Leaving Homosexuality: A Practical Guide for Men and Women Looking for a Way out

Author: Alan Chambers
Date: 2009
Publisher: Harvest House
ISBN: 978-0-7369-2610

“All Christians (in fact all people) have issues to deal with. One of our issues has been homosexuality. So be it. It’s part of being human to have something to contend with. Discipleship is part of how we contend with that which has been given to us. A life of discipleship is a life that will not allow us to define ourselves by our sexual desires, but by our Creator. As we submit those desires to Christ, we find freedom” (p. 25).

This is book, while tailored to those seeking to leave homosexuality, is also a great resource for those of us in the Church who wish to help make her into more of a hospital for sinners. The treatment is loving discipleship in authentic Christian community. This book is not as edgy as Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How God Heals the Homosexual, as Chambers displays an artistic grace in his message of hope. Yet, he never fudges on conviction and truth. Reading this book gives us a good template for working with those struggling with homosexuality, as we listen in on his conversation to those wishing to leave. He is our mentor for the 151 pages of this book and the times we will return for helpful reminders.

The backbone of this work is his own story of struggle in entering and leaving the homosexual community. He relates his emotionally turbulent struggles for affirmation of his own maleness from his father and friends. As a boy growing up he bonds with the females in his life, who accept him, while avoiding the males in his life who reject him. This dynamic spring boards him into a journey for acceptence, which he finds in the homosexual community. The only problem, as he relates it, is that his soul never found satisfaction–only emptiness. Upon embracing Jesus and Christianity, he eventually found the satisfaction for which his soul longed and the true freedom to be who God made him to be: a male created in the image of God. His message is that maleness is not necessarily defined by the redneck, rough-n-tumble sub-culture of our world. One can be fully male and artistic at the same time. A major part of God’s healing in his life came from heterosexual men who celebrated the maleness God gave him, packaged in the person of Alan Chambers.

While the goal for ministry with the homosexual community is deliverance from the sin of homosexuality, Chambers cautions us that heterosexuality is not the goal. The goal is holiness.

So, if the goal is not heterosexuality, what is it? Having entered into a relationship with Christ, holiness, becomes the goal. “Holiness” is a very religious and scary word in some ways. but what it suggests is being set apart for God’s purposes. And as you consider this as your goal, you will find that it’s really the key to change in you life. As you pursue holiness, God will change you from the inside out.

Behaving heterosexually won’t change your homosexual struggles. Acting “culturally straight” won’t make you anything but a good actor. But pursuing holiness will change your heart, which will change your life and your circumstances. Notice that I didn’t say pursuing holiness will bring about heterosexual attractions. Again, that’s not the point. In His great wisdom, understanding, and timing, God will give you His best. Pursue holiness over heterosexuality. Pursue holiness over homosexuality. Trust God for the changes that will come (p. 69).

Several other things in addition to an ease of identification with Chambers makes this book a great resource for your ministry library. He has a great perspective on the possibility of heterosexual marriage for former gays. He also includes a chapter written by a former lesbian, as well as one written by a man who entered the gay community from heterosexual marriage. He presents grace and truth in content without being mind-numblingly-preachy in his style. This book surpasses its claim to practicality without falling into pragmatism.

 

In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty

Edited by: Michael Fairbanks, Malik Fal, Marcela Escobari-Rose, and Elizabeth Hooper
Date: 2009
Publisher: Templeton Press
ISBN: 1-59947-251-1

“Three of Brazil’s key economic reform priorities today–lowering interest rates, taxes, and relaxing labor regulations–are moving very slowly and are politically difficult to implement. This picture is not much different in many other developing countries. The hopeful news is that, as much as such government actions have an important role in the future welfare of nations, it is time to recognize that the fundamental choice to improve the welfare of developing countries lies not with government but with leaders in businesses, academia, and others who are willing to rise to the challenge” (Kwang W. Kim, “Mr. President, Tear Down the Walls!” pp. 244 & 245).

 For many years helping others on a large scale has been the collective property of leftists in particular and socialists in general. However, in recent decades we have seen the socialist experiments develope with the effect of decreasing wealth and retrenching poverty. Well-meaning helpers gave the help that hurt. This book is a taste of a growing movement of do-gooders who actually do good. Following in the vein of Adam Smith, the various authors cast a vision of helping others not with one-size-fits-all government solutions. Rather they seek to meet the vastly diverse communities around the world in their own contexts, working with them to empower them to embrace the struggle necessary to grow for competition in our new global community. The hub of these various visions is free enterprise.

This book is a collection of essays, written by people who live and work developing countries. Each essay is seasoned with metaphors and stories of the respective cultures of both the author and the culture in which the author is living and working. Some essays feature authors from developing countries working in other developing countries. It is this mix and match of cultural metaphors and stories captures the imagination and forms a welcoming harbor for poverty work from a free enterprise world view.

Admittedly, many who are keenly interested in poverty work will at first find an enterprise worldview a bitter pill to swallow. After all they (and all of us for that matter) have been taught (brainwashed) that capitalism is what has destroyed cultures around the world with unadulterated greed. Collectively, these authors cast a vision that hinges on a paradigm shift from poverty reduction to wealth creation. From the initial results of the enterprise experiments in developing countries, such as Rwanda, we can see that enterprise empowers people within the various cultures, whereas one-size-fits-all socialism molds people into despondent paupers who languish for generations. Enterprise empowers individual people to grow in their gifts and talents as they work in the market service of others, which ultimately grows their respective countries. Community is made possible as individual people are empowered. Socialism groups people together in one nirvanic morass, ultimately drowning authentic community, as the respective countries are rendered perpetual indentured servants of the international donor community.

The American Christian world has been divided into liberal and conservative camps. While there are certainly issues with this, the foremost problematic consequence is that liberals did good works out in town, while conservatives remained isolated from the world as they “did” doctrine. In the River They Swim nurtures hope that good works and good doctrine are possible for the same person.

Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How God Heals the Homosexual

Author: Andrew Comiskey
Date: 1989
Publisher: Creation House
ISBN: 0-88419-259-8

“The power of God’s love must be our primary impetus and motivator as we seek to escape addiction. He frees us to desire the greater good. The Lord hates addiction, becuase He hates watching His children become comformed to evil. Instead He wants us to be comformed to His will” (Andrew Comiskey, p. 147).

As a former member of the homosexual community and as a confessing Christian, Andrew Comiskey is in a great position to speak to the power of Jesus Christ to heal sinners in general and homosexuals in particular. In his work he shares his own see-sawing but powerful story of struggling to be healed and freed of homosexuality.

This is a great introductory resource for people in the church, who are serious about helping the church to be a true hospital. One of the many things that helps to make this work great is that he is completely honest about the depth and difficulty of his journey to freedom in Christ. Some will no doubt find this work edgy. Good. We in the church need to understand that we live in a very edgy world, and thus we need appropriate resources to prepare us for true Holy Spirit ministry. Comiskey delivers.

His story helps to underscore that the nature of homosexuality is very complex. In addition to his own story, he shares the vignettes of a man and a woman who also have struggled to fully embrace Christianity and to fully find freedom from homosexuality. We in the church are either very dismissive of solid ministry to the homosexual community, or we simply embrace the lifestyle as an authentic expression of Christianity. Either extreme is flippant and damaging. With a graceful but firm edge he challenges us in the church to move from a place of casual flippant-ness to a place of the “grace and truth” of Jesus Christ.

Healthy sexuality is central to healthy relationships. Comiskey gives us a passion to minister to all people who suffer from sexual sickness, including the homosexual community. No, this is not a “scholarly” work. Rather, he has designed it to be a spring board to other resources of study. I pray we in the church would become workmen who need not be ashamed.

The Prophets Volumes 1 & 2

by Abraham Heschel

We live in an age where the self-esteem movement has ripped failure from the equation of everyday human relationships and “your best life now” has replaced the cross as the way of Jesus in the world. Yet, we are vastly more fragile today as people in general and as Christians in particular. Rabbi Heschel’s teachings are strangely refreshing:

“Know thy God” (I Chron. 28:9) rather than “Know Thyself” is the categorical imperative of the biblical man. There is no self-understanding without God-understanding (Vol 2, p. 268).

Heschel teaches his students the “how” of the prophets’ way of thinking and being. Their driving motivation is miles apart from any pop-culture approaches to theology, wherein God is more concerned about bandaging up my booboos and improving my self-esteem. The prophets teach us in their methodology that God’s greatest desire for man is his attachment to the heart of God and the deep struggles which lie therein.

How should the question about the nature of the prophets’ understanding of God be asked? The form in which the question is usually put–What is the prophets’ idea of God?–is hardly adequate. Having an idea of friendship is not the same as having a friend or living with a friend, and the story of a friendship cannot be fully told by what one friend thinks of the being and attributes of the other friend. The process of forming an idea is one of generalization, or arriving at a general notion from individual instances, and one of abstraction, or separating a partial aspect or quality from a total situation. Yet such a process implies a split between situation and idea, a disregard for the fullness of what transpires, and the danger of regarding the part as the whole. An idea or a theory of God can easily become a substitute for God, impressive to the mind when God as a living reality is absent from the soul (Vol. 2, p.1).

How often is it that we often substitute a real relationship with God for bare-bones facts learned at VBS or Sunday School? In this impressive 2-vol work, Rabbi Heschel will not allow the God of the Prophets to be reduced to the god of the philosophers, nor the privatized god of easy believism. He does not fit so neatly in a systematized box. Rather he must be dealt with on his own terms.

This, then, is the ultimate category of prophetic theology: involvement, attentiveness, concern. Prophetic religion may be defined, not as what man does with his ultimate concern, but rather what man does with God’s concern (Vol 2, p. 264).

In Volume One Heschel walks his readers through seven of the prophets, as well as the “concepts” of chastisement and justice. In Volume Two Heschel deals with prophetic theology, over against a world of abstract philosophy. While challenging to read, if understood, Heschel will aid Christians in better understanding the process of the mind of the Bible from which Jesus read and taught and the Father, who Jesus came to reveal. After all it is in coming to God on his terms, as painful as they may be at times, that provides a healing unmatched by either the self-esteem movement or the god of band-aids and best lives now.

God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

It has been said that Abraham Heschel is one of the few Jews who is widely read by Christians and Jews alike. After reading this work of his I believe he is one of the few authors Christians should read period. Of course I do like to read, but you must understand my hyperbolae above.

I thought as a Christian that I understood what it meant for “faith to work through love.” However, most of us good evangelical have a rather anemic understanding of faith; believing faith only to be belief apart from works. In fact most of our good evangelical theology is nothing more than pop-psychology flavored with a few verses, bloodily ripped from the living flesh of the Bible. As good evangelicals who sincerely desire to take God’s heart as shown in his Word seriously, we must seek to encounter God’s heart on his own terms, while seeking to cast away the idols of our evangelical churchy-society and culture. This work by Heschel is a good place to examine what the true heart of Biblical faith is all about.

You should realize that he writes from his Jewish faith. Even though he takes a moment to briefly disagree with Paul and Luther on the concept of faith, if you take the time to fully grasp what he is saying, you’ll come to really appreciate what Biblical faith is all about. Remember that Paul said the root of Abraham supports the branch of Christianity. Hearing Heschel in full, I so much better understand what Paul was attempting to do in both Romans and Galatians. Hearing Heschel in full, I understand that the Reformation, as needed as it was as a powerful check on Rome’s severe abuse of ecclesiastical power, overreached itself in its understanding of faith. Hearing Heschel in full, I understand that Luther in actuality did not fully understand Paul. In fact hearing Heschel in full, his teaching is very similar to the whole of Paul’s teaching in Romans.

Worship and living are not two separate realms. Unless living is a form of worship, our worship has no life (p. 384).

For those of you who are belief without works freaks, please consider why, even though Paul says we were saved by faith apart from works (Romans 3 & 4), that he goes further and explains that the goal of the Christian life is not belief apart from works or belief without works, but rather living a life as living sacrifices, which is the “acceptable worship of God?” (Romans 12-15).

It has been becoming and is now more forcefully so, that we as good evangelical Christians who take God’s Word very seriously cannot do so without understanding the mind and culture of the men who penned God’s word to us. Heschel helps any Christian who wishes to decipher the New Testament to do so, though this is not what he intended. Again, despite the fact he openly disagreed with what he believed to be Paul’s teaching on faith and what Luther’s teaching on faith actually is, despite this his teaching reads just like that of Jesus & Paul, John, Matthew, & James.

Lastly, you might want to understand that Heschel’s work here is actually the extension of a previous work (which I have yet to read), Man Is Not Alone, and that he writes within his discipline of the philosophy of religion. Thus, this is not like reading Max Lucado (no offense to Lucado fans intended!). This is a work you will want to take your time to digest; after all you won’t be able to speed through it. Yet as believers, and especially as evangelical believers, we all to often delight in the simplistic, the quick, the unprofound. This needs to change. Heschel makes you think; makes you stop and examine the nature of your own faith.

Religious thinking, believing, feeling are among the most deceptive activities of the human spirit. We often assume it is God we believe in, but in reality it may be a symbol of personal interests that we dwell upon. We may assume that we feel drawn to God, but in reality it may be a power within the world that is the object of our adoration. We amy assume it is God we care for, but it may be our own ego we are concerned with. To examine our religious existence is, therefore, a task to be performed constantly (p. 9).

Jesus did not merely say the Father has truth in John 7:18, he said the Father “is true, and in him there is no falsehood” (ESV). Jesus did not merely say he possessed truth, Jesus claimed to be the Truth (John 14:6). In these statements lies more than appeals to possess true facts and honest intensions. Certainly true facts and good intentions, integrity, are large parts of Jesus’s teaching. However, I believe Jesus is saying that he is authentic. Authenticity is the umbrella underwhich truth and integrity dwell. Yet, it is possible to possess facts in the head, but they not cleanse nor direct the heart.

Heschel’s teaching strips us of our religious fig-leaf pretensions, so that we can run to and not away from this God who is certainly in search of man.

The Definitive Book of Body Language

The ability to work out what is really happening with a person is simple–not easy, but simple. It’s about matching what you see and hear in the environment in which it all happens and drawing probable conclusions. Most people, however, only see the things they think they are seeing (p. 2)

If you are male, let’s face it, you are blind. If you are female, you might see, but you are blinded to how you do see. Men are baffled at female intuition, but as Allan and Barbara Pease lay out for their readers, females are simply more  equipped to read body language than men. In fact the peripheral vision of the average female is 45% greater than the average male. Similarly the average man can display only a third of the facial “messages” that the average woman can.

Nonetheless we all can learn to read body language. If we desire to truly love and be loving, understanding what people are saying when they are using no words at all is priceless. I never realized how truly blind I was … nor how aggressive and biting I may have come across unwittingly. In the paraphrased words of the Peases, I feel as though I’ve been unknowingly living life in a pitch-black room and someone has now turned on the lights.

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

Some books I faithfully plug it out until I’m finished. Some books I really dive in. I devoured this book and will make a practice of reading it every so often. His plan of leadership is truly groundbreaking … and potentially nerve-breaking. We want to fix other people or find quick fixes for the situations in which we find ourselves. If we could only make people do certain things drive situations in certain directions, then we would feel alright as leaders. However, after reading Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve I have come to realize my own past failings in leadership are that … my own. This is why he is writing … to help move us from a failure of nerve while in critical junctures of leadership to successfully steering our vessels of leadership through those dicey waters.  He offers a compelling new model for leadership.

In short leadership functions more successfully if we spend more energy targeting our own selves within our relationships for change as leaders, than targeting people, places, and things within our environments for change.

Leadership is what mobilizes a system’s multigenerational process … (Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, p. 250).

In short there are no quick fixes to true leadership. True leadership is the constant managing of oneself within a web of relationships and relational systems (which include people within the system long dead). No, he isn’t offering tips on having a seance. Rather he is asking us to remember that our web of relationships include people, who though long dead, still exert influence over how we face reality, because we have inherited to some degree their ways of interacting with their worlds. Rather than quick fixes, Friedman is offering a very viable blueprint wherein we embrace the painful, long term work of embracing self-transformation.

Yes, you perhaps caught my repeated message that true leadership focuses on ourselves than on other people. He insists we function from a position of practicing what is known as self-differentiation in leadership. Self-differentiation is the art of successfully defining oneself within a relational system, separating oneself from others within that system, and yet remain emotionally connected to those within the relational system.

Consider his words:

The key to that positioning is the leader’s ow self-differentiation, by which I mean his or her capacity to be a non-anxious presence, a challenging presence, a well-defined presence, and a paradoxical presence. Differentiation is not about being coercive, manipulative, reactive, pursuing or invasive, but being rootedin the leader’s own sense of self rather than focused on that of his or her followers. It is in no way autocratic, narcissistic, or selfish, even though it may be perceived that way by those who are not taking responsibility for their own being. Self-differentiation is not “selfish.” Furthermore, the power inherent in a leader’s presence does not reside in physical or economic strength but in the nature of his or her own being, so that even when leaders are entitled to great power by dint of their office, it is ultimately the nature of their presence that is the source of their real strength. Leaders function as the immune systems of the institutions they lead–not because they ward off enemies, but because they supply the ingredients for the system’s integrity (p. 230, 231).

In short successful leadership necessitates well-defined vision and a  constant & non-anxious, non-reactionary, risk-taking  presence among our people. It requires nerve, and Friedman delivers a powerfully, well-defined vision of such leadership in his critical work.

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

The typical understanding of the Great Depression is that America was running hot and heavy through the “roaring 20s” until the unexpected Crash of October ‘29. Hoover was incompetent. But that’s okay, because Roosevelt stepped in as our savior with dozens of farm wagon loads of government programs. Roosevelt and the government remembered the lowly forgotten poor man.

But …

… what if government intervention is what actually exacerbated our economic woes, exasperating American ingenuity and grit and production?

Amity Shlaes has given the world compelling reasons to rethink and reframe the Depression. Produced only a year ago, her Forgotten Man speaks directly to our highly volatile political economy today. Not only are her arguments sound, she has composed them in such an excellent narrative that I felt at times as though I were watching an historical recreation on the History Channel.

What caused the Depression? Part of the trouble was indeed the crash. There were monetary and credit challenges at the young Federal Reserve, and certainly at the banks. Deflation, not inflation, was a big problem, both early on and also later, in the mid-1930s. The loss of international trade played an enormous role–just as both Hoover and Roosevelt said at different points. If the United States had not raised tariffs at the beginning of the decade and Europe had not collapsed in the 1930s, the United States would have had a trading partner to help sustain it. Part of the problem was the challenge of the transition to industrialization from agriculture. Part was freakish weather: floods and the uncanny Dust Bowl seemed to validate the sense of the apocalypse. With money and the weather breaking down, men and women in America felt extraordinarily helpless. They were willing to suspend disbelief.

But the deepest problem was the intervention, the lack of faith in the marketplace. Government management of the late 1920s and 1930s hurt the economy. Both Hoover and Roosevelt misstepped in a number of ways. Hoover ordered wages up when they wanted to go down. He allowed a disastrous tariff, Smoot-Hawley, to become law when he should have had the sense to block it. He raised taxes when neither citizens individually nor the economy as a whole could afford the change. After 1932, New Zealand, Japan, Greece, Romania, Chile, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden began seeing industrial production levels rise again–but not the United States ….

The big question about the American depression is not whether war with Germany and Japan ended it. It is why the Depression lasted until that war (p. 7 & 9).

The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist

The point is that evil is most frightening when it is realized in a head of state who able to exercise economic control and use national military power for his own ends. Surely that is why the doctrine of Antichrist is such a frightening and yet fascinating topic. This individual is thought to be evil personified–the supreme manifestation in human history of Satan’s relentless war to overcome all that is good. While Christians have always faced the temptation to speak of the evil in their own age as a manifestation of the Antichrist, most everyone understands that what is meant by the term Antichrist is not just any manifestation of evil but the supreme and final manifestation of Satan’s rage at the end of time through the agency of a particular individual (Kim Riddlebarger, The Man of Sin, p. 23).

I have really appreciated Kim Riddlebarger’s wit, grace, research, and presentation in his previous book A Case for Amillenianism. http://faithworshiplifelibrary.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/a-case-for-amillenialism-understanding-the-end-times/ This certainly holds true for his more recent work on the Antichrist.

He takes his readers through the various Old and New Testament references commonly thought to refer to this vile dog. His exegesis is impeccable. He also carries his readers through the various historical interpretations of Antichrist held by the early church fathers, the Protestant Reformers & their theological offspring, the Roman Catholic response, and present day pop culture.

Riddlebarger arrives at the conclusion that Antichrist is a phenomenon every generation of Christians can potentially face when the state oppresses the Church and massive deceptive teaching lures people away from the truth of the Gospel. This will eventually culminate in a final manifestation of Satanic deception and power in a Siren-like person, who will arise only to be destroyed by Jesus at his Second Coming. The spirit of Antichrist is always among us and must be combated with true biblical worship and Gospel preaching.

There is no doubt that one reason the study of biblical eschatology (study of the end times) is so complicated and controversial is the fact that it is difficult at times to know what belongs to the past and what to the future. This holds true for the doctrine of Antichrist. While dispensationalists assign Antichrist to the future and preterists place him in the past, as we will see in the coming chapters, it is not quite that easy. According to the New Testament writers, Antichrist is a past, present, and future foe. As the supreme mimic of Christ, Antichrist will stage his own death, resurrection, and second coming. The apostles faced him. They martyrs faced him. We must face him. And in one final outburst of satanic evil right before the time of the end, Antichrist will make one last dramatic appearance before going to his doom (p. 36).

Shape Shifters: How God Changes the Human Heart

From meeting to meeting and from fried chicken to apple pie, we may faithfully attend church. However, is there something changing about us besides our waistlines? Derek Vreeland says there should be. However, he offers more than politically expedient slogans and bumper sticker phrases. He offers us a vision of a God of “holy-love,” wherein true change is part and parcel with holy-love. Salvation is about transforming us, his children, into the image of Jesus, for the joy of the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words true Christian transformation happens in the crucible of the image of God, God the Father, Son, & Spirit. He rightly emphasizes true Christianity will center around true heart transformation.

This work is well-written.  It is a great introductory work on Trinitarian theology, clothing “heady” theology in tee-shirts and jeans, and making it very personable and accessible. Not only does he help to make the Triune mystery of God personable and accessible, he makes a great case for the necessity of understanding and embracing a fully Trinitarian Christianity. Anything shy of Trinitarian is not Christian. He adds follow-up questions at the end of every chapter for a great small group study.

And as a Wesleyan, I wish he had more emphasized human responsibility in the economy of transformation-Salvation. However, he is writing from a Reformed perspective, and thus focuses almost entirely on God’s responsibility. To be fair he does say he “deeply desire(s) to open (himself) up his work and partner with the Holy Spirit” (p. 101). Yet, he calls us “passive participants” (p. 127).  While he attempts to emphasize that we are not totally passive, thus the “participant” disclaimer, accessing the channels that the Holy Spirit flows his grace though to us, what John Wesley calls the “means of grace,” necessitates active participation, not passive.

I especially appreciated his emphasis on balance in the practice of Christianity. Often times we tend to emphasize one facet, say evangelism or social “justice” to the exclusion of all others. Rather he says we should juggle doctrine, ethics, devotion, service, mission, and community. These balls spinning together facilitate the Holy Spirit’s work of transformation.

I would recommend this book to anyone. Afterall, why not read someone who can make a butterfly look manly!!!