THE SALVATION ARMY - Clarification; Position on Homosexuality VIII LGBT ISSUES IN AFRICA

AFRICA   -

The Salvation Army does not consider

homosexual orientation a sin

 “We need to be a clear voice in culture and society” Commissioner Brian Peddle, Salvation Army Territorial Commander, Canada and Bermuda

Introduction to the disparity in the Christian, cultural and societal acceptance of LGBT persons between the northern and southern (sub Saharan African) hemisphere.

Liberal elites drive our legal direction and cultural changes.

The USA Supreme Court is hearing a watershed case to determine if liberal elites can force their morality, their religion, on Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The Obama administration, the government, compels its citizens to violate their religious conscience, their bedrock and immutable principles, by purchasing products they believe to be immoral.

“What are these products? Contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization.

Although these items are sacraments of the Secular Humanism that increasingly guides the moral thinking of these liberal elites; they are abominations to many Christians, Muslims, and Jews.”  Many Christian and other religious groups maintain that Obamacare would never have passed if the HHS Mandate had been disclosed in advance of the vote. What efforts were made by the silent majority to learn which freedoms were at stake?

Liberal elites, whether in the northern or southern hemisphere have ‘their’ truth and both control designed and driven agendas. They are fluid, exaggerated and obfuscating. What they issue as convincing truth tomorrow will most likely be different than what they advocated today.

Paradigmatic assumptions are the deeply held assumptions that frame the whole way we look at many key and determining factors that drive our society including LGBT issues. For many decades Christians were conditioned into accepting the LGBT ideology of a theological patriarchy and it became so much a part of their belief system that it was very difficult for them to see just how powerfully that ideology was shaping behavior. The ideologies were so commonly accepted that they weren’t worthy of being challenged. They were sets of beliefs and practices accepted by the community as a logical system of organizing their immediate world.

Well into the 20^th century homosexuality was deemed a curable and reversible perverse sexual bias. Any consideration of a genetic factor was never considered; the condition was more ‘learned’ than ‘inherited’. (|R J Berry) “The possibility of change by the grace and power of God depended on the person’s strength and resolve ….” JHW Stott

Concurrently, there were ongoing attempts to convince the public that same-sex attraction was a genetically based condition, a theory dating back to the mid 1970s (Marmor 1975) Consequently, many researchers concluded that constitutional homosexuality was irreversible. “No known method of treatment or punishment”, writes D.J. West, “offers hope of making any substantial reduction in the vast army of adults practicing homosexuality….”

Nonetheless, as gays, including Christian LGBT persons and groups ‘came out’, sexual orientation reversal groups, many employing Christian and Biblical rhetoric and bold claims of success sprung up around the globe. Their claims were found particularly convincing to those who were ashamed by their ‘self identity’ or by those discriminated against or threatened in their social and professional standing.

THE SA – Northern Hemisphere

IHQ Position on Homosexuality: "The Salvation Army does not consider homosexual orientation a sin.” The SA’s position has changed with time as a result of psychological studies and their findings and conclusions fell in with psychologists who have long regarded that homosexuality is not a pathological condition; it is therefore to be accepted not cured.

The SA UKI removed two links to organizations that advocate so-called ex-gay or reparative therapy from its website after the LGBT organization Truth Wins Out contacted the Army about the supposed endorsement of the scientifically discredited practice that aims to turn gay people straight.  "We thank the Salvation Army for acting swiftly and decisively in addressing our concerns about links to ‘ex-gay’ organizations," said Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen.

Consequently, the Salvation Army, along with every major medical and psychological organization, and groups who supported reparative or "ex-gay" therapy, now disavow such methods, and some label them as “destructive organizations dedicated to demonizing LGBT people."

In a letter sent to Truth Wins Out Tuesday, the Salvation Army's director of communications claimed the "ex-gay" links were part of an archived page that was inadvertently republished when the Army re-launched its site. 

"We apologize for our oversight and any confusion this may have caused," said Jennifer Byrd in the letter, published at Truth Wins Out.

The offending links, posted under the site's resource list for dealing with "sexual addictions," included Harvest USA, which bills itself as a "ministry committee to offering hope in Jesus to men and women struggling with sexual brokenness and sin." The second resource, Pure Life Ministries, boasts 35 full-time "biblical counselors and support staff" who its website promises are dedicated to "bringing the hope, healing, and restoration found only in Christ to those who have been touched by the leprosy of sexual sin."

Reparative or "ex-gay" therapy has been disavowed by every major medical and psychological organization in America, and its use by licensed therapists on minors has been outlawed in California and New Jersey. Psychologists have long regarded that homosexuality is no longer a condition that can or needs to be cured.

No doubt most surprising to most supporters and disappointing to some was Alan Chamber’s announcement in 2013: “I helped to found an Exodus ministry in the mid-1980s when both the culture and the church largely neglected the gay community. I resigned only two years later when I realized I hadn't yet experienced the relational wholeness that I both longed for and promised to others. A co-leader I simultaneously initiated a sexual relationship with one who had come to us for help. It was textbook bad leadership.”

After announcing the closure of Exodus International the organization's president Alan Chambers admitted to its failures in a discussion with Huffington Post Live's Josh Zepps. Criticized for preaching a "cure" to homosexuality, the Christian ministry shut its doors after four decades of existence.

In the UK London’s Mayor Boris Johnson was drawn into a bitter dispute over homosexuality after banning advertisements on London buses promoting the idea that gay people can be “cured”. Transport chiefs stepped in on the Mayor’s orders to block the posters, faced with the prospect of the argument being played on the streets of the capital with rival advertisements. Two Christian groups announced that they too had booked advertising space promoting the idea that people can become “post-gay” through therapy.

Anglican Mainstream, a traditionalist Christian coalition, and Core Issues Trust – a counselling group which practices controversial “reorientation” therapy – also wanted to place full-length banners reading: “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get Over It!”

They are a direct response to advertisements taken out by the gay rights group Stonewall earlier this month as part of the campaign for same-sex marriage reading: “Some people are Gay. Get over it!”

The founder of Core Issues, Dr Mike Davidson, a trainee psychotherapist, recently had his membership of the British Psychodrama Association (BPA) revoked over his support for the controversial ex-gay treatment techniques.

Tomorrow: Will the international SA find any agreement on the aetiology of the homosexual issues? How can north and south come together?

There are few LGBT mysteries remaining that haven’t been solved. Psychologists have declared that homosexuality is no longer to be regarded as a pathological condition. Thirty one  years ago the trustees of the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the category of mental illness. And agreement on the genesis of homosexual orientation has been largely established. 

Any SA coming together will depend largely on a willingness of the 98% of the 1 billion African population who deem homosexual orientation a learned status, reversible and sinful. What percentage of African Salvationists and other Christians clinging to these attitudes are hitherto unknown…

Sven Ljungholm