See Rob Gagnon article referred to by Peter LaBarbera here: http://robgagnon.net/ExodusCollisionCourseWithJesus.htm, with full text below:
Exodus on a Collision Course with Jesus
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 616 N. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206
gagnon@pts.edu
May 20, 2013
Exodus Leadership now contradicts the Lord's Prayer, refuses to take a stand on "gay marriage," and severs ties with Evangelicalism. What's next?
The Exodus leadership of Clark Whitten, Alan Chambers, and Randy Thomas are teaching believers to violate our Lord’s own instructions about how we are to pray. Jesus teaches us that when we pray to God, we should say words to the effect: “Forgive us our debts as [i.e., to the extent that] we ourselves also have forgiven our debtors.”
Yet Rev. Whitten writes, and Mr. Chambers and Mr. Thomas concur, “There is no biblical basis for believers to confess sins to God for forgiveness. To each other for healing, yes; but not to God for forgiveness. How much time will that free up!” (Pure Grace, p. 20). Mr. Thomas, the no. 3 person at Exodus, adds that believers who continue to pray to God “Forgive us our sins” engage in “a self-righteous ritual” and “deny the righteousness of Christ that is already present” (http://exodusinternational.org/2013/05/concerning-sin-confession/).
Who are you going to believe? The Exodus leadership or Jesus?
This statement is just one of what I term “The Seven Pillars of Rev. Whitten’s Wisdom.” Rev. Whitten is the chair of the Exodus Board and Alan Chambers’ and Randy Thomas’s pastor, whom Alan and Randy follow down the doctrinal line. Indeed, Alan Chambers, the President of Exodus, has stated: “To say that I recommend [Clark Whitten’s book Pure Grace] is the understatement of the century.” With Whitten’s book, “God has unveiled something that has been veiled for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
Rev. Whitten doesn’t identify in his book “seven pillars.” The enumeration is mine. Yet what I identify as the seven pillars are all quoted strong positions taken from Rev. Whitten’s book. They should alarm all Christians. What are the other six?
(1) “Listen, Jesus did not die to modify your behavior!”
(2) “My bad works don’t move God any more than my good works move Him. He simply isn’t moved by 'works' of any kind. If you are motivated to do a great work for God, good luck!”
(3) “We are free to [do anything, good or bad] ... all without condemnation from God.... Our liberty isn’t negated by our sin.”
(4) The “anti-gospel” says: “God is pleased when you act right. When you don’t, He will clean your clock! [As a believer it is foolish to think that you can do anything to] tick the Big Guy off.”
(5) The “anti-gospel” says: “Fear God and keep his commandments.”
(6) The “anti-gospel” says: “The Holy Spirit was given to you to empower you to act better and better and convict you of your sin when you stray.”
Every one of these principles contradicts the truth of the gospel (see previous critique, "Cheap Grace Masquerading as Pure Grace: The Unfortunate Gospel of Rev. Clark Whitten" athttp://www.robgagnon.net/Clark%20Whitten%20Critique.htm). They epitomize what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyred near the end of Hitler’s reign) defined as “cheap grace” in his classic book The Cost of Discipleship (1937): “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.” That is exactly what Rev. Whitten, Mr. Chambers, and Mr. Thomas teach: Forgiveness without having to repent of grossly immoral behavior, an end to church discipline since all sin is equal and all believers sin regularly, and a view of confessing our sins to God for forgiveness after conversion as a waste of time. Bonhoeffer adds: “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” I’m not suggesting that the Exodus leadership wants believers to experience grace without discipleship, dying to one’s self, and letting Christ live in them. I am saying, though, that they assure self-professed believers (falsely) that the nature of grace is such that believers can have one without the other. Again Bonhoeffer: Cheap grace is the notion that “you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” The Exodus leadership says that one shouldn’t but they also assure Christians that one can.
Alan Chambers now calls “evangelical” a “dirty word” that he no longer applies to Exodus or to himself (“Guests in an Ever Changing Culture—Letter from Alan Chambers March 2013” athttp://exodusinternational.org/2013/03/guests-in-an-ever-changing-culture-letter-from-alan-chambers-for-march-2013/?shared=email&msg=fail). He complains that Evangelicalism is too “black and white” and he assures us that God is not “black and white,” which presumably means that God’s aim is to shade the light into gray. The story of Christ is now the story of Gray breaking into the darkness.
Evangelicalism, Mr. Chambers complains, gives too much attention to “right and wrong” and requires one to “take a stand” on moral issues. Chambers cries: “Gone are the days of evangelizing through scare tactics, moral legislation, and church discipline.” So instead the Exodus leadership prefers to assure self-professed Christians who engage in unrepentant homosexual practice that they are going to heaven irrespective of whether they bring their life into line with a confession of Christ’s lordship. The Exodus leadership refuses to take a stand against “gay marriage” even as it takes public policy stances on issues that homosexual activists support. And the Exodus leadership categorically rejects church discipline despite the fact that it is commanded by Jesus and Paul.
Earlier this month Alan Chambers even went so far as to insert secretly the e-mail address of Jeremy Hooper, an abrasive homosexual activist, into the middle of a private group email thread containing a number of pro-family leaders (including moi). This led to a number of misrepresentations online by homosexual activist sites and even Salon.com. This deceitful alignment with a person who maligns those who believe in a male-female foundation for marriage is not exactly a model for Christian conduct, certainly not for someone leading what is supposed to be a Christian ministry.
At the end of April Randy Thomas gushed over John Paulk's repudiation of his previous books about coming out of a homosexual life and his flirtations with his homosexual past:
“I told him that while I related to him more after his gay bar visit in 2000, I could relate to him even more now that he is genuinely questioning past actions and motivations. While I don’t agree with all of his conclusions he shared on the phone, I can say I agree with about 95% of what he shared including renouncing the term ‘ex-gay.’’ I love that he is pursuing the true meaning of God’s grace…. Listening to John and his apparent newfound depth of honesty made me happy for him…. He is ... now more authentic than I have ever known him to be…. John, … I love that you are wrestling with various issues with humility and honesty. In His grip of grace, you are safe” (http://randythomas.co/2013/04/22/john-paulks-shocking-secret/).
In an Exodus post a couple of weeks ago Leslie Chambers affirmed her husband's severance of the transformed life from genuine saving faith, saying that while obedience to God is preferred it is not "required" (http://exodusinternational.org/2013/05/leslie-chambers/). Neither Leslie nor Alan appears to realize that a necessary byproduct of true faith is a life lived for God.
Who ever thought we would reach the day when it would be necessary for faithful followers of Jesus to exodus out of Exodus?
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Renew America has an extensive article written by Rev. Mark H. Creech:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/creech/130622, with full text below:
June 22, 2013
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/creech/130622, with full text below:
June 22, 2013
Exodus International flees the Promised Land
By Rev. Mark H. Creech
It is considered a landmark announcement, proof that the cultural winds are shifting in favor of the acceptance of homosexuality by the evangelical community. Exodus International, a ministry devoted to helping people overcome same-sex attractions is shutting down. Alan Chambers, the ministry's president, is apologizing for much of the hurt he believes the ministry has caused the LGBT community.
Chambers, who now rejects the view that sexual orientation can be changed through the Gospel, wrote that he believes there is a sense in which his apology is for the whole church. "[I]f the church is a body, with many members being connected to the whole, then I believe that when one of us does right we all do right, and when one of us does wrong we all do wrong," he said. "We have done wrong, and I stand with many others who now recognize the need to offer apologies and make things right." [1]
But Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention takes umbrage with Chambers' apology, arguing: "I think there is a tendency to see Exodus folding as a parable of Christian capitulation and ethic. That is not what is happening. Instead what you have is an organization that has some confusion about its mission and purpose...What is not happening here, is an evangelical revision of a biblical sexual ethic." [2]
Peter LaBarbera, who leads Americans for Truth About Homosxuality, would agree with Moore. When OneNewsNow recently asked LaBarbera about Exodus shutting down, he said, "I think Alan Chambers, who basically ruined the organization, had no choice because the affiliates were leaving. All the people who support the truth that homosexuals can change and overcome this perversion through Jesus Christ were leaving Exodus." [3]
LaBarbera, who called Exodus' closing one of the greatest tragedies he had witnessed in the pro-family movement, also shared where he believes the ministry made its fatal mistake. He said, "Homosexuality is about behavior, and behaviors can be changed with the help of God and through Christ...That's what Exodus used to be about. But once they started talking about so called 'gay sexual orientation,' as if this is the inherent state of somebody's being, they got in trouble." [4]
LaBarbera makes a critical point that raises a fundamental question: Is the concept of "sexual orientation" biblical? It is my contention that this expression, which finds its source in modern psychology and is so easily bandied about, doesn't have a biblical leg to stand on.
The Scriptures say, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis. 1:27). When Jesus spoke to the religious leaders of his day about marriage and divorce, a passage certainly related to human sexuality, Jesus referenced the same Genesis passage repeating, "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'" (Mark. 10:6).
The point is that the language of "sexual orientation" is an imposition today on much of what the Bible says about sexuality. According to the Bible no one was born heterosexual or homosexual, each was born ether a male or a female biologically. Heterosexual or homosexual behaviors are sexual acts, with heterosexual acts blessed and sanctified in some cases and condemned in others, while homosexual acts are condemned one hundred percent of the time.
It's interesting that the concept of "sexual orientation" is based strongly upon one's feelings. How does one know that one is gay? Conventional wisdom says because of the way one feels. Numerous are the individuals who have said, "I've felt that I was gay since I was a child." But if one felt that he or she was a squirrel, would that qualify as proof that one was justified in risking life and limb by climbing trees and eating only nuts? The entire concept is nuts and symptomatic of a postmodernist relativity out of control.
The Bible often speaks about feelings, thoughts, and urges. And what are such but emotions and processes of the intellect that 2 Corinthians 10:5 commands must be brought in subjection to Christ's Lordship.
Jesus said, "From within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean,'" (Mark. 7:20-23). Here Jesus describes a "sinful orientation" that is the inner nature of every person and demonstrates itself in outward behaviors unacceptable with God – acts that estrange a person from God.
The apostle James forewarned about arguments like "sexual orientation" saying they are the same as blaming God for evil. It appears similar arguments were apparent even in his day. He wrote, "When tempted no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed" (James. 1:13-14). To blame homosexuality on heredity is no less than to blame the Creator for one's failure – an argument which is unconscionable.
To those who would contend the Bible is silent about "sexual orientation," let it be said this is because no such notion is based in truth. It is a broad term developed in modern times to provide credence for the growing number of sexual perversions. Even the polygamists and the pedophiles want to get on board.
There is one final point that also ought to be noted. Chambers said something in his apology quite telling. He said regarding the convictions that he and his wife hold: "Our beliefs do not center on 'sin' because 'sin' isn't at the center of our faith." [5] This author begs to disagree with that point of view. Unfortunately, without a clear understanding of sin, there is no need for faith – no need for Christ – no need for a Savior – no meaning to grace.
Central to the message of Christianity is that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal for life (Romans. 3:23). Apart from repentance, the remission of sin, and the grace of God in Jesus Christ to transform a life to live according to God's standards, the Gospel becomes no more than a soppy code of self-help. What distinguishes it from any other religion or moral force is its promise that Christ suffered, died and rose again not simply to eliminate sin's shame and condemnation, but also to remove its power.
To water down this message with outside worldly, unbiblical influences, is to risk the loss of Christian identity and collapse, which is exactly what happened to Exodus International.
Indeed this is a landmark event. And every Christian denomination, church, church school or university, organization and ministry, should take note with fear and trembling. Exodus International took flight from its own promised land of deliverance and exists no more.
Resources:
[1] "The Expanded Public Apology from Alan Chambers," KansasCity.com, 20 June 2013 http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/20/4303773/the- expanded-public-apology-from.html
[2] Anh Do, Kate Mather, Joe Mozingo, "'Gay Cure' Ministry Exodus International to Close," latimes.com, 20 June 2013http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- 0621-exodus-international-gays-20130621,0,1731583.story
[3] Charlie Butts, "Supporters Flight from Exodus Cited as Reason for Shutdown," OneNewsNow.com, 20 June 2013,http://www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2013/06/20/supporters%E2%80%99-flight-from-exodus-cited-as-reason-for- shutdown#.UcS6HZzm1I0
[4] Ibid
[5] "The Expanded Public Apology from Alan Chambers," KansasCity.com, 20 June 2013 http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/20/4303773/the- expanded-public-apology-from.html
It is considered a landmark announcement, proof that the cultural winds are shifting in favor of the acceptance of homosexuality by the evangelical community. Exodus International, a ministry devoted to helping people overcome same-sex attractions is shutting down. Alan Chambers, the ministry's president, is apologizing for much of the hurt he believes the ministry has caused the LGBT community.
Chambers, who now rejects the view that sexual orientation can be changed through the Gospel, wrote that he believes there is a sense in which his apology is for the whole church. "[I]f the church is a body, with many members being connected to the whole, then I believe that when one of us does right we all do right, and when one of us does wrong we all do wrong," he said. "We have done wrong, and I stand with many others who now recognize the need to offer apologies and make things right." [1]
But Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention takes umbrage with Chambers' apology, arguing: "I think there is a tendency to see Exodus folding as a parable of Christian capitulation and ethic. That is not what is happening. Instead what you have is an organization that has some confusion about its mission and purpose...What is not happening here, is an evangelical revision of a biblical sexual ethic." [2]
Peter LaBarbera, who leads Americans for Truth About Homosxuality, would agree with Moore. When OneNewsNow recently asked LaBarbera about Exodus shutting down, he said, "I think Alan Chambers, who basically ruined the organization, had no choice because the affiliates were leaving. All the people who support the truth that homosexuals can change and overcome this perversion through Jesus Christ were leaving Exodus." [3]
LaBarbera, who called Exodus' closing one of the greatest tragedies he had witnessed in the pro-family movement, also shared where he believes the ministry made its fatal mistake. He said, "Homosexuality is about behavior, and behaviors can be changed with the help of God and through Christ...That's what Exodus used to be about. But once they started talking about so called 'gay sexual orientation,' as if this is the inherent state of somebody's being, they got in trouble." [4]
LaBarbera makes a critical point that raises a fundamental question: Is the concept of "sexual orientation" biblical? It is my contention that this expression, which finds its source in modern psychology and is so easily bandied about, doesn't have a biblical leg to stand on.
The Scriptures say, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis. 1:27). When Jesus spoke to the religious leaders of his day about marriage and divorce, a passage certainly related to human sexuality, Jesus referenced the same Genesis passage repeating, "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'" (Mark. 10:6).
The point is that the language of "sexual orientation" is an imposition today on much of what the Bible says about sexuality. According to the Bible no one was born heterosexual or homosexual, each was born ether a male or a female biologically. Heterosexual or homosexual behaviors are sexual acts, with heterosexual acts blessed and sanctified in some cases and condemned in others, while homosexual acts are condemned one hundred percent of the time.
It's interesting that the concept of "sexual orientation" is based strongly upon one's feelings. How does one know that one is gay? Conventional wisdom says because of the way one feels. Numerous are the individuals who have said, "I've felt that I was gay since I was a child." But if one felt that he or she was a squirrel, would that qualify as proof that one was justified in risking life and limb by climbing trees and eating only nuts? The entire concept is nuts and symptomatic of a postmodernist relativity out of control.
The Bible often speaks about feelings, thoughts, and urges. And what are such but emotions and processes of the intellect that 2 Corinthians 10:5 commands must be brought in subjection to Christ's Lordship.
Jesus said, "From within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean,'" (Mark. 7:20-23). Here Jesus describes a "sinful orientation" that is the inner nature of every person and demonstrates itself in outward behaviors unacceptable with God – acts that estrange a person from God.
The apostle James forewarned about arguments like "sexual orientation" saying they are the same as blaming God for evil. It appears similar arguments were apparent even in his day. He wrote, "When tempted no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed" (James. 1:13-14). To blame homosexuality on heredity is no less than to blame the Creator for one's failure – an argument which is unconscionable.
To those who would contend the Bible is silent about "sexual orientation," let it be said this is because no such notion is based in truth. It is a broad term developed in modern times to provide credence for the growing number of sexual perversions. Even the polygamists and the pedophiles want to get on board.
There is one final point that also ought to be noted. Chambers said something in his apology quite telling. He said regarding the convictions that he and his wife hold: "Our beliefs do not center on 'sin' because 'sin' isn't at the center of our faith." [5] This author begs to disagree with that point of view. Unfortunately, without a clear understanding of sin, there is no need for faith – no need for Christ – no need for a Savior – no meaning to grace.
Central to the message of Christianity is that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal for life (Romans. 3:23). Apart from repentance, the remission of sin, and the grace of God in Jesus Christ to transform a life to live according to God's standards, the Gospel becomes no more than a soppy code of self-help. What distinguishes it from any other religion or moral force is its promise that Christ suffered, died and rose again not simply to eliminate sin's shame and condemnation, but also to remove its power.To water down this message with outside worldly, unbiblical influences, is to risk the loss of Christian identity and collapse, which is exactly what happened to Exodus International.
Indeed this is a landmark event. And every Christian denomination, church, church school or university, organization and ministry, should take note with fear and trembling. Exodus International took flight from its own promised land of deliverance and exists no more.
Resources:
[1] "The Expanded Public Apology from Alan Chambers," KansasCity.com, 20 June 2013 http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/20/4303773/the- expanded-public-apology-from.html
[2] Anh Do, Kate Mather, Joe Mozingo, "'Gay Cure' Ministry Exodus International to Close," latimes.com, 20 June 2013http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- 0621-exodus-international-gays-20130621,0,1731583.story
[3] Charlie Butts, "Supporters Flight from Exodus Cited as Reason for Shutdown," OneNewsNow.com, 20 June 2013,http://www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2013/06/20/supporters%E2%80%99-flight-from-exodus-cited-as-reason-for- shutdown#.UcS6HZzm1I0
[4] Ibid
[5] "The Expanded Public Apology from Alan Chambers," KansasCity.com, 20 June 2013 http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/20/4303773/the- expanded-public-apology-from.html
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