Can Spirituality Survive Religion?

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Mac McCann

In an 1876 speech, “The Great Agnostic” Robert G. Ingersoll said, “Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more.” (Ingersoll, 14). In many ways, Dr. George E. Vaillant makes the same argument in his Spiritual Evolution. He suggests that today’s religions have survived, and will continue to survive, because of their emphasis on the positive emotions – which, according to Vaillant, are faith, forgiveness, hope, joy, love, and compassion. But, in today’s world, are religions, especially Christianity, which is the most dominant tradition in America, a significant enough source of positive emotions to justify their flaws?

To be clear, Vaillant does separate ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality.’ While generally defensive, if not fully sympathetic to religions, he does admit that “intolerant dogma … [and] religious beliefs have provided cultural justification for some of the most heinous and selfish human behavior ever committed” (Vaillant, 11). In his argument promoting spirituality, he addresses (but, as I will try to explain later, does not adequately answer) the question of why individuals seeking spiritual unity seem to so often lead to brutal institutions; he writes, “Sometimes in a quest for unity rather than community, religions forget to love their neighbors as themselves” (Vaillant, 79). He explains, “On the one hand, religion asks us to learn from the experiences of our tribe; spirituality urges us to savor our own experience. On the other hand, religion helps us to mistrust the experience of other tribes; spirituality helps us to regard the experience of the foreigner as valuable too” (Vaillant, 188). While “cults and religions tend to be authoritarian and imposed from without,” Vaillant argues, “[S]pirituality is more likely to be democratic and arise from within” (Vaillant, 189). While he clearly differentiates between the two, he notes that they often go hand-in-hand: “[T]he survival of the world’s greatest religions, relatively unchanged, for the last two thousand years has been due as much to their ritual emphasis on the positive emotions of faith, forgiveness, hope, joy, love, and compassion as to “guns, germs, and steel” or cancerlike memes” (Vaillant, 186).

Clearly, Vaillant recognizes that, for all the positive emotions that come with religion, religion also brings a significant amount of problems as well. So how do we tell the difference? Here’s where I find Vaillant’s argument problematic: “[T]he way to distinguish such unshakeable beliefs is to ask whether they are empathetic or paranoid” (Vaillant, 75). But, outside of his clear examples of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Hitler, the difference is rarely clear. Admittedly, he acknowledges, “The danger is that the line between self-soothing trust and self-soothing delusion is unclear” (Vaillant, 75).

Specifically regarding Christianity, Vaillant contrasts the “belief in religious dogma that led to the Spanish Inquisition” with the “faith in a man [Jesus] who spoke of what was in his heart and lived his message” (Vaillant, 66). But that idea is inherently flawed. If we truly take Jesus and his message seriously, it almost certainly leads to conflict. As professor Crane Brinton told Vaillant, “If you don’t believe your religion is the only religion, you have no religion” (Vaillant, 190). Sure, in many ways, Jesus and his followers, like most religions, have provided many benefits to the world, as Vaillant notes. But that doesn’t change the problematic fact that Christianity rests upon having the one true belief system. Jesus himself, in John 14:6, says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Vaillant argues “[T]he danger is the lack of empathy and the false beliefs of those who profess faith,” but immediately before that he argues that “Faith … is not the danger.” (Vaillant, 79). But if your faith inherently suggests that, for example, Jesus is the only way to ‘the Father,’ it’s almost guaranteed that a lack of empathy will follow.

Especially problematic is how Vaillant defines faith, which, to him, “involves basic trust that the world has meaning and that loving-kindness exists” (Vaillant, 73). Not only is faith, as defined by Vaillant, possible without any blatantly anti-scientific and/or supernatural beliefs, but faith, in the more common sense, is defined as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof,” which often requires quite a different worldview. Indeed, many Christians believe in Hell, which is generally considered a place of suffering. According to many Christians, Jesus – and only Jesus – is the only way to be ‘saved’ from Hell. The belief that many people will suffer for all eternity for not accepting Jesus is hard to justify with the idea that spirituality is only about positive emotions. Furthermore, the belief that your religion – and only your religion – has the ‘Truth’ leads to more intolerance, making Vaillant’s argument especially unhelpful in today’s world. If you believe that someone you know is bound for eternal hell unless they convert to your religion, you obviously should want to help them get into heaven. Is that empathetic? After all, making people uncomfortable or even suffer – as is the case with the Spanish Inquisition – for a short time could arguably be justified if that short-term pain could save them for eternity. Clearly, the line between ‘empathy’ and ‘paranoia’ is almost never as clear as Hitler and Martin Luther King Jr. While I have my reservations about Freud, his idea of religion as “a universal obsessional neurosis” seems especially useful, considering how arbitrary Vaillant’s distinction between ‘empathy’ and ‘paranoia’ is (Pals, 65).

In his support of spirituality, Vaillant writes, “[S]pirituality refers to the psychological experiences of religiosity/spirituality that relate to an individual’s sense of connection with something transcendent (be it a defined deity, truth, beauty, or anything else considered to be greater than self) and are manifested by the emotions of awe, gratitude, love, compassion, and forgiveness.” (Vaillant, 187). While in general I agree with his statement, I would argue that, again, “a defined deity,” in practice, is often incompatible with real tolerance and love. Oscar Wilde famously quipped in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “To define is to limit” (Wilde). This is especially true with defining deities – which, arguably, is what led to what we call religion today. Religion, according to Robert Bellah’s definition, “is a system of belief and practices relative to the sacred that unite those who adhere to them in a moral community” (Bellah, 3). Additionally, Durkheim, as noted by Bellah, defined “the sacred as something set apart or forbidden” (Bellah, 3). Similarly to how “writing created dogma as well as technological advance,” making certain ideas sacred – set apart or forbidden – inherently limits humanity’s pursuit of knowledge (Vaillant, 51). As Vaillant pointed out, a “major reason that many prefer science to religion is that the former is more ready to admit error,” since we think for ourselves rather than accepting something as the unquestionable truth of God (Vaillant, 205).

In the end, religion must be ruled out. Instead, we should embrace, as we already do, social play, which “is firmly based on a foundation of fairness” and seems to have helped humans develop a sort of justice, according to Marc Bekoff and Jessice Pierce (Bellah, 80-81). Not only do social bonds, especially parental care, provide us with our needs and safety, they also help us develop culture, history, morality, science, and literature (Bellah, 90). Play has reduced divisions and conflicts, while religion, which sprang from play, has often promoted divisions and conflicts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bellah, Robert N. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.

Ingersoll, Robert Green, and Tim Page. What’s God Got to Do with It?: Robert G. Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk, and the Separation of Church and State. Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2005. Print.

Pals, Daniel L. Eight Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

Vaillant, George E. Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith. New York: Broadway, 2008. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Modern Library, 1992. Print.

How Biblical Interpretation has influenced Anglo-American policies in The Promised Land

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Mac McCann

A review of Irvine Anderson’s Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002, by Mac McCann.

In an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God” and famously suggested that the First Amendment built “a wall of separation between Church & State.” Writing the majority opinion for Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black built upon that, arguing that, “That wall [between church and state] must be kept high and impregnable.” However, no matter how “high and impregnable” that wall is or should be in theory, it’s undeniable that, throughout American history, religion has mingled with politics. In his 2005 book, Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002, Irvine H. Anderson provides an illustration of how Biblical interpretation has influenced the Middle East policies of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Over the book’s 138 pages, Irvine H. Anderson, a retired professor of American diplomatic history specializing in the Middle East, discusses Biblical interpretation and how it’s affected American and British policies in the Middle East. Divided into two parts, the book starts by examining the Bible in Anglo-American culture, before transitioning to the more specific British and American policy. While the book focuses mainly on the period between 1917 and 2002, it discusses some of the movements and ideas as early as the 18^th century that led up to that period, and most of his points are easily applicable to the world today, even after 2002. To be clear, Anderson doesn’t argue that religion has dictated or dominated Anglo-American policies; instead, Anderson simply argues that certain popular Biblical interpretations and influences “have created a cultural framework within which Zionist and pro-Israel lobbies could more easily function” (IX). In addition to the Biblical interpretations themselves, the influence of such ideas was also aided by the lack of, what Anderson called, a “real countervailing force,” since there was “no general knowledge of Islam, Arabs, or the Middle East among the electorate, no powerful Arab lobby, and limited understanding of the importance of maintaining healthy relations with friendly oil-producing Arab states in the region” (2).

In Part I’s Chapter 1, Anderson focuses on “Biblical Criticism and the Rise of Fundamentalism” (7). He opens by discussing how scientific and philosophical developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to the “historical/critical” method of analyzing the Bible by using “the emerging tools of archeology, history, and literary analysis” (7). In reaction to these advancements – which called into question the historical accuracy of the Bible – religious fundamentalism became much more prominent, as some held the idea that “if one doesn’t believe the Bible to be literally true, there is no moral anchor for the country” (7). For fundamentalist Christians, the more critical approach to the Bible “threatens the Christian system of doctrine and the whole fabric of systematic theology” since even if “one error of fact or principle is admitted in Scripture, nothing – not even the redemptive work of Christ – is certain” (17, 18). Then, he laid out some of the main ideas of what is known as Christian Zionism that have affected and influenced Anglo-American cultures and policies.

He first examines the idea of The Promised Land – the idea that God has given Israel specifically to the Jewish people. He briefly discusses some of the Biblical passages that have led to the idea. For example, Anderson points to Genesis 12, in which the Lord tells Abram (later known as Abraham) to go “the land of Canaan,” which the Lord will give to his offspring (10). Especially related to many Christians’ perspectives on Israel today, the Lord tells Abram, “I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse” (10). Such passages – or, at the very least, the ideas that they suggest – are still clearly influential today, even almost a decade after Anderson’s book was published. For example, according to the Pew Research Center in 2013:

“[T]wice as many white evangelical Protestants as Jews say that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God (82% vs. 40%). Some of the discrepancy is attributable to Jews’ lower levels of belief in God overall; virtually all evangelicals say they believe in God, compared with 72% of Jews (23% say they do not believe in God and 5% say they don’t know or decline to answer the question). But even Jews who do believe in God are less likely than evangelicals to believe that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people (55% vs. 82%).”

At this point, I should note that, although Anderson makes some of his strongest points early on in the book, he also reveals some of the book’s limitations. For example, Anderson betrays either his carelessness or his lack of Biblical knowledge by writing that “the first ten books of the Bible … [are] called the Pentateuch,” which simply isn’t true (15). Additionally, in a review of the book, Paul Merkley criticizes Anderson’s “biblical exegesis” as “disconnected, bouncing from one colorful point to another, showing no acquaintance with the traditional theological or biblical commentaries” (Merkley). While I agree that Anderson definitely doesn’t come off as the most brilliant Biblical scholar, I don’t think his arguments really require him to be a groundbreaking Biblical scholar. After all, even if some of his uses of Biblical quotes and passages aren’t the most theologically sound in the eyes of Merkley, the average Anglo-American isn’t a theologian either. As noted above, 82 percent of white evangelical Protestants “say that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that 82 percent of white evangelical Protestants can tell you the full and exact Biblical justification for their beliefs. Or, as Lawrence Davidson wrote in his review of the book, “Even if the average citizen is indifferent to the issues of the Middle East (and in terms of daily life most people assuredly are), there is no popular inclination to object to the policy-shaping influence of men like John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell” (Davidson).

In addition to discussing the idea of The Promised Land, Anderson also discusses the complex idea of dispensational premillennialism. Largely based on Daniel and Revelation, as well as a few passages in the Gospels, dispensational premillennialism, Anderson explains, is an “interpretation of scripture as prophecy regarding the Second Coming of Christ and the End Times” (19). Here, as in most places, Anderson doesn’t dive especially deep into the textual support and justification of the idea of dispensational premillennialism, but, again, he wasn’t discussing the theology itself, but its impact on Anglo-American policy in the Middle East. He specifically points out the importance, in some End Times interpretations, of “the ingathering of Jews to the Holy Land as prelude to the events that follow, and the special role that they are destined to play in those events” (20). This idea, Anderson points out, has influenced many of the more fundamentalist Christians to so thoroughly support Israel as a country. While discussing this idea, and while discussing various ideas throughout the book, Anderson notes and generally explains the various interpretations of the mentioned passages; still, it’s the more fundamentalist interpretations that he focuses on.

In Chapter 2 of Part I, titled “The Promised Land and Armageddon Theology,” Anderson builds upon the ideas mentioned in the chapter’s title, but shifts the emphasis to the spread of the ideas rather than the ideas themselves. He highlights the rise of the Sunday school movement, which began in the late 18^th century in England and its expansion into the United States and beyond during the 19^th century. While the ideas of The Promised Land and the End Times etc. were not an all-consuming, dominating theme among 18^th and 19^th century Christians, Anderson recognizes that – and that was never what he was arguing. Instead, he discusses how a significant portion of the population was exposed to and taught those ideas early on in life. For example, supporting his idea of “a cultural disposition,” he points out that, “By 1851, 13 percent of the entire population of England, Scotland, and Wales were enrolled in Sunday schools,” and that some of the themes of the lessons dealt with Abraham, Joshua, Canaan, and various people and places related to The Promised Land and End Times ideas (34). With even more supporting evidence, he discusses how The Promised Land and End Times ideas were a constant in post-World War II Christian teachings and sermons in America (37). In addition to theological teachings and sermons, Anderson explains how more popular media, such as novels, books, and radio and television programs, have also helped spread the idea of the End Times in the second half of the 20^th century in America (44-47). To be clear, Anderson doesn’t hesitate to admit that “it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish the exact impact of any one or all of these influences on the attitudes of the general public” (49). Still, he provides ample evidence that would definitely seem to suggest that there’s a connection between the ideas and the policies of the nations.

After establishing the various factors and influences behind the “cultural predisposition” in Part I, Anderson discusses some of the various impacts of that predisposition between 1917 and 2002, in Part II, “British and American Policy.” In Chapter 3, “The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate,” Anderson opens by discussing the British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour’s 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild, a prominent British Jew, which declared Britain’s support for the Jewish Zionist movement (53). He then describes the connection between Methodism and the Labour Party, before looking more specifically into the Balfour Declaration. Here, like in much of the book, he doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as he could have, writing that, since it’s been “so thoroughly analyzed by scholars over the years,” it’s “not necessary to enter into a detailed discussion” (57). But, again, he still strongly makes his points. Throughout the chapter, he describes some of the “long though muted history” of the idea of a return of the Jews to Palestine, as well as various factors leading up to the establishment of an independent Israel state after World War II (58).

In Chapter 4, Anderson focuses on “Truman, the Bible, Israel, Oil, and the Soviet Union.” Yet again, Anderson declines to go into too many details, noting, “The decision by Harry to recognize the State of Israel immediately after its creation in 1948 has been so well researched by historians that it would appear almost redundant to bring it up again” (75). Still, he provides enough evidence to support his claim that “by 1948 a highly effective Zionist lobby had been at work for over a decade and that it had appealed to an American concern for the plight of the Jews in Europe and a biblically derived understanding of Palestine as their historical homeland” (100). In contrast to the United Kingdom’s “perceived national interest (in this case, British war aims)” which “pointed in the same direction” as “a Zionist lobby, and a biblically derived predisposition … to support the return of the Jews,” the Zionist lobby in America had to compete with the Departments of Defense and State, which “were adamant in opposing premature recognition [of a new Jewish state] in the belief that it would seriously endanger America’s strategic position at the outset of the cold war” (58; 101). Still, despite that opposition, and while other factors played a role, Anderson argues that, like many other Christian leaders, “Truman’s biblical background clearly predisposed him to favor the return of the Jews to Palestine” (101).

In Chapter 5, “Christian Influence and Congressional Support of Israel,” Anderson focuses on the period after Truman’s recognition of Israel, the second half of the 20^th century, especially in America. In the chapter, he reiterates one of his main points by quoting “one scholar,” who noted, “Confronted with the need to draw conclusions and make policy on the basis of ambiguous evidence, people tend to fit data into a preexisting framework of beliefs” (103). Through the Cold War and into the present, Anderson argues that, at least partly due to Biblical teachings, “a de facto alliance between the pro-Israel lobby and the Religious Right” has fostered the idea that Israel shares “the same cultural, religious, and political values as the United States” (129).

Finally, in the epilogue, Anderson briefly discusses “The al-Aqsa Intifada, September 11, and the Dynamics of Policy” but recognizes that “It is much too early to speculate on where America’s war on terrorism and the Arab/Israeli conflict will lead” (138).

Overall, I was a little disappointed in, what I saw as, Anderson’s relatively surface-level examination of the subject. However, I completely understand that it would be nearly impossible to cover such a wide range of ideas, people, and events in depth without making the book much, much longer, and therefore, arguably, less accessible. As Lawrence Davidson put it in his review of the book, “It does not break any new ground on the subject, but it does function as a valuable historical summary” (Davidson). While I accept some of Merkley’s criticisms of the book (such as the previously discussed issue of Anderson’s Biblical understanding not being as thorough as it could have been), I also agree with his general compliment of the book: “The substantive value of Anderson’s work lies in his insightful analysis of how this “predisposition” helped shape political policy at decisive moments in the establishment and consolidation of the Zionist agenda” (Merkley). Like Davidson, I found Anderson’s statements to be adequately supported, and, quite frankly, a bit frightening. As Davidson wrote, “Christian Zionist leaders lobby against negotiation, compromise, and peace. Thus, it can be argued that Christian Zionism stands as the antithesis of diplomacy. [Anderson’s book] makes this depressingly clear” (Davidson). At times, Anderson does occasionally seem to agree with Davidson, such as when he seemed to denounce America’s seemingly relentless support of Israel “despite warnings from the Department of State that too strong a tilt toward Israel could seriously undermine the American role as a peacemaker and jeopardize its other interests in the area” (129). However, while the book arguably wasn’t strong enough in its denunciation of some of the negative consequences of the influence of Biblical interpretation, its lack of inflammatory and/or combative tone might make the book more accessible to some who otherwise wouldn’t be as open to the book’s argument. As a whole, Irvine Anderson’s Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy is definitely a very thought-provoking and informative introduction showing that how the Bible is interpreted definitely is a factor in governmental policies.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Irvine H. Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002. Gainesville: U of Florida, 2005. Print.

Davidson, L. (2010), Christian Zionism and the Formulation of Foreign Policy. Diplomatic History, 34: 605–609. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2010.00874.x

Merkley, Paul C. “Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002 (review).” American Jewish History, Dec. 2004. Web. 13 May 2014. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ajh/summary/v092/92.4merkley.html>.

Fixing the Unbroken

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Mac McCann

DISCLAIMER: Names have been changed and I was unable to verify some of the claims. Still, I think it’s a powerful personal story that needs to be shared to illuminate some of the hardships of the LGBTQ community.

* * * * *

One of the center’s staff members told Caleb Kent, then a 16 year-old junior in high school, to take off his pants and underwear and sit down in the chair. Kent already knew from experience that it wasn’t his place to question orders. He knew to just do what he was told.

The staff member then strapped Kent into the chair and attached electrodes to his genitals, one on each testicle and one under his penis. The man then stood behind Kent as the silent, dark room was lit up with the images projected onto a screen. But they weren’t just any pictures; they were of semi-nude and completely nude males. With each slide, Kent’s genitals were shocked.

While it seemed to last forever, each electroshock therapy session lasted for about fifteen minutes, and they occurred about twice a week for the six months that he was at the center. Afterward, little, if anything, was said. He was simply told to get dressed and go back to group therapy.

The humiliation was agonizing. The pain, of course, was beyond excruciating. Still, he went along with it, too afraid to complain about it to anyone.

And that wasn’t even the worse experience that Caleb Kent endured during his time in conversion therapy, also known as reparative or ex-gay therapy.

* * * * *

Caleb Kent is now 31 years old and works as a landscaper. He grew up in a very religious family, being the fifth generation to attend the Church of Christ, which, by Kent’s account, was very fundamental in many ways. The services included no music and all dancing was considered wrong and unbiblical. Women were not permitted to speak in church and were expected to conform to household roles.

Kent’s father worked in construction for most of his life, until 2003 when he started working in ministry. Kent’s grandfather was a minister at the Church of Christ, and his grandfather’s brothers were leaders or ministers in the church as well.

Between construction and ministry, Kent and his family moved around quite a bit. While he was born in Washington state, he also lived in California, Portland, Oregon, Dallas, New Mexico and Idaho while growing up. For a little kid, Kent told me, “It’s always tough at first because you get attached to an area and attached to people, but I took it in stride. I didn’t have much choice about the matter.” Most of his childhood was spent in Idaho, where he moved around 6^th grade and where he eventually graduated from high school.

Around the age of 12 he started having his first same-sex attractions. He didn’t really understand why he felt that way and he kept it to himself, especially given that his family, like many people he knew in the conservative, religious Idaho, never really discussed sexuality at all, let alone homosexuality. When his parents did happen to talk about homosexuality, it was exclusively negative, putting down or bashing gays. For Kent, it wasn’t shocking to hear his parents say hurtful things about homosexuality because that’s what he expected from them. After all, he was always taught that homosexuality was wrong.

At 16 years old, Kent brought his feelings to the attention of his minister, who set him up with a personal counselor. Without his parents knowing, he met with the counselor twice a week for about four months. They would discuss his attractions and study Bible verses that supposedly dealt with homosexuality. For the counselor, Kent’s feelings were a behavior that needed to be changed, so he encouraged Kent to do things like wear a rubber band around his wrist and when he had homosexual thoughts he was instructed to snap the rubber band on his wrist, with the intentions of associating those thoughts with physical pain. Did the counselor help? “Oh no,” Kent told me.

“Being the very naïve teenager that I was,” Kent started looking at the men in exercise magazines around this time. His parents soon put the pieces together and they weren’t happy, to say the least. “It was Hiroshima. It was a nuclear explosion,” Kent explained. “Mom was just beside herself and dad was just fit to be tied. I felt like crying. I felt like I let everybody down at that point.”

His father, who had always been very stern and at times borderline abusive, “put the fear of God” in Kent. He went and talked to their minister and was angry when he discovered that Kent and the minister had kept the earlier counseling a secret. Realizing that Kent had already been to counseling, his father wanted a more aggressive approach. That’s how Kent ended up in a Christian counseling center in Boise, Idaho, where Kent would attend after school three times a week for five hours.

Kent declined to name the counseling center, which is no longer in business, because he doesn’t want any of his fellow members to have to relive the trauma of it.

Along with fifteen other kids about his age in the center, Kent participated in individual counseling, group therapy and Bible studies.

With similar aims of the previously mentioned rubber band method, the center conducted group sessions where the group members stretched out their arms and would tap their knees whenever they had homosexual thoughts. When they tapped their knees, a staff member would prick their arms with small pins, often until the kids’ arms were spotted with blood. If the staff didn’t think that the kids were confessing to same-sex thoughts enough, the kids would be locked into a dark, empty closet for periods of about twenty minutes – a common punishment in the center. For example, during one group session, Kent just naturally crossed his legs. The counselor abruptly stood up and threw him in the closet and told him that he couldn’t come out until he learned not to cross his legs, which was seen as unacceptably feminine behavior. On multiple other occasions, he was paddled multiple times for reasons such as talking about homosexuality in a positive light or hugging other group members.

While Kent’s not certain, he assumes that his parents at least had an idea of what was occurring at the center, but they thought they had to do everything that they could to ‘cure’ Kent of his homosexuality. Still, Kent never complained about it to anyone, and does think that if his mother, with whom he was a very close until she died of cancer in 2009, knew the extent of it she would’ve pulled him out of therapy.

But neither Kent nor his parents would have ever guessed what else Kent would endure at the center – waterboarding. During one group session he started bawling because he was overwhelmed by what he was going through. The staff members pulled him aside and told him to stop crying, told him that there’s pain a lot worse than what he was crying for. So they took him to a separate room, put him on an inclined table, and poured water on his face. “The most traumatic counseling experience I’ve ever been through,” Kent noted the obvious, “to say the least.”

While he couldn’t confirm it, staff members told Kent, very matter-of-factly, that multiple of his fellow group members had committed suicide throughout his time there. The kids couldn’t ask any further details and they weren’t allowed to talk to each other during the sessions either. At first, Kent didn’t know how he felt about the news. But the more he thought about it, he admitted, “I was kind of happy that they did commit suicide because they got out of there.” His time there was hell, so he assumed that it was just as bad for everyone else.

After about six months in the group, he confessed that he felt that he no longer had homosexual feelings. After being questioned and grilled about the confession, Kent’s parents eventually let him stop going to the center.

While at the time he did truly think that he had been cured, about a month later, his same-sex attractions were back to normal.

* * * * *

In November of 2012, after failing again and again to change his sexuality, Kent had had enough. While living in New Mexico, he was “very depressed, very beside myself. I felt like dirt, like trash.” One night, he grabbed his bottle of almost 90 pills and scarfed them down. “I just couldn’t live with these feelings of attration to a man,” Kent sighed. “I just couldn’t do it. I tried to be what I thought was a good Christian at that point.” His roommate came home to find him passed out on the kitchen floor and called 911. Kent was rushed to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped. That’s when he decided to move back to Dallas.

Arriving in Dallas in January, he moved in with a family friend who also happened to be a minister. Still hoping to change his sexuality, Kent sat down with him multiple times and discussed homosexuality. But when the minister resorted to the same lessons and same Biblical passages as Kent had heard over and over again, it finally hit him. “I finally accepted who I am and I am gay and there’s no changing that.”

At the end of February of this year, Kent finally stopped attending sessions. In March, after looking for churches as well as looking into the gay community of Dallas, he came across the Cathedral of Hope, one of the world’s largest LGBTQ-inclusive churches.

While he still battles with depression and anxiety, he’s much more comfortable with himself now. His parents have made progress toward accepting him and his sexuality.

“My outlook is looking good. There’s going to be some bumps along the way, of course, but it’s looking really good so far,” Kent smiled. “I’m optimistic but cautious about what’s going to happen in the future. We’ll just see what happens.”

Mac McCann

Social Media Expert and Writer

Tag Archives: religion in america

Can Spirituality Survive Religion?

How Biblical Interpretation has influenced Anglo-American policies in The Promised Land

Fixing the Unbroken