Pastoral Care for women

This is a transcript of my presentation at the annual International Federation of Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC.org) Conference in Hungary:

Hello, it’s an honor to join you today. I am cofounder along with Ken Williams of the CHANGED Movement and a licensed pastor on staff at Bethel Church in Redding, CA. Where My focuses are theology and advocacy at the crossroads of Christianity and LGBT.

In my presentation last year I began speaking about the significance of narrative in one’s journey away from LGBT identity. How one understands personal life experiences is fundamental to both the adoption of and dissolution of LGBT identity. I want to revisit that briefly today.

In my own life, a reinterpretation of the perceptions I formed in childhood and adolescence provided substantial emotional healing and set the stage for changes in my sexual feelings. Connecting my adult behavior to childhood and adolescent hurts unraveled many mysteries about my emotional distress and even my personality, but also exposed the reality that my own womanhood was not inextricably tethered to lesbianism. For over a generation, the “born gay” storyline has led many to solidly adopt LGBT identity and establish a worldview where sexual behavior is essential to self-understanding. The social pressure to adopt this perspective has become so dominating that fewer and fewer resist. On the one hand, LGBT is becoming politicized, and children are being socialized into self-destructive behaviors, but on the other hand, LGBT has become a lynchpin that is forcing a reinterpretation of human nature and, therefore, human identity.

And so, same-sex attraction has taken on new meaning as sex itself is being redefined.

I believe “born that way” is a false yet essential redemptive narrative for people who experience same-sex attraction. It enables one to accept feelings and behaviors that are radically counter to our physicality and escape the shame of our disorientation. “Born that way” encourages us to dissociate from our biology, from the gravity of our identity formation, and from the pain of believing one is inalterably “other” from the rest of one’s family—and even the rest of humanity.

I call this dissociative experience the “virtualization of our self.” And I believe our tech revolution has created the perfect storm for people who experience same sex sexual attraction. The computer age enables us to function socially as an avatar that we create. I believe much of LGBT identity is a self-generated persona. The transgender movement is but one example of this quickly evolving self-understanding. Western culture is so captivated by its vision of an autonomous psychological self that we are even subverting the physical sciences.

This is the setting for the question, “What is a woman?”

In Bethel’s ministry school, I teach a course on sexual ethics based entirely on the teachings of Jesus. One of the first classes focuses on the incarnation. In this class, I often ask, what is the difference between a man and a woman. Students often point to roles or personality traits—essentially stereotypes to understand the differences. A woman is nurturing, compassionate, and gentle. A man is dominating, aggressive, and independent. Yet, we all know men who are nurturing and women who are dominating.

I invite students to look closely at the human body. We explore our biology and anatomy. There is very little difference, beyond chromosomes, between male and female bodies until we arrive at our procreative organs. A male or female body is largely structured around these organs. For example, a woman’s body has its skeletal and muscular structure largely as a result of these organs and their hormones. In addition, her nurturing and compassionate demeanor is tied closely to her capacity to bear and raise children. Our bodies ensure the stability of these abilities.

In this class, we explore the biology of attachment, attraction, lust, and desire. Students discover that their personalities and temperament are bound to their physicality, not only their psychology. We rediscover the miracle of the life-giving body, human emotion, and the mind. In a biblical anthropology, God breathed into Adam, and he became a living being. Our soul/spirit cannot be separated from our bodies. We are not a clay pot within which a spirit resides. In fact, our bodies inform how we think, what we are attracted to, who we are attracted to, and how we respond to life. This makes the incarnation of Christ an essential doctrine that many modern Christians miss.

The radicalization of the psychological “self” is wounding a generation as men and women struggle to apply meaning to the disappointments, constraints, and challenges of our physicality. It is a fight for value and self-worth. I wish to propose that the rapid ascent of the transgender movement right now points to a visceral recognition that life is not as it should be. The utopian vision of the sexual revolution has failed. There is a longing for spiritual and physical transformation. It is a longing to become a new creation.

As a Christian, I interpret this struggle through the lens of Jesus’ redemption and restoration. We escape this radical individualism by turning to the God of all creation to be born again. We do not have to create ourselves with all the lonely risks that implies. Instead, we depend on His beautiful and transcendent vision for human dignity. He meets us in our dissatisfaction and darkness with His intentional designations of male or female, which in their complementarity, both integrate our individual physicality and psychology but also creates society and community through families. Christians turn to the incarnate Christ to reflect on the mystery of being human and our physical integration with the spiritual realm of God. A biblical anthropology reminds us that our body, soul, and spirit will be resurrected. Our physical lives are miraculous mysteries that are essential to the expression of our personality and purpose within culture. We must highlight and even reintroduce this generation to our bodies.

Therefore, my ministry among women begins with the discovery of Jesus, who answers essential questions about who we are and why we exist. Faith enables us to draw on outside answers, even a fresh narrative, that displaces the “born that way” mantra. We are “born again” into a new creation life that relies radically on the heart and intent of God to bring a sense of family, well-being, direction, purpose and belonging among other men and women. We begin understanding that our female bodies also have sacred meaning and value—our significant relational and emotional strengths take on meaning within our community, but then the gravity of our life-giving bodies demands attention. Our reflection of God is unique and specific within our physical bodies, which carry life only as the result of union with our physical compliment.

Women prioritize emotional needs and connections. Divorcing ourselves from the demands of our physical bodies or reframing the narrative by which it is satisfied through same-sex sexuality and IVF or surrogacy is creating heartbreak that faith alone assuages. We can trust God to redeem and lead when our own inner selves are completely devastated.

I want to introduce you to my friend Hillary Lively. Hillary was a student at Bethel’s ministry school, where I teach. She graduated last year, and I had the privilege of mentoring her. Over the last four years, I have observed the miracle of her redemption unfold. Her process continues today, and she continues to meet with a licensed counselor and me. She would tell you that her same-sex attraction is unraveling, diminishing as she finds emotional healing and self-understanding. As she has embraced her own womanhood, many fears, doubts, and even addictions are fading that dominated her life as recently as 5 years ago.

I captured a spontaneous interview with her last week. Let’s watch…

In closing, I want to direct you to a resource we have just produced that focuses on the power of exploring and re-evaluating the perceptions about the sexual identity that we form as children. CHANGED is an international network of people who no longer identify as LGBT. We were born through a successful initiative opposing bad legislation in CA. You can find the resource we used in that endeavor, the CHANGED book, at our resource table.

Since that time, we have remained in the advocacy space determined to keep legal pathways open for people to leave LGBT behind. Who could have imagined that it would become illegal to leave LGBT? And yet that is happening all around us.

We recently used our new booklet in Washington D.C., among legislators to expose and invite dialogue on the lived experience of same-sex sexuality and gender dysphoria apart from LGBT culture. But additionally, we addressed the harms of coercing children into LGBT identity—something happening in the US through the vehicle of anti-discrimination policies.

Self-discovery, and the website page it links to, uses about 15 of our childhood experiences to describe childhood hurts and even traumas and the impacts of reinterpreting them. If we aren’t born this way, how can we understand ourselves? What did we discover that enabled us to change?

Let me read its intro:

Sexual identity develops during childhood. To explore its formation, we asked people with the LGBTQ experience how childhood impacted their feelings and sense of identity. LGBTQ policies aimed at children don’t appreciate the developmental factors involved with sexuality. If they did, America would not be rushing to embrace LGBTQ identity.

Many from CHANGED have experienced shifts in our sexual feelings and gender identity as we have addressed perceptions and wounds from our childhood—including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). This fuels our passion to protect counseling choices for everyone.

We no longer identify as LGBTQ.

This resource highlights excerpts of a few of our stories to emphasize how complex the LGBTQ identity truly is.

The brochure can be accessed online at changedmovement.com and we have brought a few copies with us.

Thank you very much.