OP-ED: The Sad Situation of Alan Chambers and the Misunderstanding of “Change”

(By Robert Gagnon)

Alan Chambers, former head of Exodus International, at the time the largest evangelical Christian ministry for helping same-sex attracted persons to live in obedience to the will of God, solicited a sexual relationship from what he thought was a 14-year old male but actually was an undercover detective. I’ll get to the details in a moment.

I feel very sad for Alan despite the fact that Alan burned Exodus to the ground (metaphorically speaking) in June 2013. I feel also for his wife Lesli and his two adopted children. May God work redemptively in all their lives during this difficult time, especially in Alan to reclaim him for the very purpose that God made him to fulfill.

The dark forces of evil have been using this sad event (not surprisingly) for their own twisted ideological purposes, particularly to dump on all ex-gay transformation ministries that operate on the premise that Christianity offers hope for a transformed life (e.g., Restored Hope Network, which replaced Exodus and which I served as one of the founding Board members) That’s right: Hope for a transformed life, even for those who seem to be intractably beset by sinful homosexual or transgender desire (or any other form of sexual brokenness).

To explain this further, allow me to take you back to an encounter I had seventeen years ago.

“𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐈𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞”: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐰𝐨 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞

If memory serves me correctly, the old Exodus International organization had a slogan: “Change Is Possible.”

I was invited by Alan to be a plenary speaker at the 2009 Exodus International conference. In my plenary address I argued that God changes people in one of two ways. Sometimes he does it by removing the obstacle that brings distress. This is the one that we all prefer. There are many examples of God’s miracles in the pages of Scripture that remove the difficult circumstances that generate the distress.

Changes of affection are hardly the greatest of these miracles. Limited change in homosexual affections doesn’t even require the miracle of direct divine intervention. We know that most persons who experience some degree of homosexual attraction experience one or more incremental shifts along a spectrum of homosexual desire and do so in the course of life simply by changed circumstances of life.

We also know that there is a generally more fluidity in same-sex attractions among women than among men. But even men are susceptible to incremental shifts in the course of life. It is not an intrinsically immutable condition. So at least limited change is possible for many, even apart from therapeutic intervention or divine help.

So that is one kind of change. There is another: Sometimes God changes people not by removing the perceived obstacle to seeming happiness but rather by showing the one seeking his deliverance that God’s grace is “sufficient” or “enough” without removing the obstacle. That is, knowing God and his daily kindnesses (grace) is sufficient or enough to live satisfying and meaningful lives even when the source of the distress is not removed.

That source of distress is not limited to unwanted sexual attractions. it includes also disease, death of a loved one, persecution, financial woes, relational problems, and lack of worldly success, to name just a short list). Yes, God is so great that he can “bring [his] power to completion in the midst of human weakness” (obviously I have been alluding to the thorn-in-the-flesh text in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

The greatest example of divine power (and love) occurred not at the resurrection of Christ but on the cross. It was in this definitive example of supreme human weakness that God saved the world. Surely, then, God can take our relatively little distresses (little in relation to being literally crucified on a cross) and use them for the ultimate good of conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ (Rom 8:29).

It is up to God, not us, as to which method God will use to “deliver” the same-sex-attracted person: whether God largely eliminates same-sex attraction (not the most common outcome), reduces the intensity of the same-sex attraction, develops limited heterosexual functioning, or changes very little of the attraction. But always God through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit works toward changing us ever more into the image of his Son.

Even when God doesn’t remove the same-sex attraction of some individuals, they are still required to act in a manner consistent with God’s bodily design of “male and female” and not to dishonor the person whom God has made (Rom 1:24-27) by treating themselves as if they were only half their own sex (the homosexual deception that one is a half-male or half-female, needing to integrate sexually with the same sex in order to be whole) or not even their own sex at all (transgender deception).

In short, we all need to daily mortify desires to do what God expressly prohibits. We are not the sum total of our urges as though instinct-driven animals but rational persons created in the image of God to do his will.

Even when our unwanted desires persist, we still have undergo a “renewal of the mind” (Rom 12:2; Eph 4:23) that exposes the false narrative that undergirds the gratification of sinful desires. In the case of the homosexually oriented person, that means wrestling with the lie that a person of the same sex can be one’s true sexual complement, that somehow our God-given masculinity or femininity is only half-intact (or worse).

Okay, by now I have probably supplemented somewhat what I said back in 2009. But you get the point.

𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

Alan Chamber at the time loved the part in my address about same-sex-attracted people not being responsible for ridding themselves of all same-sex desire. I doubt whether he heard the rest of the message about the necessity of a transformed mind.

Alan was all set to invite me back the following year. That is, until he heard about my later workshop at the conference where I discussed the overwhelming biblical evidence for why homosexual practice (and its sister, transgenderism) is viewed in Scripture as the most severe of consensual sexual offenses between adult humans.

Alan was moving in a direction where he would eventually develop a cheap-grace model of Christian faith, one that didn’t require a transformed life as the indispensable middle term between becoming a Christian and the final outcome of eternal life: No transformed life, no eternal life.

Chambers over time came to insist that no actively sinful lifestyle—especially unrepentant, lifelong homosexual practice—could “interrupt someone’s relationship with Christ.”

In Alan’s developing view (influenced by his imbalanced pastor at the local church he was attending), Christians didn’t even need to confess their ongoing sins to God any longer. Indeed, to do so would be a big waste of time because we have already been forgiven by Jesus for every sin that we will ever commit.

In a contrived effort at diminishing the gravity of homosexual sin, Chambers compared homosexual practice to gluttony, insisting that all sins were equal. But he recoiled at the more accurate comparison, in terms of severity, with adult-consensual incest. It never occurred to him (despite my efforts) that, if all sins were equal, why should my incest analogy be more troubling to him than his own gluttony analogy?

Chambers shut down the Exodus ministry back in June 2013 after a 37-year-run (Chambers had been hired to lead Exodus in 2001). He said that he no longer believed the message that “change is possible.” Thinking solely in terms of sexual-orientation change, he had come to the conclusion that radical change in homosexual orientation was not realistic for the vast majority of people.

So, he concluded, an organization like Exodus International was no longer needed. It was an incredibly short-sighted, spiritually immature conclusion. He apologized to the LGBTQ community, claiming that the ministry had caused significant harm, shame, and hurt to many.

When we try to minimize our sins and then couple that with a cheap-grace perspective that rejects the necessity of a transformed life within our larger understanding of the meaning of God’s grace, we end up doing things that dishonor the person whom God made us to be. Ultimately, we fall headlong into God’s judgment.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐦 𝐀𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝

It appears to be an open-and-shut case. Alan, who is 54 years old, communicated for several months via Snapchat and Telegram with a male whom he thought was a 14-year-old boy but was really an undercover detective.

He allegedly sent sexually explicit messages describing how he “wanted to feel our bodies together,” “kiss,” and “make love,” saying “I’m in love with a 14-year-old. Crazy.” He referred to their “forbidden love” and indicated that he wanted the boy “so much.” Detectives released excerpts (two pages) of these messages.

He also allegedly sent a picture of a white male’s torso lying in bed with the end of the penis visible. He arranged to meet the supposed minor near his office. He reportedly expressed concerns on multiple occasions about getting in trouble and occasionally deleted chats. He knew that what he was doing was against the law. But he did it anyway.

Alan was charged with three counts: solicitation of a minor via computer, transmission of material harmful to minors, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device. I understand that these are third-degree felonies. Bond was set at $15,000 ($5000 for each count) with conditions (no contact with minors under 18, limited social media use).

Grok indicates that under Florida law he faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of two years (I hope for better in his case); a mandatory and usually lifetime sex offender registration, long-term sex offender probation with strict conditions (e.g., no contact with minors, internet restrictions, treatment programs), loss of certain civil rights, employment barriers, housing restrictions, and (of course) reputational damage.

Again, I am saddened by this and pray for God’s mercy, along with a transformation of his thinking that accords more with the witness of Jesus and Scripture.

This article was posted on Robert Gagnon’s X feed (@RobertAJGagnon1) and republished in full with permission.

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