Be assured: God’s ways are true and reliable
In late September and early October, 2011, I (Stan) published a study showing that some homosexuals can change significantly, findings that support the validity of Christian ministries like Exodus international.
The Christian media paid some attention; the secular media largely yawned and looked the other way. This is remarkable, because the main mental health organizations proclaimed steadily the change is impossible, and our study directly contradicts that conclusion.
I put this experience against an experience I had in 2007 when I appeared on the primetime ABC news program 20/20. The occasion for that extensive, national coverage was the announcement of a study sampling the DNA of relatives in the same family who happened both to be gay in order to see if there was a genetic cause of homosexuality. I was the lone conservative voice pointing out that the best evidence suggested little genetic contribution. What was remarkable was the fact the news piece was structured as if the study had already found a genetic linkage when it was only beginning to generate data.
In that 20/20 interview, I cited convincing evidence from the best identical twin studies analyzing data from the twin registry for the nation of Sweden and showing that of the 71 identical twin pairs where one twin was gay, that in only seven instances was the second genetically-identical twin also gay. The 20/20 editorial team cut out those evidence-based arguments, and thus presented no effective counterpoint to the assumption that homosexuality is entirely genetic.
Scientific evidence will never prove the Christian morality is right. But if Christian morality is right, the world should roughly conform to what we might expect. But if you listen to the secular media, over and over you get a diet of conclusions like “cohabitation is just as good as marriage,” and “teenagers are just going to have safe sex and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.” Such messages are false but rarely disputed.
Parents need to be assured that the best data shows that God’s ways are the ways that are best for human beings. Outcomes for couples with traditional marriages are strong, children prosper best in traditional families, kids can make the decision to wait for sex and marriage, and there’s good reason to believe that God’s Word is true.