The former head of an interdenominational ex-gay ministry came full circle on Sunday, repenting publicly at the Washington National Cathedral as part of its Pride Week observance for his past work.
“It is a tremendous honor to be standing here in the Canterbury pulpit as the guest preacher for 2016 Pride Weekend,” declared Alan Chambers at the Cathedral’s June 12 worship service. “For those of you who know me and know my story, you know that this is a truly momentous occasion.”
Chambers formerly led an umbrella group of Christian ministries addressing human sexuality and gender. Exodus International in 2013 dissolved a ministry among LGBT persons (some former Exodus affiliates, including United Methodist Transforming Congregations, initiated a new organization, Restored Hope Network, which continues today).
In explaining his changed views on homosexuality, Chambers repeatedly referenced what he termed “The pure Gospel” – an emphasis on God’s grace and command to love one another. Other characteristics of God, including holiness and justice, were unmentioned.
Noting that he and his family have a house church, Chambers interpreted the Gospel differently than the Christians he once conducted ministry among. Pursuit of “The pure Gospel” was shorn of the context of historic Christian teaching.
The mainline Protestant congregation at the Cathedral was polite but cautious: at several points in Chambers’ sermon, obvious laugh lines went unacknowledged by congregants who listened reservedly. The subdued response for Chambers stood in contrast to other LGBT Pride Week speakers, including a 2014 sermon by the Cathedral’s first Transgender preacher which had an ebullient reception.
Chambers thanked Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Budde, Cathedral staff and the LGBT+ community, saying “We do not take your friendship lightly.”
Noting that he is from the Orlando area, Chambers shared his heavy heart following the Pulse gay nightclub shooting by an ISIS-sympathizing gunman earlier that morning which resulted in the deaths of at least 50 persons and injured 53 more.
“The truth is, we do have an agenda – because we believe, through faith in Christ, we, whose sins are many, have forgiveness of sin, forgiveness of guilt, and forgiveness of shame. Because we believe we are justified through faith in Christ and not through works of the flesh,” Chambers explained. The former Exodus official alternated between language familiar to Evangelicals and language at odds with historic church teachings, declaring belief “that we have been crucified with Christ and have new life though we remain in these suits of flesh” – a Gnostic understanding of people as spiritual entities whose physical bodies are of no consequence, rather than an intrinsic part of their humanity.
“Our agenda is to follow his commands: to love God, and to love people,” Chambers outlined. “Admittedly that agenda appears passive to some who want clear answers or position statements, or who want me to wear any number of labels. Conversely, to demonstrate love in certain arenas feels aggressive: to those who believe we have succumbed to an errant theology, a sloppy grace unreflective of Christ, but this is our choice – this is our new life.”
“It is true, we have fallen prey to grace – and it has wrecked us. It is messy, sloppy and troublesome: but we believe it is the only key that can unlock the prison of legalistic religion, the only thing that can set the captive truly free.”
Chambers declared that he was at the Cathedral to celebrate the gift of living in a society “where people are free to live outside of the dark, frightening and lonely closets in which they have been imprisoned.”
The former ministry leader celebrated families that have “finally been given the legal recognition that they deserve” in a nod to the legalization of same-sex marriage. He referred to his family as a “remnant” of the church “hoping the diversity we have in this house this morning will lead others in our body to open their houses of worship to all as well.”
Recalling the first gay pride weekend in Manhattan in 1970, Chambers stated that he was celebrating “a growing movement” of honesty, transparency and pride, declaring that “shame is an antonym for pride.”
Chambers stated that he was seeking to make amends for those “hurt by sexual orientation change efforts”:
“We stand here not as people whose moral pendulum has swung from one side to another, but as people who are joyfully and irrevocably plugged into the tree of life, seeing people as God sees them: redeemed, holy, blameless, righteous and beautiful. Our pendulum has fallen off of its axis, never to swing again.”
Chambers explained that his heart had been expanded to include a community he once felt in opposition to and estranged from. Warning that many have “mixed in the law, and called it the truth” making the Christian faith exclusionary, Chambers noted that Jesus fulfilled the law and that grace came through his sacrifice, decrying the idea of “cheap” grace, instead describing God’s grace as lavish.
Sharing the history of his prior ministry, Exodus International, Chambers stated that he repented publicly of his role in that organization:
“The job of Christian leaders isn’t to usurp the role of God, savior, or the Holy Spirit: it isn’t to condemn. Jesus was the only perfect human to live on Planet Earth, and the Apostle John states that Jesus didn’t come to condemn, but to save.”
Referencing the morning’s Gospel text of Luke Chapter 7:36-8:3, Chambers noted that Jesus rebuked Simon the Pharisee and showed favor to the sinner who gave all that she had out of a pure heart. Asking “why do we condemn, judge, exclude?” Chambers wondered aloud if followers of Christ “have allowed fear to rule us.”
“Fear of the unknown, that which is different, of the other,” Chambers listed. “Fear that God’s judgment would rain down like upon Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Stating that God’s perfect love casts out all fear, Chambers exclaimed that without fear he had more time to trust and to love. He charged that the mandate of the church is to “welcome all” and to preach the Kingdom of God – “The pure Gospel”.
Turning the parable of the Pearl of Great Price on its head, Chambers posited that the merchant in the story is not the Christian giving up everything else of value to follow God, but is God himself giving up his valuable son to purchase us: “that would make you and me the Pearl of Great Price.”
Comment by Mark Brooks on June 14, 2016 at 11:19 am
“As a dog that returns to his vomit, so is a fool who repeats his folly.”
–Proverbs 26:11
“For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘The dog turns to his own vomit again,’ and ‘the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire.'”
–2 Peter 2:20-22
Baptists call this sort of thing “backsliding” — falling back into old patterns of sin. We are under the law of liberty — the Bible plainly teaches this. We are not bound by the Mosaic code but we still have a law, and a lawgiver, so grace is not a license to sin, but a means to be saved from that sin.
Does Chambers think that the Book of Romans isn’t part of God’s word too?
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him! For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be! Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon
wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to
righteousness for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So false teachers would have people return to their sins, but those who read their Bibles literally know that God has not said such things.
Comment by Skipper on June 14, 2016 at 11:20 am
The poor man. Sexual confusion may be the worst confusion a person can have. I admire him for wanting to help the confused. But, we certainly don’t want to encourage people in their confusion, but rather lead them into the light of a New Life in Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit. That’s possible by calling on God for His help. God is big enough to help. Even in a struggle such as this!
Comment by Stogiebear on June 14, 2016 at 11:57 am
The obvious problem with any kind of ex-gay support group is that it puts gay men together – and the usual thing happens. The only gays and lesbians that I know personally didn’t make the change in a group setting, they just hit rock bottom on their own and decided there had to be a better way to live.
The fact that this Chambers character failed to change means nothing. It’s very wrong of him to say no one can change. I think our God is much bigger than whatever god he believes in.
Comment by Alan Chambers on January 24, 2018 at 7:31 am
Jeffrey, thank you for the accurate portrayal of my message at the Cathedral in June 2016 without conjecture. I am sorry I didn’t see this post sooner.