HOMOSEX AND THE CHRISTIAN

The Making, and Breaking, of Homosexuality

Miles J. Stanford

COUNSELING CASUALTIES

Let us now consider the pastor's responsibility if this lesbian is willing to be freed from her homosex condition. The burning question is, what is the pastor to share in order to bring about her deliverance from lesbianism?

He may have been infected by the present-day "demon-caster-outers." Being convinced that he has an "instant-deliverance" ministry, he proceeds to rush in and solve this problem with one fell swoop: "I command this unclean spirit to come forth! You demon of lust and homosexuality, release your hold upon this woman's life and come out of her--and be ye cast into the pit of hell!"

Or he might go to the other extreme and send her to an ungodly, anti-Bible, humanistic psychiatrist, who would in all probability submit her to group therapy with other homosexuals: homos helping homos.

If the pastor were to turn her over to one of the many fine Christian psychologists available today she would definitely be helped, although it would quite likely be along cope and control lines, i.e., the non-practicing level. This falling short is the result of 80% Freud and 20% Truth.

Those few Christian professionals who do seek to apply the scriptural answer to homosexualism by dealing with the source, the Adamic nature, often fail to understand the necessary foundation and time elements, or principles. The homosexual is usually pressed into the identification truths long before adequate doctrinal preparation is achieved, which inevitably results in defeat and reversion. This, few hear of.

NOUTHETICISM

The pastor may seek victory for the lesbian by resorting to Nouthetic Confrontation. This is a current method of counseling by means of verbal confrontation, i.e., "the use of biblical means in an effort to effect personality and behavioral change where needed."

The term nouthetic has been coined, and the confrontational type of counseling developed, by Dr. Jay Adams. Dr. Adams is a Covenant theologian, hence his counseling techniques are founded upon the principle of law. He has stated in his booklet, Godliness through Discipline: "Liberty comes through law, not apart from it." "Godly, commandment-oriented living comes only from biblical structure and discipline."

Many pastors today are taking up nouthetic confrontational counseling, using Adams' Competent to Counsel as a textbook. Dr. Adams considers homosex to be an act, not a condition. It is a sinful practice that may become a habit, and then a way of life. It is cured by abandonment of the habit through discipline, replacing it with proper biblical patterns.

How competent to counsel does Dr. Adams' textbook reveal him to be? "Bearing the cross means crucifying one's self. To deny self means daily crucifixion of old sinful desires and practices" (p. 133).

"The old man is 'put off,' partly, by establishing the 'new man.' Old habit patterns are crowded out by new ones" (p. 151). "Holy living involves habit. Patterns of holiness can he established only by regular, constant practice. Just as Christ learned obedience, we too must learn obedience by actual practice" (p. 162).

"Just as the athlete practices until his training makes him expert and his athletic accomplishments are second nature to him, the Christian by practice must become expert in holiness, so expert that his 'second nature' (wrought by the Holy Spirit) is dominant, natural, easy" (p. 165).

In his book, The Big Umbrella, Dr. Adams says, "Sinful life patterns are called the 'old man' by Paul. These old ways of living need to be 'put off' (abandoned) after a person becomes a Christian, and new patterns of living must be 'put on' (developed). The new life styles that are according to the law of God, Paul called the 'new man.' The new man and the old man are not some kind of entities within the person (as if he possessed separate natures) but they are simply Paul's graphic way of describing two ways of life" (p. 23).

It goes without saying that this is typical Covenant teaching, which deals with symptoms only instead of source; with behavior instead of being. It has but the Law for the hapless lesbian.

Any "success" claimed for the different concepts of counseling thus far mentioned is mainly in the realm of pseudo-homosex, i.e., those who only think they are homosexual, or who have but experimented in the sin. Regarding the actual lesbian and sodomite, with few exceptions such counselors fail to deliver them from the condition of homosex. It is all too easy for them to settle for a non-practicing status, at best.

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(Materials by Miles J. Stanford are republished here under exclusive permission from the author.)