Conversion Therapy Bans: an Ongoing Threat to Biblical Christianity – Part 1

The struggle over “conversion therapy” bans outside the United States, which effectively prohibit speech against homosexuality or transgenderism, and where there are no First Amendment free speech protections, continues. Lacking a strong evidentiary base showing a connection between condemnation of homosexuality or transgenderism and real physical violence, the LGBT campaign proceeds instead on references to coercive practices to change sexual orientation used long ago when homosexuality was criminal, and personal accounts of hurt feelings. With a sympathetic press and political/cultural establishment, and a defensive opposition, it has succeeded in making it illegal to dissuade anyone, especially minors, from homosexuality or transgenderism, whether the appeal is religiously based or not in several countries. Laws do vary, but in Canada a parent disagreeing with their child about the child’s true sex carries a five year prison sentence. Admonishing against homosexuality is also illegal in France and (for minors) in Germany.

Government Reluctance and Activist Pressure

It soon will be in the United Kingdom and Ireland, although the exact scope of the law is being fiercely debated. Britain’s frequent changes in government in the last few years, and sharply differing opinions in the Conservative Party (which generally has been pro-LGBT in this century) appear to have slowed the process down. Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were reluctant to proceed. Indeed, Johnson believed (correctly) there was no need. Because the ban would include a ban on dissuading people from transgenderism, and could make criminal parental efforts to prevent one’s child from undergoing “gender transitioning” (with puberty blocking drugs and ultimately surgery), feminist leaders, as well as religious conservatives are opposed. Transgenderism, of course, wherever it is applied, erases women as a real category. This significant opposition may or may not succeed in moderating some of the more extreme elements of the proposal, which seems certain to be enacted in some form.

The term “conversion therapy,” as has been noted by the Christian Institute, which defends the religious freedom of Christians in Great Britain, was chosen by LGBT activists, and as this writer has observed, seems to be carefully targeted at religious doctrines and practices. As Simon Calvert of CI has pointed out, Jayne Ozanne, chair of the Ban Conversion Therapy campaign, has said that admonition to the Christian doctrine of abstinence from sex outside of marriage must be banned. This amounts to banning Biblical Christianity. Admonition to “flee fornication” (sexual immorality) was a basic part of New Testament Christianity. It has remained basic ever since and cannot be changed as long as Christians remain faithful to God’s revelation.

Indeed, CI observes that the conversion therapy concept and proposal to ban it are really an attempt to impose liberal theology on all churches and all Christians. A likely ultimate goal is to include universalist soteriology among the required doctrines. CI also noted an article in the Scottish daily The Herald, by a man told by his family that he would go to hell for homosexual practice. He believes that exhorting to repentance should be a crime. Similarly, the U.K. Humanists organizations wants such religious practices as “confession, fasting, declarations of faith and ‘attendance on religious courses’” banned if they are directed at repentance from homosexuality or transgenderism. This is clearly not something Christians can comply with. But having restricted religious freedom in this way, the government could also ban any other religious practice that someone can testify is emotionally painful. Indeed, many Evangelicals can testify to the pain of finding assurance of salvation. Since the government is restricting what can be said, it will be possible to require people to change their beliefs and practices along the lines desired by the social engineers who influence or control the state.

In the current situation in Great Britain, the conversion therapy bill was withdrawn briefly by Boris Johnson (only to be re-instated a day later after fierce opposition), while Truss withdrew the proposed ban during her brief tenure. It was announced that it would be re-introduced by the government early this year. However, the text of the bill has not been published, and it is not clear what it will cover. The crucial question is whether it covers only professional counseling (which, of course, is strictly voluntary, and in which the patient sets the goals in every non-LGBT area, which should be legal), or whether it will cover religious practices against homosexuality and transgenderism, and/or private conversation.

The latter possibility seems the whole reason for the legislation, and as CI has pointed out, such legislation would criminalize pastors, ministry workers, and parents. More than a thousand clergy and ministry workers have signed the Greater Love declaration, which beautifully lays out Christian doctrine with respect to sex, marriage, and the family, and have pledged to continue teaching Christian doctrine, even if it becomes illegal. More than two thousand people from the general public have also signed the letter.

Greater Love Declaration

The explanation of underlying doctrine to the statement posted by the Greater Love Declaration organization explains the general ideas underlying the statement. The introduction begins with a doctrinal statement of commitment to basic Christian doctrine – the Trinity, the Incarnation, Jesus’ messiahship and atonement for sin, and Christian anthropology (man made in the image of God, corruption of human nature by sin, the sinfulness of human desires and passions opposed to God’s good and loving commands, and the call to repentance). The explanation emphasizes that the gospel is a call to selfless love, as Christ loved us – “Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). This is followed by a confession of the essential difference between men and women, a difference designed by God, marriage as a God designed, lifelong union of man and woman as husband and wife, and the destructiveness of sexual activity outside this union, both to those engaging in it and “the widespread effects far beyond those immediately engaging in it.” It notes the many benefits of marriage, in particular, “mutual care, commitment, and self-sacrifice, subordinating selfish desire to the differing needs and interests of others.” Also highlighted is the fact that traditional opposite-sex marriage “values children,” and provides for them with a father and mother, who naturally love them more than anyone else.

This natural family binds generations together, conveying the wisdom of generations past into the future. While single or adoptive parents can provide love and care, “the absence of one or both natural parents remains a grievous loss.” The collapse of marriage and morality is resulting in a “fragmented and unstable” society. Sexual “identities” based on inclinations and desires contrary to the body, which is either male or female, are destructive for society, the explanatory statement observes. Like many non-sexual inclinations and desires, they cannot be worked out to fulfillment without subverting and destroying the family and thus the common good. They focus morality instead on the self and its fulfillment. This is the opposite of the “greater love” that Jesus commanded. The explanatory introduction concludes by observing that “Conversion to Christ is what happens when anyone becomes a Christian. It involves repentance, turning away from beliefs and practices that are hostile to God, and instead embracing the commandments of God, as they are found in Scripture … All Christians desire to sin, and are called by God to lay those desires down for love of God and others.”

Thus, conversion, including repentance from sexual sin, is essential to Christianity. It is precisely this Christian conversion which the conversion therapy ban seeks to prevent.

The Greater Love declaration itself is a wonderful statement of Christian love and morality, noting that it is love for God and others that sacrifices self; it is not centered around self-fulfillment. It commits to obedient love at any cost, legal, financial, or social. The declaration affirms the duty of all Christians out of love for God to teach the Christian doctrine of chastity (faithfulness in opposite-sex, monogamous marriage and celibacy in singleness) to everyone, in particular, to children and young people.

Specifically, the declaration includes the commitment that “there are no circumstances – not the threat of legal sanction, nor of financial penalty, nor of social stigma – which will cause us to abandon our Lord’s call to love in this way, in sexual matters as in all others. And therefore there are no circumstances which will cause us to abandon the Christian doctrine of marriage, nor to cease teaching it, to all people of every age. If the cost to ourselves of faithfulness to our Lord, and love for those around us, is high, we nevertheless commit ourselves to these things. For in this way too, we recognize that we are called to lay down our lives for the good of others; for there is, as our Lord Jesus Christ said, no greater love than this.”

Concurring evidence for the declaration was found in the “Family Structure Still Matters” document. It deals with the consequences of the breakdown of traditional morality (Aug. 2020). It points to the benefits of marriage over cohabitation (in particular, that children of married couples are more likely to be prosperous), and the uneven distribution of marriage across the income spectrum (common at higher levels, less common at lower levels). It also notes the tendency of the British government to blur the distinction between marriage and cohabitation for fear of seeming to be “judgmental.” But the leaders of opinion in society, who tend to justify cohabitation in the wider society, are “in fact reaping the benefits themselves, with very high marriage rates amongst the top socio-economic strata.”

Ongoing Conflict

As noted, it is not clear what kind of conversion therapy bill will be offered, and finally passed, but the Christian Institute welcomed U.K. Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch’s pledge not to include prayer and the ordinary work of churches in “conversion therapy” ban in the later part of January. She said in a letter to MPs that “the freedom to express the teachings of any religion, as well as everyday religious practice, will not be affected by the ban.”

However, LGBT activists essentially want, as CI observed “a ban that criminalises repentance, preaching, ‘gentle, non-coercive prayer’, pastoral advice and parenting that fails to endorse liberal theology.” The pledge that religious “teachings” will not be affected is substantive; what the “ordinary work of churches” might be is open to interpretation. It could be interpreted to exclude condemnation of homosexuality and transgenderism, and admonition to repent (although how “teaching” could be unaffected in that case is unclear). Last spring, Mike Freer, a Conservative MP, wrote LGBT activists to say that the government did not consider efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity to be “the ordinary work of churches,” and such efforts would be illegal regardless of where they are carried out, and even if they are religious activities (such as preaching, teaching, prayer, or exorcism).

A real problem is that the term “conversion therapy” is not defined, and seems to refer to whatever activists don’t like. Calvert has observed that “activists used to say they wanted to outlaw brutal abuse like electro-shock therapy. But that’s already illegal. Now they’re admitting what they really want is to outlaw traditional theology and gender critical feminism … They don’t like the idea of churches praying prayers they don’t agree with,” nor “women’s activists and parents discouraging young people from rushing into gender transition … Jayne Ozanne, chair of the Ban Conversion Therapy campaign, explicitly says a ban must include ‘gentle, non-coercive prayer’. Apparently prayers that don’t fit her particular LGBTQ+ narrative must be outlawed. Church pastoral care is also in the firing line. Ozanne particularly objects when churches teach that sex outside of marriage is wrong (something they’ve done for 2000 years), describing abstinence as ‘damaging’ and ‘psychologically harmful’ …. So they are weaponising the language of safeguarding to try to bounce Parliament into outlawing the opinions of their theological and philosophical opponents. This is not what the criminal law is for.” He observed several days earlier with respect to LGBT activists that “misappropriation of the language of safeguarding to attack traditional teaching is the calling card of this movement.”  

Of course, no law can stand, and no freedom can stand, if it can be set aside because of personal pain. Yet that is essentially the argument of the LGBT activists. Neither liberty nor equality will show that particular personal behaviors and/or inclinations must be immune from criticism. That can only be known by sensibility. Indeed, homosexually inclined persons, and transgender identifying persons (to the extent that there was even awareness of transgenderism in the past), have been objects of stigma. But to know that wrong we must know that homosexuality and/or transgenderism is righteous. What carries the day at the present time is the obvious fact that many LGBT identifying persons are otherwise nice people. But the same can be said of white collar criminals. Attempts to suppress religious doctrine and practice in sexual or other matters are obviously wrong. They involve requiring disobedience to religious precepts, and religious obligations must be prior to all others, as they are based on a claim of divine revelation, and a personal apprehension of the truth of those claims.

We all face the prospect of dying, and giving an account of our lives. It is for this reason that religious claims must have priority over claims of personal pain, however badly anyone is offended.

Such a “broad ban,” however, is exactly what is wanted by the activists, because in reality they want to change religious beliefs they don’t like. It is what is in fact being proposed by the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and that, along with the first known prosecution of anyone under a conversion therapy law will be the subject of a subsequent article.

It can be viewed here.