legalism.

I was part of a support group years ago, and we met for pizza and coffee once a week. We didn’t actually talk much about our issues; it was just enough to know that we were in the same room as others who had been in the same arena and fought the same dragon.

An ex-gay pastor told me that in his experience, the ssa guys in his church start the men’s accountability groups. Later, the straight guys with addictive sexuality issues ask to join.

They need to be able to talk about it and be treated like “one of the guys” or “one of the girls”. They need to be able to talk about it long before they give up the lonely struggle, buy into gay theology, and come out as gay and proud.

Years ago I spoke to a group of pastors and lay people, and the pastors told me about a fellow pastor who had suddenly come out as gay, left his wife and kids, and moved to Minneapolis to live with his partner. They tried to reach him, they tried to argue against gay theology, but nothing could get through to him. All that was left for them to do was provide good pastoral care to his wife and kids, who were in total shock and blaming themselves.

The left-wing media will tell you about ex-gays becoming ex-ex-gays, but they never tell you about the ex-ex-ex-gays. I get people who made an earlier change effort, gave up because they were taking a legalistic approach, but are willing to try again but this time under God’s Grace.

Is that person otherwise solid, living transparently before God, self-aware, having good boundaries, etc.?

Does that person understand that instant deliverance is rare and unrealistic? People will tell you that they tried to pray away the gay, and found out that they could not. But real overcomers know that we can only overcome by being willing to pray away the gay one. Temptation. At. A. Time.

Does that person realize and accept that some residue of that temptation will always be there? But that temptation does not have to define him or her. The big ssa can become the little ssa. The monkey on one’s back can become the fly on one’s shoulder.

The secular world wants to define us by our feelings. We define ourselves by who we are in Christ: penitent sinners relying only and entirely on God’s mercy in Christ to save us.

2. What can you do now at seminary to help ssa seminarians and deaconess students?

If you have two or more, start a Keys group. What you need to get started is on my website. I’ll get it done eventually. Someone should be the mentor. If you have only one, help them find a mentor to do the Keys with that person. Preferably the mentor should be of the same sex – though I work with men all the time, and I worked my own recovery with an older male pastor. Still, it isn’t ideal.

Create an atmosphere in which it is okay to talk about it. Secrecy and isolation are the worst things that can happen to an ssa person. If they feel they need to keep it secret, that reinforces the legalistic idea that this temptation is worse than all other temptations.

As long as no one talks about it, the issue remains mysterious. That mysteriousness only reinforces the power of temptations. When people are isolated, their sexual fantasies go through the roof.

3. All your students should be aware of gay theology and be able to refute it, while bringing the talking points back to sola gratia. They will run into it. They should not be afraid of it. It’s just Legalism Lite.

4. Some will be single and celibate, and find I Corinthians 7 was written just for them. Others will find themselves having opposite-sex attractions. Often overcomers are caught off guard by opposite-sex attractions; they don’t see those feelings coming, but suddenly they are there.

So if you work with someone, and then get a wedding invitation years later, do not be surprised.

THEOLOGY CLASS

There are several features of Lutheran theology that I think make it ideal for helping someone overcome any addictive sin. In a sense all of our sins are addictive; the Bible makes it clear that we are slaves of sin. We may take Lutheran theology for granted, but we live in a culture in which Reformed theology has had a great deal of influence. Until you have seen some of the negative results of that influence, you may not fully appreciate how liberating Lutheran theology really is.

(Draw the ladder. Tell the story about the jars of M & M’s. Romans 3:20.)

Legalists want to see how much sinning they can get away with, without losing their salvation. Or else they end up like the Pharisee in Luke 18, standing before God and bragging about all their good deeds. Legalists essentially come to the foot of the cross, not to repent, but to declare, “You owe me!” Some end up like the Prodigal Son’s older brother, full of resentment at the blessings given to the truly penitent. Some give it all up in a fit of rage and become total libertines. In any case, they have no real joy.

We who have been raised in the Church tend to have a critical attitude toward the Pharisee in the temple, bragging about his good deeds, but we really ought to feel sorry for him. He must have lived a life of continuous fear, terrified that one slip-up on his part would cause him to lose God’s favor. He never had a moment’s peace. The best he probably felt all week was when he could come to the temple to brag about his clean living.

Once people really grasp that salvation is only and entirely by the mercy of God in Christ as a free gift, that only Jesus’ atonement on the cross could make full satisfaction for all of their sins, and that He did everything on our behalf what we could never do for ourselves, people become eager to confess their sins and be purged of everything. They want to haul out all their garbage and dump it at the foot of the cross. They become very willing to practice rigorous and thorough self-examination. They do not fear the Law because they not only understand the second use of it, they appreciate the second use of it. They want nothing to stand between them and Grace.

Be aware that Reformed theology uses the word “grace” in a very different way. In their thinking, grace is something God gives you to make you able to overcome. People from that kind of background or who have been exposed to that kind of teaching might wonder why God has not given them the “grace” to overcome their same-sex attractions. They may easily draw the conclusion that God has rejected them. I’ll have more to say about that in a few minutes.

I push Sola Gratia in Unit I Key 1. I ask them their motivation for wanting to overcome ssa/ma/tx. About 95% of them give me a legalistic response. “Help me get rid of this sin so I will be clean enough to approach God. I need to clean up my life so I can have a relationship with Him.” The 1st of the 95 Theses is the best. (Two pieces of chalk.)

Passive Grace is why we baptize our babies with complete confidence. (Conversation about baptism with Cousin Stuffed Shirt. Very concerned about people who were “sprinkled” when they were infants. I told him: My soul was baptized by Jesus Himself. The amount of water doesn’t matter, because it is not the water that does anything. A child doesn’t need to have a certain amount of neurons connected in order to be spiritual. A baby can have an authentic spiritual life. Drowning my sin in daily repentance keeps the water of my baptism flowing.)

I push Sola Fide in Unit I Key 2, Faith. Once they realize that faith is not something they have to psych themselves up to, but can receive by staying in the Word, it takes a lot of pressure off them.

Another Lutheran doctrine that sets us apart is that we do not believe in double-predestination. Reformed theology tells people that some are pre-destined for hell. A few minutes ago I mentioned how same-sex attracted people might conclude that God has rejected them, since He seems to have not given them the “grace” to be rid of these feelings. Many of them prayed repeatedly for these feelings to be taken away, but ended up frustrated, depressed, and angry at God. They easily conclude that since God has not given them the “grace” to be rid of these feelings, they are one of those who are pre-destined for hell.

One common slogan of the LGBT community is “you can’t pray away the gay.” It is easy to see why they might say that if their only exposure to Christianity has been the Reformed definition of “grace”. By contrast, the 3 Solas assure us that we can pray away the gay if we are willing to pray it away one. Temptation. At. A. Time. Grace Alone assures us that we can approach the throne of Grace with boldness and find mercy and help in time of need. Faith Alone assures us that we rely on the covering of the alien righteousness of Christ, with no confidence left in our own merits. Scripture Alone points us continually to the cross and the Ransom paid on our behalf.

There are people in Reformed churches who live all their lives without assurance of salvation. I can’t imagine the fear in which these people must live, and I understand how young people growing up in these churches might wish to leave as soon as they can.

Some believe that their sins are too bad for God to forgive. Some of them have been told that by legalistic pastors. Since their churches taught them that some people are predestined for heaven and some predestined for hell, some of these same-sex attracted and minor-attracted people assumed that they are in the latter category. Some have pastors who told them that they were pre-destined for hell, simply because they were gay. If they have not been told that, they draw their own conclusions that their inability to overcome their sins is proof that God has rejected them, will send them to hell, and that they are beyond the reach of His mercy. Lutheran doctrine rejects double pre-destination.

(Fred Phelps. Barbarosa)

As Lutherans, we believe that the Word is everything. The Word is what plants faith, shows us our sins, shows us the mercy of God in Christ as a free gift, and is what the Holy Spirit uses to work in our lives. God has made it easy for us. We just have to pick up the Bible and read it, and the Holy Spirit uses it to go right to work on us. Key 3 is Scripture.

The Word is what we use to block temptation. A big part of the Keys program involves memorizing Scripture and using it to block temptations. That includes temptations not only of words and deeds, but also thoughts, attitudes, fantasies, hidden motivations, secret agendas, pride, and the lies of the enemy. John 8:32 & 36. The Word exposes the lies of the devil and replaces them with truth.

Season of time alone with God – Psalm 139:23-24. In the desert.

Let’s go back to Grace Alone. Not only are we saved by Grace Alone, we are also sanctified by Grace Alone. But there are churches that give people the impression that we might be saved by God’s mercy, but can only be sanctified by getting back under the Law. Now how well did that work for the Galatians? Paul calls them foolish, and says that while they began by faith, they then tried to be perfected in their flesh. The 1st of the 95 Thesis is very clear.

Lutheran doctrine makes it easier to forgive the ones who wronged us. Ssa/ma/tx people have usually had many people in their lives who wronged them: parents, parent substitutes, peers, molesters, partners, the list goes on.

Hurt, helpless, and humiliated. Loss of power. Anger a phony effort to restore sense of power. Never enough. Addictive. Can’t hate them enough. Endlessly rehearsing painful memories. Honest anger is something one can get over; resentment keeps on snowballing. Sort of like the difference between sadness and self-pity.

Jesus on the cross was hurt, helpless, and humiliated. (Quote 2 Corinthians 5:21.) He paid for our sins and the sins of those who wronged us. Did He pay enough? Do we need Him to pay more? He became the sins committed against us. We don’t deserve a split second of His time on the cross, but He stayed there for 6 hours. We don’t deserve a molecule of His blood, but He shed quarts of it.

When we forgive others, their sins no longer lie between us and them, they lie between them and Jesus. He will deal with them better than we ever could. We can block the mental rehearsing with memorized Scripture. We can face the pain without flipping into anger to restore a sense of power. When we face the pain without flipping into anger, we gain a real sense of power, made perfect in weakness. (Quote 2 Corinthians 12:9.) Our faith in that verse is tested every time we have to forgive someone.

When we resent someone, we feel guilty. Deep down, we know we are not supposed to resent them. Ever notice how people seem to find it necessary to justify their resentment? When we forgive them, we no longer feel guilty. Ever notice how resentful people seem to find more and more things wrong with the ones they resent, and seem driven to do so? When we forgive someone, we no longer feel a need to find more things wrong with that person in order to justify our resentment against them. When we don’t feel guilty, we cannot be manipulated. Nor do we feel a need to find more things wrong with them.

If you ever find yourself wondering why people seem to keep going back to bad situations, when better alternatives are available, look for two things. Look for guilt; do they feel obligated to go back and try to make the situation work out better? Guilt makes them feel as if they owe something to the one who wronged them.

Or look for resentment. There are people out there who go back over and over to bad situations because they hope that next time they can get the better of the one who has been hurting them. If they could just find the perfect act of cruelty or the perfect insult that will really crush, devastate, and shatter that person, then somehow they will feel like a whole person themselves.

We are so tempted to play the role of the Holy Spirit and try to bring those who wronged us under conviction of sin. If we could just “make them realize” how badly they have hurt us and how wrong they are for doing so. But the urge to “make them realize” is just revenge-seeking in pious disguise.

Forgiveness has been turned into a Law by many well-intentioned people. No one can keep the Law. But forgiveness has often been treated like the one Law we have to keep in order to merit God’s forgiveness. It’s like the one premium we have to pay in order to obtain unlimited fire insurance. How many times have we been threatened? You better forgive, or God will not forgive you, and you will turn into a bitter old man or woman. How does a threat move anyone closer to real forgiveness? How do we put a Grace-centered interpretation on Matthew 6:15?

Matthew 6:12 treats giving and receiving forgiveness as working in tandem. If we treat our resentment like another sin that we need to confess, we are giving forgiveness at the same time we are receiving it. And like any other virtue, our forgiveness will never be made perfect in this life.

When you work with same-sex attracted people, you might find yourself dealing with people who have been subjected to severe sexual, physical, or mental abuse. Both boys and girls have been gang-raped, sometimes by their fathers, older brothers, older cousins, etc. Some were abused during satanic rituals. Most were bullied a lot in public school.

Sometimes we talk about forgiveness as if it were as simple as flipping a switch. It is more like peeling an onion, with lots of tears shed. The whole issue of forgiveness has to be approached with caution and treated like a process rather than an event. And it will do no good to treat forgiveness like a Law to be obeyed instead of placing it in the context of mercy to be received.

Yet the work of forgiveness is essential to recovery. The root of resentment must be confronted, but the place to confront it is at the foot of the cross. Our human nature demands compensation for the wrongs that were done to us. Jesus on the cross is our Compensation. He is all the compensation that we need. We do not need to seek compensation through revenge-seeking or fantasies of revenge. We need to get our focus on Jesus, and trust Him to deal with those who wronged us.

Forgiveness isn’t a feeling. If one has surrendered the will to get revenge, and is willing to be kind, gentle, and patient with those who wronged us, we have done what we can, besides praying for those people to repent. Praying for the salvation of those who wronged us is powerful.

Key 4 is on Forgiveness, and Rev. Eberle used to call it the Key of all Keys. Everything hinges on forgiveness. It is the one people usually find to be the hardest, but it is also the one they get the most out of.

When you do pastoral care with people, try to find out how they perceive God. So often we project onto God the traits we saw in the parent with which we had the most trouble. If a parent was abusive, God is perceived as abusive; if a parent was quick to anger, God is perceived as angry; if a parent was hyper-critical and verbally abusive, God is perceived as hyper-critical and abusive.

Obviously the solution is to push the message of salvation by Grace Alone. Jesus isn’t the abusive, angry, critical parent. This is the Shepherd out in the hills looking for lost sheep, the Rabbi Who stood between the adulterous woman and the stones of the Pharisees, and the Atonement on the cross Who could hear a plea for mercy even in the midst of His own agony.

There are people out there whose only exposure to Christianity has been seeing legalistic people at gay pride parades holding up signs that say things like, “Turn or burn, you are going to hell, etc.” I wonder sometimes what those people holding the signs expect the response to be. Do they think that this will move people to repent? Romans 7 tells us plainly why that approach doesn’t work. It is pointless to confront people with the Law without telling them what to do about it.

Luther was good about telling us that people must first be broken by the Law before you can bring them Grace. But how do we know whether or not someone has been broken by the Law or not? Someone can be broken and not show it. Guilt can be covered over with a thick wall of pride, conceit, arrogance, and a cocky attitude. They may not even know it themselves when they are broken. The Gospel has a way of putting cracks in people’s walls. Romans 2:15 tells it like it is. The Law is written on our hearts. The Gospel implies the Law.

There is another point about Grace Alone that I would like to make. Once in a while you hear about someone who left the gay lifestyle, seemed to make a good recovery, but then later on goes back to the old life. Sometimes he leaves a wife and some children. The secular media likes to make a big deal out of these situations and present them as “proof” that people do not really change. So why does this happen?

I am convinced that once again, it’s legalism. I have known people whose initial attempts to overcome same-sex attractions was driven by legalism, a desire to “clean themselves up” in order to be acceptable to God. Again, Romans 7 tells us why that didn’t work. Some of these people could speak very intelligently about the mercy of God, but they never truly grasped it. I have also worked with people who made an earlier attempt to overcome same-sex attractions, went back to the old life because of their legalism, but later came to an understanding of Grace Alone, and then wanted to make another attempt to be an overcomer, but this time under Grace rather than the Law.

I want to make one final point about gay theology. It’s all legalism. It lowers the bar of the Law so that one sees no need for Grace. It puts one’s faith in one’s own righteousness rather than in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. It relies on human reasoning rather than the Word of God. Ever notice how secular theories change every few years? They contradict themselves and each other. But to justify their sins, people will rely on junk science, re-written history, and empty philosophies.

So to deal with this issue and any other issues that come up during pastor care, you can rely on Grace Alone, Faith Alone, and Scripture Alone. They all point to Christ Alone.

Thank you for inviting me.

ETHICS

Dr. Pless asked me to take this class since he will be gone today, and when I heard the class is on theological ethics, I admitted I didn’t know much about that. The questions he asked me to address are 1) what forces shaped a culture of widespread cultural acceptance of homosexuality, 2) what forces led to aggressively rejecting any idea that it might be wrong, and 3) what are the implications for pastoral/deaconess work and the church’s public witness.

I am 61 years old, and I have seen a lot of changes. Things come and go. In the mid-1970s I was a college student in my late teens. The Jesus Movement had been going on for years. Anyone here remember that? (Describe it.) Whether it would have eventually led to a total cultural revival is a question we will never be able to answer. But it had its impact.

The home-schooling movement came out of it. Faith-based programs to overcome chemical addictions came out of it. The ex-gay movement came out of it. But so did something else.

Dr. Pless asked me to share my opinions, and I am always happy to do that. In the late 1970s, something happened that I believe ran the Jesus Movement off the rails. Does anyone here remember Jerry Falwell? He started a movement called the Moral Majority. He wanted to harness the Church to politics. Now I had been told all my life, growing up the 1960s in a very pious family, that the Church needs to stand up against everything that is wrong in our society. In Jerry Falwell, the people who had been saying that finally got their wish.

A great book that is probably out of print is entitled, “Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?”, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson. The authors describe how the evangelical churches became politicized. I can’t lay out every point the book makes here, and the Moral Majority has since been disbanded, but the idea that the Church should be a political force is alive and well.

Several things happened as a result.

Evangelicals began to make moral compromises in order to keep their favorite politicians in power. In the book, the authors describe how Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the Supreme Court. Anyone who took the time to check her record would see that she had a lot of left-leaning ideas, but President Reagan knew how to work people. He called up Jerry Falwell, told Rev. Falwell that he really wanted this woman on the Supreme Court, and would Rev. Falwell please ask his followers to support her. Rev. Falwell obliged. In spite of that, many people did call their senators to say that Ms. O’Connor was unacceptable. Likely many others did not, however, because they trusted Rev. Falwell’s judgment. Ms. O’Connor was appointed, and voted favorably for pro-abortion cases until she retired.

I mention evangelicals, because Rev. Falwell was a Baptist pastor, but no denomination is unaffected. All branches of the Church got into the game.

When the Church forms an alliance with political power, one of the biggest temptations is to give up the Church’s prophetic voice. Time and again I have seen Right-wing politicians, who claim to be Christians, quick to throw stones of judgment at the sinners on the other side of the aisle, while giving the sinners on their own side of the aisle a free pass. They either shut their eyes to the sin, or they make excuses for it; excuses they would never allow their opponents to use. The secular world is well aware of the blatant hypocrisy, but many Christians seem unaware of their own double standards and how they are perceived as hypocrites. Or they foolishly believe they are being persecuted, when their own double standards are the cause of unbeliever’s hostility. We need to get back to the core message of the Gospel: we are all sinners, and both sides of the aisle in Congress need to repent.

Another result I have seen is a lot of controversy over symbols rather than substance. Does anyone remember when Jesse Ventura was governor of Minnesota? When he was asked to endorse, I believe it was the National Day of Prayer, he refused. He thought it inconsistent with the Constitution to appear to prefer one religion over another. Of course, Republican Christians were outraged. I wasn’t. I raised the question as to why we felt we needed his endorsement in the first place. Are we that insecure? I question if we should ever ask a politician to endorse such a thing. Seeking that kind of alliance with political power just makes us look insecure and unsure of who we are.

People get all worked up over whether a city council or the U.S. Senate should open with a prayer. Whether they do or do not is not the point. I would be a lot more impressed if I knew our city council members or our U.S. Senators were praying in their private prayer closets or having prayer meetings in each others’ offices. What does it achieve to put on a show in public?

Another result is that the younger generation of Christians has no recollection of a time when politics was perceived as not belonging in the Church. They do not recollect a time when the Church was not politicized. A few years ago, I had a conversation with a young lady in her early 30s, I believe, who was a youth leader in a church, and the conversation kept veering into politics. She had no idea how to do church without politics. We seem to have forgotten I Corinthians 2:2. When Jesus stood before the Roman governor, He plainly stated that His kingdom is not of this world.

Political involvement has affected our witness. When I was a college student during the tail-end of the Jesus Movement, my fellowship group was totally sold out for Jesus. We were conscientiously trying to be like Jesus. We were concerned about practicing the fruits of the Spirit, we sought ways to be more loving to others, we prayed together every morning before we went to breakfast and then to our classes, we prayed for our professors and fellow students to come to faith in Jesus, and we studied the Bible together. We saw powerful answers to prayer. I’ll share one if I have enough time. The men were concerned about how to handle their sexual feelings in godly ways, and we women had serious conversations about how modestly we should dress. That’s just one example.

Things happened, I had some faith crises, and I quit church for a while. But in my late 20s, I started to go again. But the Church had changed. The people were no longer pre-occupied with showing love to lost souls and winning them for Christ. People were openly hostile to me because I had an advanced degree and a full-time profession. Some political types had told them that women like me: liberal, feminist, Democrat, were their enemies, that we were destroying society, and that America’s problems were our fault. They were rude, unfriendly, self-righteous, and they made nasty digs at me. They seemed to feel quite justified in doing so.

I would be willing to bet that some of those people, who loudly proclaimed that a woman’s place is in the home and that mothers of small children should remain at home with them, voted for Sarah Palin when she ran for Vice President, in spite of having a special needs baby. That kind of double standard is not lost on the watching world.

The really sad part is that I was spiritually hungry and open at that time in my life, but my own legalism had contributed to my faith crises. These people were completely unable to be helpful to me, partly because of their own legalism, and partly because of their political pre-occupation that colored how they related to me. I needed someone to explain to me that salvation was by Grace Alone, and several years later someone did, but at the time it was implied that I would be saved by adopting a political view and giving up my profession.

Part of the problem of political involvement is that politics always identifies a winner and loser. So if the Church is politicized, and we lose an election, what does that make us? And when we lose, we feel humiliated. No one likes to feel humiliated. When we feel humiliated, we get angry. So Christians are perceived as angry rather than loving.

Because politics defines a winner and a loser, it also sets people up to form groups of like-minded people. We all like to be in our comfort zones. We feel safe when we define ourselves by our “in group”, and define those others as the “out group”. “Those people” in the other group are defined as the problem. And the sins of the out group are always perceived as far worse than the sins of the in group. We see them as the sinners, not ourselves.

Rev. Falwell and like-minded preachers often spoke out against homosexuality, and intentionally or not, gave people the impression that it is worse than all other sins. When the AIDS scare happened back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Rev. Falwell proclaimed that AIDS was God’s righteous judgment not only on the gay community but also on a society that tolerates them.

All he accomplished by such a statement was to alienate gay people from the Church. When the AIDS scare occurred, the Church should have been in those AIDS wards, bringing the Gospel to people who were dying in fear. Instead, too many Christians seemed glad to see “those people” getting what they had coming to them. Rev. Falwell reinforced the message that homosexual behavior is worse than any other sin. We missed an opportunity here. I read a story of a pastor who did go into AIDS wards (tell it).

Years later, Rev. Falwell repented of his harsh rhetoric. He was invited to address the Exodus Conference, which annually had a large convention for ex-gays. Many objected and stated that they would not attend if he were to come; the reason many gave was “I almost didn’t come to Christ because of things this man said.” Gay people had come to Christ because someone shared the Gospel and communicated love, but that kind of legalistic, politically-driven rhetoric almost prevented them from being willing to listen to the person who brought a good witness.

I didn’t attend that conference; but if I recall correctly, I read afterwards that Rev. Falwell did come. He apologized, and his audience forgave him.

So this is the kind of thing we are up against. Years ago, I got a call from a mother whose 19-year-old daughter had come out as a lesbian. This mother was not a Christian, she was into Eastern philosophies and New Age, and she viewed herself as a liberal, but instinctively she knew that something had gone wrong in her daughter’s life. The mother had divorced her husband years ago, the daughter had grown up without a decent father in the home, and the mother realized that the environment had contributed to her daughter turning out same-sex attracted.

She asked me if there were any groups in the Twin Cities that her daughter could go to for support to overcome this issue. I suggested Outpost, an ex-gay ministry in the Cities. She told me that she didn’t want her daughter in a fundamentalist group that would tell her that she was going to hell. I told her that no Christian worth his or her salt would talk like that, and that Jesus’ Gospel was a message of redemption.

As soon as I said the word “redemption”, I could literally feel a change in her attitude. She said, “Where can I find a church that teaches that?” There was an LCMS pastor who was on the Keys board, so I referred her to his church. What happened after that, I do not know.

Another result of the politicized Church is a felt need to have an opinion on every issue, and for Church leaders to have a public statement on every issue. It makes sense that we speak to moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage, but what does Christianity have to do with a nuclear arms deal with the Russians, a treaty with Panama over our use of the Panama Canal, or even the crisis on our southern border? Yet there are Church leaders who seem to think that they are qualified to present themselves as experts on these issues. The message of the Gospel gets totally lost.

In his book “The Screwtape Letters”, Chapter 7, C.S. Lewis offers a warning to the politically active Christian. It is tempting to view one’s political preferences as a result of one’s faith. One can eventually be tempted to view one’s political preferences as the most important part of one’s faith. Then one can be tempted to value his faith because of the excellent arguments it provides for one’s political views.

This is exactly what many Left-wing secular people accuse the Church of doing in regards to homosexuality. They accuse us of using religious arguments simply to support our personal dislike of homosexuals.

I can understand why they might sometimes think that. For too many years, the politicized Bible-believing churches have been more concerned with defeating gay people politically than winning their souls for Christ.

So the Church is no longer viewed as a spiritual force in our culture. Instead, we have become just one more political action group on a playing field with many others. Who is to say whose goals are more righteous than any other?

Now I have no problem with voting my conscience when I got into a voting booth. What happens there is between me and my conscience. Our faith does have social and political consequences. I also read about Luther’s Doctrine of Two Kingdoms. We should keep in mind that while Luther was the subject of a prince, we are citizens of a participatory democracy.

But the Gospel has to come first, before any political agenda. That is the conclusion C.S. Lewis gives in the 7th chapter of his book. I would rather lose a political victory if it means winning a spiritual victory.

Some people get a little bit upset with me when I talk like this, and sometimes quickly defend the Church’s need to be politically engaged. I never tell people not to get politically engaged. But proclaiming the Gospel has to come before all else.

So with that in mind, here are the questions politically active Christians need to ask themselves. Do we love our political opponents? Can we love them even when we lose an election to them? Can we call out the sin in our own camp, not just the sin in the other camp? Have we obeyed the 8th Commandment, carefully avoiding bearing any sort of false witness against our political opponents, and following the explanation to that Commandment by explaining in the kindliest way the actions of our opponents? Are we treating our political opponents in such a way that we could actually witness in a credible way if we had the opportunity to do so? How can we ask God to bless our political efforts if we conceal the sins of our party while eagerly pointing our fingers at the sins of the other party, and when we are more concerned with winning an election than sharing the Gospel?

So to partially answer the first question, how has homosexuality become so acceptable, many Christians have given up spiritual power in favor of political power. We thought we could defeat gay people politically. God has not blessed our efforts. But He has been blessing our witness and discipling. This culture war will not be won at the ballot box.

Another force that has weakened the Church’s witness in the culture is Prosperity Theology. There are TV preachers telling people that God wants them to be financially well off. The watching world perceives Christians as every bit as materialistic and greedy as the secular society.

I’ve been asked how much money I make from doing the Keys with people. I tell them nothing – I pay for the privilege. But that is the expectation people in our culture often have of Bible-believing Christians, that our faith is just used as a justification for greed, power-hunger, and prejudice against certain people groups.

Some prosperity messages are more subtle. They do not tell people that God has promised to make them financially well off. But they are told that if they obey God’s will and do what they are supposed to, they will have good marriages and well-behaved children. Their spouses will love them, and they will not have marital problems. Their children will cooperate. And if they do have family problems, it is their fault.

There are people out there who are legalistically and desperately trying to follow a set of rules that has promised to make their marriages and other relationships better. When those rules don’t work, they blame themselves, and if their problems are visible, there are always people in Church who will judge them unfavorably. Step-by-step Christianity is just an updated form of legalism.

So when someone buys into Prosperity Theology, and then becomes unemployed for a long period of time or develops a long-term illness, or their spouse commits adultery, or their children get into serious trouble, what happens to their faith? This is how I had my own faith crises in my late teens. Problems that I never dreamt could happen to me, did. I thought God had abandoned me, that my own lack of perfection was causing my problems, and that I had better rely on myself. God could not be trusted.

Prosperity Theology doesn’t tell people that they are sinners in need of forgiveness. It tells people that good people like them who follow all the rules deserve to have good things happen to them. Prosperity Theology shows up at the foot of the cross and says, in effect, “You owe me!” And when God doesn’t deliver the goods like He is expected to, people lose their faith.

Previous generations, the ones who lived through two world wars with the Great Depression in between, believed that God was their refuge and help in times of trouble. A lot of Christians seem to have lost that. I have had dealings with various Christians who are very willing to obey God’s will -- if His will is to make them a big star. Some of the men in prison have dreams that when they get out, they will become famous preachers. I suggested to one man that maybe God’s will for him would be to pastor a small church out in the rural Midwest.

I knew another lady who was very willing to live the Christian life, provided God allowed her to become a famous Gospel singer. She really did have a magnificent voice, and maybe could have made it big. But she was less enthusiastic about the very real possibility that God wanted her to use her talents in her little church in a small town in northern Minnesota.

A Church that has bought into the Prosperity Theology cannot bring a credible witness to the world. I know that Joel Osteen’s church is packed, but packed with what kind of people? And when their faith crashes and burns, what is going to happen to them?

The sexual revolution has gotten us to this point. Back in the 1960s, people innocently asked what could be wrong with pre-marital sex, as long as the couple were going to get married anyway. That was just the beginning. Several decades later, that generation has grandchildren who are declaring themselves to be transgendered, and doctors are prescribing hormone blockers and opposite-sex hormones. Teenage girls barely into their training bras are getting mastectomies, kids are getting sex reassignment surgeries, and kids are being allowed into opposite-sex bathrooms and locker rooms. How far will people allow this to go, remains to be seen. Kids used to be able to fantasize about being the opposite sex just for fun and because kids enjoy make-believe, but now our society takes those fantasies totally seriously.

Society cannot object to same-sex attracted people having gay partners when half of 16-year-olds are no longer virgins, pre-marital cohabitation is common, when a large percentage of marriages end in divorce, etc.

I have alluded to gay theology in my other talks. Essentially their mantra is “I am gay, I am okay, and God made me this way.”

They ignore the plain meaning of the Levitical texts. I am not a Hebrew scholar, but I have read about how they tweak the Hebrew. They maintain that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were sexualized violence and pride, and since most gay people do not become violent, they maintain that gay sex is okay.

They will further state that since most of us eat shellfish or pork on occasion, we do not execute our kids when they talk back to us, and we plant different crops side by side, therefore it follows that the Levitical law against homosexuality no longer applies.

When I was a 14 year old confirmation student, I understood the difference between the Civil laws of the Hebrews, which do not apply since we must obey the laws of our own country; the Ceremonial Laws, which were fulfilled in Christ; and the Moral laws, which are reinforced in the New Testament. Professors in liberal seminaries seem to not know what I knew at 14.

They like to make an issue of the fact that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. He said nothing about incest or bestiality, either, but His Jewish audience knew better. Only when the Gospel was taken out of the Jewish world and into the Greek and Roman world, did it become necessary for the Apostle Paul to explain to new converts that this was wrong.

They also try to say that the words in I Corinthians 6:9 that are translated as “homosexual” actually mean “pedophile”. Other than that they ignore the meaning of the original Greek, if there were ex-pedophiles in the early Church, that only shows that there is no limit to the mercy of God.

They like to imagine David and Jonathan were gay lovers, ignoring a cultural context in which women were primarily for procreation. One’s true friends were other men. Those who feel a need to pretend David and Jonathan were gay lovers may never have had a true friend. They are likely projecting their own feelings into the narrative.

I have heard the argument made that the Apostle Paul was gay because he couldn’t get along sometimes with other apostles. That is a blatant appeal to a stereotype about gay men.

Gay theology goes on and on like that. They seem unable to imagine any friendship between two men as anything other than sexual. It’s very sad that they have had so little experience with true friendship. Church ought to be the place where they can get friendship, belonging, understanding, loyalty, etc.,

Gay theology is an obvious attempt to make excuses for one’s sins. It’s all based on legalistic arguments.

But to truly understand gay theology, the same-sex attracted person needs to actually pick up his or her Bible and read it. And I know of several who did just that, realized that God could not have possibly made them gay, came under conviction of sin, and then contacted me because they were seeking a way out.

So what are the implications for the Church? We need to keep the focus on the Gospel. We need to keep the focus on the 3 Solas.

We need to be aware that there may be people in our churches who experience same-sex attractions but have never acted upon them. Or they did at one time, and then quit. We need to start with the same-sex attracted people in our midst.

I spoke yesterday to the faculty about the need to end the secrecy. They asked how they could help same-sex attracted students be prepared for a life of ministry in the Church. We need to create an atmosphere in which it is okay to talk about it. Having this issue in one’s life causes isolation, but that should never be the case. How we treat the same-sex attracted people already among us is part of our witness to the world.

Going to a support group for help to overcome same-sex attractions, minor-attractions, and transsexuality should be as common and acceptable as it is for chemically dependent people to attend AA meetings. I am working for the day when every college campus, prison unit, large church, or small town where churches combine resources, has a Keys group or something similar where people can go for help. I am writing the Handbook for that purpose. I am praying for it to go global, viral, and save millions of souls and lives.

FIRESIDE CHAT

Dr. Grime suggested I use this time to share a few stories about people with whom I have worked. This is also a good time to ask questions. So as I share a few stories, please keep in mind 2 things: the 3 Solas, and Romans 2:15.

Let me start by describing what can happen when an ssa person hears the Gospel. Keep in mind that most ssa people have never heard the Gospel; they have heard the Law, and think being a Christian is nothing more than conformity to a set of rules and expectations which they can never keep. Lutheran theology tells us that someone has to be broken under the Law before we can give them the Gospel, but how do you know when someone has been broken by the Law? Just because someone seems defensive to the point of hostility, doesn’t mean they aren’t broken by the Law. It’s no point in giving people the Law when they do not know what to do about their sins. Those angry, defensive people you see on TV have likely heard nothing from the Church except condemnation. Romans 7 does a good job of telling us why that doesn’t work.

S.C. was actively in the lesbian lifestyle, but for some reason her partner decided to break up with her. S. was in a pit of depression, which is often the case after the break-up of a significant relationship. While there is never a bad time to share the Gospel, the best time is often after the break-up of a relationship. The person is often in a pit of despair; and you need to be aware that when ssa people are suicidal, it is often after a break-up.

But S.’s Christian neighbors had an extra ticket to a Christian concert, and invited her to come along. She loved music, so she went. She heard the Gospel for the first time, went into the ladies’ room and cried for a while, and then came out and went forward at the altar call.

She later contacted me and worked the Keys program. Her ssa diminished, she began to experience some attraction to men. She also had to deal with a number of health complications which got worse over time, and she died suddenly of a heart attack. I have no question in my mind that she is with the Lord.

Over and over again I have heard of ssa people coming to Christ simply because some ordinary Christian got out of their comfort zone and shared the Gospel.

I got a call from a lady in southern Colorado. She had been a lesbian and an atheist. She went to bed one night, convinced that there was no god; and she woke up the next morning believing that there was one, and that a Christian church would be where to find Him. So she went to several evangelical churches in her town, and left each service feeling frustrated. There was a lot of legalism in the sermons; she was presented with rules and expectations with no idea how to keep them.

Then she went to an LCMS church, and heard a strong message of Grace Alone. She realized then that was what she needed. But there her frustration was, “Why don’t they reach out? The LCMS has the greatest message in the world, but they don’t reach out. I have more conversations about God in the break room at my job than I do over coffee after church!”

D.S. was incarcerated, and had been a male prostitute for many years. That was all he had ever known. When he contacted me, he was depressed and suicidal. He started the Keys program through the mail even though he wasn’t even sure of what he believed. But to do the Keys program, he had to get into the Word. After several months of this, he finally grasped Grace.

The hardest part was attending chapel. Everyone knew him as the cell block prostitute. I advised him to persist and give the other men a chance to see that he was sincere. Eventually they accepted him. He asked me to order him a Bible dictionary, which I did, and other Christian men would come to him to ask him questions because they knew he had the dictionary. The gay man became the go-to man.

D.B. was a young man in prison who contacted me to do the Keys. Later, he admitted that he had only begun the Keys to prove that he could not change. But to do the program, he had to get into the Word. And the Word got into him. He became a believer, and he did change.

A few years ago I got a phone call from a man in a suburb of Chicago. He was living with his gay partner, they owned a nice house together, they both had good jobs, neither was abusing chemicals, they had no financial problems, and they had been getting along fine. But then someone shared the Gospel with this man. The relationship suddenly didn’t feel okay any more. He moved into the guest bedroom. His former partner didn’t like that one bit.

At this point I didn’t have time to work with him, so I referred him to an ex-gay ministry in the Chicago area.

In 2012 I had the opportunity to attend a conference of Exodus International (how many of you know about Exodus?). At one point I was walking back to my dorm room, and happened to be walking behind a group of gay young people. One of the lesbians asked the others, “Do you suppose this is the real Christianity, and not those people at pride parades holding up signs?”

Obviously she had heard the Gospel, but she had heard so much condemnation previously that hearing the Gospel was difficult.

Let me discuss gay theology. How many of you are familiar with it? It’s all proof-texting, quoting verses out of context, tweaking the Greek and Hebrew, and pretending not to see the obvious meaning of the text. It ends up appealing to stereotypes to pretend that the Apostle Paul was gay and that David and Jonathan were gay lovers.

But you don’t need to argue all of that. All we have to do is point out the obvious: that gay theology is a human effort to seek righteousness under the Law, where there is no righteousness to be found. The whole argument they construct is legalistic. The legalism is what needs to be confronted. Nobody can argue with Grace Alone.

G.I.B. is still in prison on a sex offense charge involving minors. He convinced himself that gay theology was correct and that he had permission to continue his life of sin. Then he propositioned a friend. He lost the friend. The look of horror on his friend’s face is what woke him up. He realized that gay theology could not be right. He got into the Keys program, finished it, and now is helping others. He has turned his cell into an informal counseling office.

P.Kl. started the program, and then dropped out for a while. I went to visit him, and he told me that he had begun attending an “affirming church” at a nearby university. Now during the time I had been working with him, I had the feeling that he really never fully grasped that salvation is only and entirely by the mercy of God as a free gift. When he was on the road at his long-distance trucking job, he always attended church, but he seemed to find the most legalistic churches possible where he heard condemnation and criticism. He seemed to avoid churches where he would hear a message of Grace Alone. So I was not totally surprised that he gave up his efforts to overcome temptation and started going to a liberal church.

I didn’t argue with him. I just kept bringing talking points back to Grace Alone.

I went to see him a year later. He had totally given up his affirming church. He had come to realize that he could not possibly have been born gay. He had found a Bible-believing church that preached that salvation is by Grace Alone.

The following year he got married – to a lady. I went to see them, she knows about his past, and he told me in front of his wife that the marriage was working just fine, including the physical part.

Sh. came to my house to win an argument, in an obvious effort to justify herself. I kept bringing her talking points back to Grace Alone. She had a legalistic mindset that if she lived an otherwise clean life, she could stay in her gay relationship. I kept confronting the legalistic frame of reference. I could see the cracks developing in her wall. She left under obvious conviction, and wanted to come back.

I often hear from and about ssa people who firmly believed that they were gay, okay, and God had made them that way, and at some point came under conviction of sin: in bars, in a pride parade.

I would like to talk about parents and families of ssa people, and issues to be aware of.

Many parents have called me up and said, “I don’t understand how my kid could be gay. He was raised in the church, and he knows it is wrong!” The Law cannot make feelings go away. Most of these parents have a legalistic frame of reference; they start arguments with their kids about the wrongness of it, lose the argument, and get frustrated. I emphasize the need to bring talking points back to Grace Alone. I also advise them to start viewing their kid as their mission field; they often seem offended at that.

A lady once called me about her brother. He had just come out to the family. He was also a law student, so he was good at arguing. Finally after a prolonged argument with his family, he admitted that he was wrong, and he asked, “Okay, so I am wrong – now what do I do?” And this family of Missouri Synod Lutherans had no idea what to say to him. They had a perfect opportunity to talk about Grace Alone, but they didn’t know to do that.

I had several conversations with a mother of a lesbian daughter. I advised her to mother the daughter’s partner. After a year or so, her daughter called her up, bawling. Her partner had broken up with her, and the stated reason was that she wanted to get closer to God, and the lesbian relationship was getting in the way.

I get calls from pastors, asking how they should respond to families of gay people or the gay people themselves.

One pastor got a call from two lesbians who had a son together. They wanted their son in the church school. He had no idea what to expect, and he was suspicious of their motives, but he made an appointment and then called me. I told him to pour on the message of salvation by Grace Alone. He thought he could do that.

He happened to have a son attending the same college as my older son, CUNE, and his son was graduating in a couple of weeks along with my son. After the ceremony, I located him and had lunch with him and his family. He told me about the meeting with the two lesbians. They came in the door looking a bit defensive, but they wanted their son to know about Jesus. So he talked to them about salvation by Grace Alone. Their jaws were on the floor. This was not what they had been expecting.

A pastor in a town near where I live told my husband that a parishioner had recently come out to him and had asked for help. My husband advised the other pastor to talk to me. So we spent a couple of hours discussing the Keys program, and some does and don’ts. The parishioner had read I Corinthians 6:9-11. He had read the word, “such WERE some of you”, and wondered how that applied to him.

The pastor began the Keys program with him. At a recent event where our churches did something together, that parishioner came up to me and told me about the progress he was making. He was feeling better about himself than he had in years.

An LCMS pastor in my town had a lesbian start coming to his church, and she came to him to ask for help. He called me and asked me to talk to her; unfortunately, she had just started a new relationship, and backed away from approaching God. I pray that she will call me when this relationship breaks up; I made sure I left the door open.

These three events have all happened in the last 1 ½ years. Is this a trend for which we need to be prepared?

Does anyone here feel called to be a prison chaplain? Ssa and ma are two separate issues, but there is an overlap, and since 2007 I have been approached by many incarcerated people, most of them in on sex offenses involving minors, usually boys, but sometimes girls. What works with ssa people works with ma people. Also, ma people are often quick to get into gay sex in prison, because they are convinced that sex is something they have to have.

Several want a Keys group to start in their prisons. All they need are outside volunteers, or chaplains not afraid to buck the politically correct system.

A few years ago in a prison in Texas, a volunteer wanted to start a Keys group. He spent a year or two working on the warden and chaplains before he was permitted to do so. He started it in the faith-based wing. Men came. They brought their friends. In prison, sex offenders often associate only with other sex offenders, because no one else wants to have anything to do with them. The group grew, divided, and divided again. The outside volunteer only had time to train the inmate volunteers who facilitated the groups.

Unfortunately the volunteer developed some health problems, and had to quit going into the prison. I have no idea what happened after that. But that point is: the fields are white unto harvest, and more workers are needed.

First Corinthians 1:26-28 is proving itself to be true.

Does anyone feel called to campus ministry? I am told that young people experiment with gay sex earlier and earlier, and get disillusioned sooner. At the Exodus conference I attended in 2012, I was astonished at the numbers of young people. If I recall, about 40% were under 25 or 30 years of age.

In one of the sessions I attended, some young people from the University of Minnesota wanted to start a support group for overcomers on their campus.

A few years ago, some students at the University of Virginia sued the university because they wanted a therapist at the campus counseling center who could help people overcome ssa.

The average age of people contacting me for help is getting younger and younger. I used to get people in their 40s and 50s. As time went on, I got more and more who were in their early 20s. The young people essentially tell me that if they keep on like they have been, that someday their lives would go over a cliff. The people in their 40s and 50s tell me that they are at the edge of the cliff and will go over it if God doesn’t put out a hand to stop them.

Are you aware of some of the laws that are being passed in various jurisdictions making it illegal to help people overcome ssa and transsexuality? Some of these just apply to minor kids. Others apply to adults as well. Some of these laws only apply to mental health professionals who do this on a commercial basis.

There was an effort in the 2019 legislature in Nebraska that would criminalize what I do. I wrote a long letter to my state senator, who happens to be on the judiciary committee, where the bill remained buried. We will see what happens next year. I told my husband I might be going to jail, because I won’t quit.

As of yet, no one has pressed charges against anyone for breaking these laws. Those who do this kind of work are eagerly awaiting a Supreme Court challenge.

In California, enough ex-gays came out of the closet and swarmed the capitol in Sacramento, and last I heard, the bill has been withdrawn by the person who brought it. He is a gay legislator who started talking with ex-gays, and is now re-thinking his position.

I also wonder if God is trying to take this whole issue out of the hands of the mental health profession and put it into the hands of the Church?

Some of the people who contact me grew up in the Church, but heard only Law. Some had pastors who even from the pulpit ridiculed and insulted ssa people. So of course they cannot approach their pastor.

Some just do not know how to use their faith to overcome their temptations. Some tell me that they said “the sinner’s prayer”, but the feelings did not go away, and they wondered why saying that prayer didn’t “cure” them. There are churches out there that tell people that they are saved by Grace, but sanctified by getting back under the Law. How well did that work for the Galatians?

Others are as ignorant of Christianity as if they had grown up in the upper reaches of the Amazon Basin. But Romans 2:15 still applies. I have had people contact me who just know that they are wrong, but they do not know what to do about it. They have very little knowledge of God and the Bible, but they know they are wrong to live as they have been. They just do not know what to do.

Gay people are the biggest unreached people group in the world, and they are right here. We have a potential mission field living among us.

Gudbjorg Brek