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Kade Rogers: I am an abomination. In the conversion therapy program I went through, we were actually taught to repeat those words again and again, as an admission of guilt, as an act of shame, as a confession to God. We repeated them endlessly until it became almost a chant. If you want to understand what conversion therapy does to a person, that's as good a place as any to start. I'm Dr. Greg Neal, and this is Faith in Ten, an episode of the Inclusive Faith Podcast. Before we begin, if you value conversations about scripture, faith, and LGBTQ inclusion like this one, please follow or subscribe wherever you're watching or listening, so you won't miss a new episode. And you can always find us along with our articles and other resources at the inclusivefaith.com. Now let's get into it. When people hear the words conversion therapy, they usually picture counseling sessions, Bible studies, prayer meetings, accountability groups, or some of the more abusive practices that have become notorious over the years. And yes, conversion therapy can involve all of those things, but that still doesn't tell you what it feels like from the inside. Conversion therapy isn't just about changing what you do or even what you believe. At its deepest level, it changes the way you see yourself. Imagine waking up every morning believing that something at the deepest level of who you are is offensive to God. Not something you did, not a bad decision, not some passing temptation. You're taught that something deep inside you, at the very core of your being, is dirty, disgusting, devilish. Something that has to be eradicated. Once you believe that, you begin watching yourself all the time. Every feeling becomes suspicious, every friendship gets analyzed, every moment of affection, attraction, or desire becomes evidence against you. You stop asking, What am I feeling? And start asking, How do I stop feeling this? And eventually the question becomes, How do I stop feeling anything at all? That's what people often don't understand about conversion therapy. It doesn't just teach you to suppress your sexuality, it teaches you to suppress yourself. And because most conversion therapy is religious, that self-suppression quickly invades your relationship with God. Prayer stops being a place of peace. Place of peace and communion, a place of peace and assurance, and turns into an unending flood of emergency appeals. Fix me, change me, heal me, make me somebody else. You pray harder, you confess more, you search your life for hidden sin. You recommit yourself again and again, and you beg God to take the gay away. And when nothing changes, conversion therapy gives you an explanation. The premise can't be wrong, the theology can't be wrong, the program can't be wrong, the problem must be you. You are what's wrong. Maybe you haven't prayed hard enough. Maybe you haven't surrendered enough. Maybe your faith is weak. Maybe you don't have any faith at all. Maybe you secretly don't want to change. Maybe there is some corner of your soul you refuse to give over to God. I heard all of those explanations more than once, and I believed them. That's where guilt turns into shame. Guilt says, I've done something wrong. Shame says, I am something wrong. And conversion therapy speaks both languages fluently. In our group sessions, we were taught a litany of self-condemnation that was centered on the phrase, I am an abomination. We said it over and over again until it took on the rhythm of a chant. I am an abomination. I am an abomination. I am an abomination. Even now, I don't like remembering it. I hear it in my head again and again. We weren't simply confessing that we had done something sinful. We were being trained to identify the sin with ourselves. We were learning to turn prayer into an act of self-rejection. Once you've prayed, I am an abomination enough times, the difference between this act is condemned. And I am condemned, eventually disappears. And when your ⁓ attractions remain, and they do remain, you learn another lesson. Honesty is dangerous. At first you lie to yourself and to God. Later you learn to hide the truth from your therapists, your pastors, and other people in the program, even your friends and your family. What you supposed to say after you've prayed until there are no prayers left? Surrendered again and again, done everything you've been told to do, and you're still gay. We were taught to sing, Jesus never fails. But if Jesus never fails and the program never fails and the theology never fails, then there's only one person left who can be blamed. You. And so you learn to perform. You report progress you don't feel. You exaggerate victories, you minimize setbacks, you construct a version of yourself that everyone around you can believe is getting better while the real you goes underground. That damage can last long after the program ends. You may reject the theology intellectually and still find that your emotions haven't caught up. Shame becomes reflexive. Affection can make you anxious. Intimacy can trigger guilt. Happiness can suddenly be interrupted by that old accusing voice. I eventually gave that voice a name. It was my shame monster. And one of the deepest injuries of conversion therapy is that after a while, you can mistake that accusing voice for the voice. For me, recovery began when I finally realized that Jesus never seemed particularly interested in changing the fact that I was gay. It was certainly a problem for my family, my church, and a lot of other Christians, but eventually I realized it had never been a problem for God. I had spent years asking Jesus to take away my desire to love another man, and Jesus hadn't done it. Eventually I understood that this wasn't because my prayers were defective or my faith was too weak. There was simply nothing about my sexual orientation that needed to be changed. Being gay was not my thorn in the flesh. The torment was the shame, the fear, the voice telling me I was broken, sinful, unacceptable, an abomination. That's why Paul's words in Second Corinthians became so personal to me. Paul begged Jesus that his thorn, his messenger of Satan would be taken away, and Christ answered him My grace is sufficient for you. That was the answer I needed all along. I didn't need to become heterosexual in order to be whole before God. I needed to discover that God's grace had already embraced the person I was. That discovery changed the gospel for me. I had spent years preaching that grace is freely given, and that we're not saved by good works or moral perfection, and that God's love is not something we can earn. Yet somehow I'd made myself the exception to that rule. Everyone else could come to Christ as they were. But I believed, I had been taught to believe, that I had to become somebody else first. Grace finally taught me otherwise. Today the scars are still there, but they're no longer in control of me. They no longer have authority to tell me who I am or what God thinks of me. Today I can come before God without hiding. I can love my husband without believing that our love separates me from Christ. And I can stand in a pulpit and proclaim a gospel of grace that I once believed applied to everyone but me. Conversion therapy promised me freedom if I could somehow become someone else. The gospel of Jesus Christ gave me something infinitely better. The freedom to stand before God as the person I actually am, without disguise, without apology, and without fear. And it's all because God's grace is sufficient. Sufficient for me, sufficient for us, sufficient for you. I'm Dr. Greg Neal. This has been Faith in Ten, an episode of the Inclusive Faith Podcast. If you value conversations about Scripture, Faith, and LGBTQ plus inclusion, like this one, please follow or subscribe wherever you're watching or listening, so you won't miss a new episode. And you can always find us along with our articles and other resources at theinclusivefaith.com. Thank you for listening.