Following a large amount of criticism on social media for having declared its support for the Evangelical Alliance’s ten affirmations on human sexuality, the trustees of the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) issued a clarificatory statement last Thursday in which they declared, among other things, that ‘CPAS is opposed to conversion therapy, and seeks to uphold the highest standards of safeguarding and pastoral best practice.’[1]
This declaration by the CPAS trustees was an attempt to distance themselves from number eight of the Evangelical Alliance’s affirmations which states:
‘We welcome and support the work of those individuals and organisations who responsibly seek to help Christians who experience same-sex attraction as in conflict with their commitment to live in accordance with biblical teaching. This help will involve counsel and pastoral support to live a chaste life and, as part of this process, some may seek and experience changes in the strength or direction of their same-sex attractions.’ [2]
The implication of the CPAS trustees distancing themselves from this affirmation would seem to be that they do not believe that it is ever right for individuals, or organisations such as the Core Issues Trust, or for that matter churches, to offer ‘conversion therapy’ in the sense of counselling or other forms of pastoral support to ‘help Christians who experience same-sex attraction as in conflict with their commitment to live in accordance with biblical teaching.’
When one stops to think about it, this is a very odd position for the CPAS trustees to hold. They have made it clear that CPAS still adheres to the traditional Christian belief that same-sex sexual relationships are contrary to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. Nevertheless, they appear to be saying that it is wrong to try to help people who are being tempted to act against God’s will in this regard.
Two examples illustrate the problems with this approach.
The first example is a married man who is tempted to cheat on his wife by engaging in an affair with another man.
The second example is a teenage girl who is being encouraged by friends at school to experiment with lesbian sexual activity.
Supposing these people come to their church leaders and say that they want help in remaining faithful to their marriage, or in knowing why and how they should reject the pressure from their friends at school. Are those church leaders really supposed to simply tell them that they are on their own because no help will be forthcoming? If the temptations in question concerned heterosexual sex, help would be offered with no questions asked. So why should it not be the same when the issue concerns homosexuality?
The first answer to this question is that the Church of England’s General Synod passed a motion in 2017 rejecting conversion therapy. The motion in question runs as follows:
‘That this Synod: (a) endorse the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK of November 2015, signed by The Royal College of Psychiatrists and others, that the practice of gay conversion therapy has no place in the modern world, is unethical, potentially harmful and not supported by evidence; and 3 (b) call upon the Church to be sensitive to, and to listen to, contemporary expressions of gender identity; (c) and call on the government to ban the practice of Conversion Therapy.’ [3]
One can understand the CPAS trustees’ reluctance to disregard a General Synod motion. However, that cannot be the end of the matter because that Church of England holds that church councils may err (Article XXI) and so the question that has to be asked is whether or not the General Synod erred when it passed the 2017 motion.
Those who hold that General Synod was right to pass this motion argue that conversion therapy should be banned because of the harm that it involves. This is the position put forward, for example, by the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, in an article published in 2021 reiterating Synod’s call for a government ban on conversion therapy. In his article Bishop Walker argues that there is ‘a massive pile of evidence’ that all forms of conversion therapy cause harm and that therefore the government should simply get on and ban the practice completely. [4]
It follows, therefore that the second answer to the question why church leaders should say ‘no’ to offering help to those struggling with same-sex sexual temptation is because the evidence shows that any attempt to provide such help would be harmful to the people concerned.
However, the evidence shows no such thing.
At the time of the General Synod debate on conversion therapy in 2017, Peter Ould pointed out that Synod members needed to be wary of the claims put forward in a paper from Jayne Ozanne about the harm done by Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE). Having surveyed the relevant evidence, his conclusion was that:
‘The overwhelming majority of ‘proof’ that is offered to support the idea that SOCE harm people is both anecdotal in nature and lacks any independent assessment of the alleged harm. Often, as in Shidlo and Shroder 2002, the raw data reveals more than the headlines and indicates complexity and nuance which needs to be taken into account. Finally, leading secular therapeutic organisations recognise that the level of research that is required to make a definitive declaration of the outcomes of SOCE has yet to be undertaken.’ [5]
In the seven years since Ould’s article nothing has changed. There has been no study that has shown that therapy designed to help people struggling with unwanted same-sex sexual attraction is necessarily harmful. What detailed studies have in fact shown is an absence of harm from SOCE. Thus, the major study on the issue undertaken by Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse in 2011 found that there was ‘no statistically significant evidence of harm, even in those for whom the therapy ‘failed’ or who dropped out.’ [6] More recently the same conclusion was reached in the 2022 study by Paul Sullins which reported that the evidence showed that even when SOCE were unsuccessful:
‘Those who had undergone SOCE were no more likely to experience psychological distress or poor mental health, to engage in substance or alcohol abuse, to intentionally harm themselves, or to think about, plan, intend or attempt suicide, than were those who had not undergone SOCE.’ [7]
Furthermore, as I noted in my response to Bishop Walker’s 2021 article, from a Christian perspective what is harmful to human beings is anything that prevents them from living in the way that God created them to live. For example, it is harmful to deprive people of food, because God has created human beings as biological organisms who need food in order to live at all. For another example, it is harmful to deprive people of education, because this will prevent the full development of the intellectual capacities that God has given them.
If we extend this understanding of harm to the issues of sexual identity and behaviour, we find that the witness of both nature and Scripture (Genesis 1:26-28) is that human beings have been created by God in two sexes, male and female, with the members of these two sexes being differentiated biologically by the fact that their bodies are ordered towards the performance of different roles in sexual reproduction and in the nurture of children once they have been born. Furthermore, Scripture teaches us that God has instituted marriage between a man and a woman as the context for sexual intercourse and for the begetting and raising of children (Genesis 2: 18-25).
If God has created human beings in this way, it follows that it is harmful for human beings to live in a way that contradicts this fact. It is harmful for a man to live as if he was a woman or vice versa, or for a man or woman to claim some form of alternative sexual identity. It is also harmful for a man, or a woman, to have sex outside marriage, either with a member of the opposite sex, or with a member of the same sex.
As a result of the sinful disorder that exists in all human beings as a consequence of the rebellion against God that took place at the start of human history and the idolatry that has been the fruit of this rebellion (Genesis 3:1-14, Romans 1:18-32), there are people who desire to live in these harmful ways. In this situation, Christian care for others requires that we seek to help those for whom this the case to control their desires in order that they may live in the way God created them to live. Such help will take the form of teaching, prayer, counseling and general pastoral support.
What this means is that in distancing themselves from what is said in the Evangelical Alliance’s eighth affirmation the CPAS trustees are actually increasing the possibility of harm by implicitly suggesting that Christian individuals and organizations should not offer people help to live in the way God created them to live.
Read it all at Reflections of an Anglican Theologian
