Karen:

We’re all messed up because we live in a fallen world. Humanity, alienated from God, finds comfort in rotten things like worldly possessions, sinful pleasures and lust for power. Our nature, if not corrupted, would just naturally know God and long for God. Everything else would be secondary.

If truly faithful, a person with SSA will struggle against the temptation to commit the sodomite sin, like any sinner struggling against his sinful nature. The focus should be on God and not in trying to experience heterosexual attraction.
If God is the focus of our life, then slowly the order is restored.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added onto you.”
The Christian life is a warfare against our corrupted nature; it is a voluntary crucifixion of the body with all of its passion and self-will.

Elder Anthony describes the world we live in as revealed in one of his visions:

I see a huge crowd of people, streaming forward as if drawn by some unseen force. While in this constant motion, some people are feasting, some fornicating, others plotting evil against their fellow men. And all this – while they are moving forwards. […] A greater part of the people are simply thrusting their way ahead, with no concern for others, while a minor part are moving calmly.

An awning abyss lies ahead, leading into Hell. A majority of the people, upon reaching it, are plunged down. Moreover, not only the rich, but the people strained in means also hurtle down into Hell. For they share one common idol – the lusts of the world. There are others, who do not hurtle down, but descend slowly, only to be lifted up by certain luminous persons, who help them across. While still others calmly cross, or better still – fly across the abyss, their feet not touching the ground.

Hieromonk Mark and Eliot,

I believe that change is possible for many, by God’s grace, and we do well to balance the worldly propaganda to the contrary, as you say. On the other hand, many Christians who experience SSA (perhaps the majority of them) will, despite their faithfulness, likely struggle for their lifetime on some level and may never experience heterosexual attraction.

From my reading that seems to be the conclusion, at least, of many Christians who have tried to use the Exodus strategy to change their orientation with God’s help and not experienced the deliverance they sought. I’m not arguing any of us is solely subject to our genes. I’m no expert at what combination of (fallen) nature/nurture contributes to this deviation from the norm (SSA) in the small percentage of the population affected. What I am suggesting is that we allow that for perhaps the majority of those who struggle with SSA God will not necessarily grant the grace of deliverance from the struggle and transformation to heterosexual attraction, but as in the case of St. Paul with his “thorn” will make His grace sufficient, DESPITE the ongoing struggle, for transformation of character into the likeness of Christ, in His humility, compassion, and purity.

I think this is the message of hope we can extend without qualification to our brothers and sisters who struggle with SSA. Hopefully, we can also extend real empathy, support, friendship and brotherly/sisterly affection, and, in so doing, stand in true solidarity with them as they face the onslaught from the enemy of souls.

Indeed, the ex-gay perspective (change is possible) must be given equal time. We read about tolerance when we are actually facing an extremely slick gay propaganda. To those who don’t want to hear, the truth sounds like a broken record. Often people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want to quit sinning.

I agree with Fr. George Elliott’s response: a good article. But I think that John and Rob are missing the mark, not through any fault of their own but because no one is addressing (i.e., challenging) the PC myth of ‘homosexuality’ as a ‘born that way, can’t change’ unalterable essential difference between ‘us’ and ‘them.’

Objective (i.e., non-pro-gay) research and the increasing success people are having with healing therapies that address same sex attraction (i.e., SSA, which is the more useful term in describing the real issue) disprove the whole ‘gay’ ideology, which is rooted in Marxist theory and is being used by the ‘dark side’ to destroy Christian society, by dividing people into conflicting camps and fostering fear, hatred, alienation, suffering and class conflict based on false categories and distorted distinctions or differences among people. See Kirk & Madsen’s ‘After the Ball,’ a homosexual manifesto published by Plume Books in 1989.

Life long celibacy (i.e., telling people with SSA just to tough it out with no hope of any satisfying and comforting human intimacy in their lives, while inwardly sighing a sigh of relief that one doesn’t have to take one’s own advice) just does not provide a satisfactory answer. Nor any credible answer at all.

The good news that many people are discovering is the CHANGE IS POSSIBLE (start here: http://www.gaytostraight.org/home0.aspx)! That is the message that needs to be communicated with humility, compassion, love and acceptance, not acceptance of the affectual condition of SSA or of the behaviour it suggests to a person experiencing SSA, but honest and truth-based love, acceptance, support and nurturing of the person, the child of God, whose SSA no more distinguishes him or her from other persons than do any of the numerous other passions, wounds, pains and kinds of brokenness everyone experiences and with which we are all called to struggle, not that we may remain unchanged, just enduring our crosses (or, worse, exalting them as badges of honour or even superiority) but that we may be healed and brought to wholeness through our struggles with our crosses, our passions, our brokenness.

Perhaps I sound like a broken record, but no one seems to get the point and move the discussion in a different direction. Until we break away from the Gramcian PC terms of argument and categories of thought and the unexamined and tacitly accepted false assumptions concealed behind them, I do not believe that this battle can be won.

There was a time I would have been amazed that OCA News hadn’t printed it. But, now that the editor is now the chairman of the OCA’s governance committee, and printing articles advocating something else, well, I didn’t see it coming.

Somehow I doubt this one will make it onto that site.

Rigorous because the expectation is a life of celibacy, not just chastity. Certainly, those who are attracted to their own gender can choose heterosexual marriage, but I’m not sure how many heterosexuals would knowingly marry a gay person. I’m not a pastor, but if I were, I’d advise a heterosexual against marrying a homosexual, no matter how dedicated either party professes to be. Celibacy is more than just committing to no sexual activity until one’s death, by the way: it’s a commitment to a life of perpetual bachelorhood and singleness … to be a “eunuch” for the sake of the Kingdom. “He one who can accept this should accept it.” – Matthew 19:12

The homosexual Christian is called to a particularly rigorous battle. His or her struggle is an especially ferocious one…

I beg to differ. It is the same temptation that every ‘heterosexual Christian’ wages every day – the struggle to lead a chaste life. It is hard outside of marriage, sure, but ‘particularly rigorous’ and ‘especially ferocious’ ? Not a chance.

This kind of statement still lends itself to the homosexual as the particular victim of Christianity – the ‘special’ case. Every single Christian must lead a chaste life – chaste meaning no sexual activity outside the boundaries of sacramental marriage. Everyone. No exceptions – even if you’re gay.