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The Left Behind Ones

Left Behind--no not the widely successful yet poorly written Christian book series designed to frighten people into the Kingdom of Heaven. No the Left Behind Folks become collateral damage in the wake of a failed ex-gay life. Christine Bakke writes about a current story about a man who found Jesus and freedom from his homosexuality on Highway 35.

The man, James, recently shared his story on Pat Robertson's Christian TV program. Several questions came up for Christine after she read James' story.
It made me so sad to read parts of that. I mean, I'm happy that he feels like he's in a better place. But in the interview he gave for the CBN piece, he talks casually about being headed to meet his fiance (when he had his God encounter), but he doesn't mention anything about that situation now.

These left behind ones many times end up also being ex-gay survivors. All I'll say about James' story is that so many of us have had huge emotional rides where we rode a wave of enthusiasm and thought we'd gotten "the cure" only to end up flat on our faces several weeks or months down the road (it's been less than three months for him since this encounter). But what about the fiance? What about the family?
You can read the rest of Christine's post and see some original art she did inspired by the story here.
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Comments

Rob said…
I call this kind of thing, "Emotion Christianity".....it's based on emotion not faith, but at some point one has to ask themselves, is it true, or is all about emotion.

I think for many who end up in the ex-gay movement it is a matter of wanting to be straight, so this sort of "emotion Christianity" plays into that hand, and certainly you can make yourself believe in something, but that does not make it true.

If this is the path he wants for his life, that's cool. However I believe there is more to this story than he or CBN is telling.

The fact he had a fiance, could provide examples of being scared of commitment, maybe he felt uncomfortable being 'out' (something else that leads to ex-gay ministry involvement, because of the personal struggle against those who look down upon LGBT folks).

Coming out can be stressful on Family, but equally as stressful is coming out and than deciding you are not gay. My family never understood that. Fear can have a strange effect on what we believe.
4:43 PM
CrackerLilo said…
I said it to Christine and will here as well--they don't give a rat's fat ass about people left behind, like the fiance. They know what they need to do in order to be seen as people worth caring about, right? If these creeps (and that is the nicest word I can muster) took former same-sex partners into account, encouraged ex-gays to formulate exit plans, etc....then they'd be acknowledging that we have real relationships with real feelings. And that would be the stick that knocks down the whole damn Jenga tower!
8:48 PM
Bruce Garrett said…
Well, we know what happened to John Evan's fiance...
10:35 PM
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