Exodus: Live Out Loud

School Rejects Christian Books

From NBC-4 of Maryland:

A group of high school students that wants the Fairfax County School System to allow library books that offer a Christian perspective on homosexuality demonstrated Thursday.

The students said they are asking that their viewpoint gets the chance to sit on bookshelves and be read.

Dozens of students from throughout Fairfax County gathered at West Springfield High School. They said that they tried to donate books that promote an evangelical Christian perspective on homosexuality to their schools but were turned away.A schools spokesman said the books were rejected because of school system regulations. Among other things, the books were not age appropriate and there were no reviews of the books.

"We collected reviews for all of the books, multiple reviews, presented them to the librarian, and honestly, she didn't even look at them," said South County Secondary School student Ashley Traficant.

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Singer's Parents Denounce Song

From Christian Today:

The evangelical Christian parents of US chart topper Katy Perry have lashed out at the lyrics of their daughter’s No 1 hit single ‘I Kissed A Girl’.

Her parents are outraged by the song’s provocative lyrics, which include “I kissed a girl and I liked it”.

Perry’s mother, Mary Hudson, says she is disappointed at the career path her daughter has decided to go down.

"I hate the song,” she was quoted by the Daily Record as saying. “It clearly promotes homosexuality and its message is shameful and disgusting. Katy knows how I feel. We are a very outspoken family.

"I can't even listen to that song. The first time I heard it I was in total shock. When it comes on the radio I bow my head and pray.”

The 23-year-old former gospel singer’s track continues to soar to the top of music charts around the world.

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Survey Shows Churches Split on Homosexuality

From OneNewsNow:

A new survey finds that Americans are split almost evenly over perceptions of homosexual behavior as either sinful or acceptable to God.

LifeWay Research, an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, surveyed 1,201 adults in April to determine their attitudes about homosexuality. Forty-eight percent responded that homosexual behavior is sinful, but 45 percent said that it is not -- basically a statistical tie when the margin of error is taken into account.

Rev. Rob Schenck of Faith and Action in Washington, DC, says the U.S. needs a spiritual awakening as it moves in the direction of what he calls "a European-like secularism."

"... [This] is a spiritual problem that requires a spiritual solution," he continues. "But there is a little bit more to it than that because we see the problem in the church, as well as outside the church."

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Megachurches Begin to Respond

From The Christian Post:

Jay Bakker, a big supporter of a pro-gay group, met privately with Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church to talk about faith and sexuality issues and to ultimately gain the support of the megapastor.

Son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay and a group of gays and lesbians attended one of Lakewood Church's Sunday worship services in an effort to change the influential pastor's view on gays and lesbians. At the end, Osteen did not affirm homosexuality.

It was the first of six megachurch stops in a pro-gay campaign called The American Family Outing – a collaboration between Soulforce, COLAGE, National Black Justice Coalition, and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. Some 30 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons and supporters took their national campaign to the country's largest church on Mother's Day to create dialogue around LGBT issues with members of the megachurch.

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Demonstrators Harass Christian Youth in Germany

From The Local:

A traditional Christian youth festival in Germany faced unprecedented disruptions by leftists who hacked the gathering's website, interrupted speeches and threw beer bottles at visitors, organizers said on Tuesday.

Christival, a periodical gathering of Protestant Christian youth in Germany founded in 1976, was meant to be a chance for likeminded young people to meet up and celebrate their faith.

But thousands of attendees at this year’s festival in the northern city of Bremen found themselves under siege by leftist extremists determined to protest what they saw as Christian intolerance to homosexuality and abortion.

“There have never been disruptions of this kind in the entire history of the event,” Christival spokesman Steve Volke told The Local on Tuesday. “They tried to storm the festival area. They threw beer bottles at participants. The whole five days of the festival there was always something happening.”

...“The mood was stirred up beforehand that it was a festival against homosexuality and abortion,” said Volke. “But it was two seminars out of 230 – and complete nonsense to call it a fundamentalist Christian youth gathering.”

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Alan Chambers in New Man Magazine

New Man: You struggled with same-sex attraction yourself. Did that experience lead you to the ministry you’re in today?

 

Alan Chambers: Definitely. When I was growing up the only thing you ever heard about from the Bible regarding homosexuals was that they don’t inherit the kingdom of God. That’s the one thing that rings in my head from childhood. So when I found out that there was a local Exodus ministry, that there was help for people like me, I jumped at it.

 

New Man: So years later you have come back to be the president of Exodus?

 

Chambers: Yes, I’m the president of Exodus. Really from the time I was 18 until now—I’m 36—I’ve never left the ministry. I started out as someone who was participating and someone who needed help and then I was a volunteer, than on staff at a local ministry and worked through the ranks and to where I am now.

 

New Man: Your ministry is inherently controversial. You have been interviewed by a number of news outlets and you’re unapologetic about trying to change homosexuals. What is your response to someone who says, “They can’t change”?

 

Chambers: Well my first response is that we don’t change people. I want to be very clear about that. We are people who simply point to the truth and Scripture, to the truth of our testimonies and to the grace of a God who promises He’ll free anyone who submits his will to His Lordship. It will be different for different people. I know a lot of people that didn’t experience a change in their feelings. They didn’t experience the same freedom I did, which is sometimes hard to understand.

Read the whole interview >>

Exodus Representatives Participate in Documentary Screening

"For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary about Christian families who were faced with a homosexual child, and ultimately grew to embrace their homosexuality, was presented at an open screening at Stetson University last week. The screening was followed by a discussion panel featuring the film's director, Daniel Karslake. Among the other panelists were Mike Ensley of Exodus Youth and Dr. Julie Hamilton, a professional counselor affiliated with Exodus.

From the Daytona Beach News-Journal Online:

Overall, the movie won praise from both the conservative and liberal panel members.

"I loved that the core of it was families' stories," said Mike Ensley, a counselor with Exodus Ministries, which helps youth wanting to overcome homosexuality.

The documentary focuses on five Christian families coming to terms with a gay son or daughter. Just released on DVD, it's becoming a popular movie for church screenings, said filmmaker Daniel Karslake...

...Dissenting about some of the movie's science was Julie Harren Hamilton, a Palm Beach psychologist and president-elect of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which helps clients change their sexual orientation.

She disputed the suggestion that homosexuality is simply genetic, arguing that the causes are more complicated.

Karslake, the filmmaker, defended his research but agreed with Hamilton that everyone should study the issues for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

UK Couple Told they are "Unsuitable" Foster Parents

From Daily Mail:

They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 20 vulnerable children.

But Eunice and Owen Johns have been forced to abandon their good work because they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle.

To do so, they say, would go against their Christian beliefs.

The devastated couple withdrew an application to their council to continue as foster carers after being told they must condone homosexuality to adhere to gay rights laws.

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GSA Network Board Member Resigns Amid Pornography Allegations

From Family News in Focus:

by Steve Jordahl

Peter Robertson resigned from the board of GSA Network, California’s largest organizer of school clubs that support gay teens, when it was discovered that he is also a pornographer. It appears he recruited young subjects during his tenure.

Mike Ensley was 17 and living in the gay lifestyle when Robertson asked him to pose nude.

“He identified himself as a photographer and just introduced himself as a friend, basically, and told me what he did and expressed interest in taking photographs.”

When Ensley said he was underage, Robertson asked him to call when he turned 18. Ensley has come out of the gay lifestyle and now works for Exodus International. He was astonished to see Roberson’s name on the Board of GSA Network.

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UK Christians Forced Out of Foster Care by Gay Agenda

From LifeSite:

By Hilary White
CHARD, UK, October 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Christian couple in Somerset, UK, have been told by child services that they would be required to take teenaged foster children to homosexual support groups and teach the children placed in their care that homosexuality is normal. When the couple told officials at social services that it would violate their conscience to do so, the eleven year-old boy who had been placed with them was removed.

Somerset Council officials cited the recently passed Sexual Orientation Regulations when they decided that people who open their homes to children in need, must also discuss same-sex relationships and promote homosexuality as normal and “equal”.

Vincent and Pauline Matherick have looked after twenty-eight children since 2001 with an untarnished record as care givers. When the couple first started fostering, they took in young single mothers and their babies, but have recently had mostly primary school aged children. They told the Daily Telegraph that officials with the Somerset Council had told them that if a child in their care showed signs of interest in homosexuality, they would be expected to encourage them by taking them to a homosexual support group.

Vincent Matherick, a minister at the South Chard Christian Church and a primary school governor, told the Telegraph, “They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11 year-olds, which I don’t think is appropriate anyway...

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