Conversion Therapy and Christian Conversion, Part 1

Dr. Alan J. Dunn

We are witnessing a renewed concern and even a measure of conflict over something called “conversion therapy.” This issue is quickly becoming the cause célèbre by which many assess conservative Christianity. One’s opinion on homosexuality has now become the fulcrum on which all other matters pivot. Current “cultural influencers” judge Bible-believing Christians as hateful due to our refusal to approve of homosexuality. Consequentially, societal disapproval of Christians is intensifying, as witnessed by recent legislation passed in Canada. Governing bodies in Great Britain and America are considering similar statutes. As this cultural conversation proceeds, Christians must speak with biblical clarity. People’s consciences are clashing. The culture indicts Christians, pointing to the morality of the sixth commandment: You shall not murder, and accuses biblical voices of “hate speech.” Christians, in turn, point to the morality of the seventh commandment: You shall not commit adultery, and accuses proponents of homosexuality of promiscuous perversion. In reality, what is at issue is the more foundational morality of the First and Second Commandments.

³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

⁵ “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

⁶ but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments (Exo 20:3-6).

Conversion Therapy Has Not Proven to be Therapeutic

Conversion therapy has its origins, not in Scripture, but Freudian psychoanalysis.[1] Conversion therapy arose when the medical community thought homosexuality was a disease that needed a medical cure: hence the call for “therapy.” In the early to mid-twentieth century, treatments focused on changing a homosexual to a heterosexual. The techniques employed were hardly therapeutic and often harmfully inhumane in many respects.[2] Psychiatric professionals no longer use them. Biblical Christians never used them.

Psychology’s attempts to come to terms with homosexuality have morphed in tandem with the devolution of societal mores regarding human sexuality. Our culture no longer sees homosexuality as something from which someone needs curing. Therapy is not required for what is not defined as a disease. Psychologists no longer entertain the hope that conversion therapy will effect a “therapeutic conversion” of a homosexual to a heterosexual. Conversion therapy has not proven to be therapeutic. If “therapy” is no longer in view, our attentions turn to the matter of “conversion.”

Christian Conversion: Alive from the Dead

Throughout the past century-plus, people of religious conviction have had a part in the cultural conversation concerning the legitimacy of conversion therapy. “Conversion,” of course, has religious connotations. To convert means “to exchange one thing for another,” “to transform this into that,” “to turn around and head in the opposite direction.” When we hear “conversion,” we think “religion.” The purpose of conversion therapy is too narrow, focusing on changing a homosexual into a heterosexual. People who desired to turn from homosexuality have sought direction from Christian counselors and organizations which, ill-advisedly in some cases, focused on changing from homosexuality to heterosexuality. Sadly, some Christian organizations have assumed conversion therapy’s narrow focus, as though “conversion” could be achieved by therapy and defined solely in terms of sexual behavior. Now, mistakenly, it has become commonplace to view conversion therapy as the Christian response to homosexuality.

Suppose through therapy, a homosexual learns to change his sexual desires from being attracted to a body of his gender to a body of the opposite gender. That in itself is not Christian conversion. We might argue that at least there is a marginal moral improvement in having “natural” desires for the opposite sex. Still, both the heterosexual and the homosexual can readily violate the Seventh and the Tenth Commandments. The Tenth Commandment that speaks to our desires circles back to the First and Second Commandments. The Tenth and the First commandments overlap and call us to direct our hearts to desire and love the Lord supremely and solely as the One whom we are righteously to “covet.” True biblically-defined Christian conversion transpires at this deep heart level which aligns the Tenth and the First Commandments. The transformed heart of the Christian desires to worship and serve the Lord God of Scripture.

Biblical conversion is far more all-encompassing than merely changing a homosexual to a heterosexual. It is a change from death to life caused by God in a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. When God regenerates a spiritually dead sinner and gives him or her new life in Christ, that life will evidence itself in that person’s “conversion.” In regeneration or the new birth, God brings that person out of a state of spiritual death into spiritual life. Regeneration is a kind of resurrection from death to life that transpires invisibly at the core of our being. But the effects of this Spirit-wrought life are seen in the regenerated person’s repentance from sin and faith in Christ. Christian conversion consists of repentance from sin and faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ [see Psalm 51:13; Mat 18:3; Acts 15:3; Rom 16:5; 1 Tim 3:6]. Paul preached the gospel solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ [Acts 20:27]. If you have responded and continue to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith, it is because the Spirit has regenerated you. The Spirit sovereignly unites us to Christ, and He unites us to Christ, specifically in His death and resurrection. In Romans 6:1-10, Paul explains that baptism depicts our union to Christ in His death and resurrection. In union with Jesus’ death, enacted in our immersion, we die to sin in repentance. In union with Jesus’ resurrection, enacted as we emerge from the water, we rise to walk in newness of life by faith in Christ. The first thing Paul commands us to do as converts to Christ is to self-identify in terms of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus [Rom 6:11]. We then live out our death-to-resurrection union with Christ bodily. Paul continues,

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

¹³ and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God [Rom 6:12-13].

You may have had “life-changing” experiences, events that have indelibly changed you. After what happened, you could never be the same. Everything changed. You were “converted’ as a result. Christian conversion is the most radical of all conversions because it is a personal participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. What could be more life-changing than death? What could be more life-changing than having a new life? What is more transforming that dying and rising from the dead? Present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead. That’s a Christian conversion!

A new life in Christ will evidence itself now in our mortal bodies. How? In bodily righteousness that does not obey its lusts. Of course, bodily righteousness includes our sexuality. But our sexuality is down-stream from our minds, consciences, affections, and wills. Bodily righteousness involves sanctifying our speech, personal relationships, work ethic, use of time, and all our behavior. Spirit-wrought faith and repentance affect every aspect of our creaturely humanity. The Spirit sanctifies and transforms the entirety of our psychosomatic, soul-body existence as we await the resurrection of our bodies and the world to come [see Rom 8:29-30; 2 Cor 3:17-18].

Christian Conversion: Jesus, my Lord and my God!

To ask if we are “converted” is to ask what our relationship is to the First and Second Commandments. The questions for a convert are “Who is your “G/god,” and “In what ways do you worship and serve H/him, or it?” Christian conversion consists of a repentant rejection of false gods and idols in a believing embrace of the true God revealed in Jesus Christ. We become evangelically obedient to the First and Second Commandments in Christian conversion.[3] Paul reminds the Thessalonians of their conversion from paganism to Christ in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10: how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

The repentance and faith that characterizes the Christian convert is an ongoing expression of our allegiance to Jesus as our Lord and our God. By faith, as we gaze upon the risen Jesus, we profess with Thomas: my Lord and my God [John 20:28]! The crux of Christian conversion is this theological and moral change that brings a person to obey the First and Second Commandments by worshiping and serving[4] Jesus Christ as Lord and God.

Christian conversion from paganism[5] entails embracing God as Creator, as the true and living God. Note Paul’s approach to pagans in Lystra [Acts 14:6-23. When Christ used Paul and Barnabas to heal a man born lame, the people interpreted the healing in terms of their pagan gods. They thought Barnabas was Zeus and Paul, Hermes. The local pagan priest capitalized on the surge of religiosity and wanted to throw a pagan party to honor these two gods. Paul, attempting to quell the crowd’s enthusiasm, was crying out and saying,

^{15 “}Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, WHO MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM.

¹⁶ “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways;

¹⁷ and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

¹⁸ Even saying these things, with difficulty they restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them [Acts 14:15-18].

Our English versions of Scripture capitalize Old Testament words quoted in the New Testament. Paul cites the Fourth Commandment [Exo 20:11] in verse 15 as he presents the living God, the Creator, to this pagan crowd. Although God previously let the nations [the Gentiles] go their own ways into idolatry, He yet did good to them. In “common grace,” He gave them provisions for life. He enabled them to enjoy the manifold goodness of His creation. God’s creaturely blessings serve as His witness to the nations and a sufficient basis on which to call pagans to turn from these vain things to a living God. When Paul preached to Gentiles, his starting point was God as Creator and men created in His image.[6] As is evident from Paul’s epistles to churches comprised mainly of converts from paganism, he has a lot to teach them about bodily righteousness. He tells the Christians in Rome, do not sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and not do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. He urges them instead to present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God [Rom 6:12-13]. He tells Gentile converts who we are as Christians. He first informs us of our identity as those who are united to the crucified and resurrected Jesus. Then he gives us directions on how to live our new lives of evangelical obedience as disciples of Jesus, loving God, and loving neighbor. Paul begins with indicatives, statements of fact concerning who we are in Christ. Then he proceeds to the imperatives, commands for how we are to live in Christ for Christ. What lies at the foundation of Paul’s approach to Gentile pagans, and is the assumed reality of his epistles and Scripture in its entirety, is that God is our Creator. Our confession of Jesus as my Lord and my God is an acknowledgment He, the incarnate Son of God, is God our Savior and our Creator.

⁴we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.

⁵ For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,

⁶ yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him [1 Cor 8:4-6].

¹⁶ For by Him [the Son] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.

¹⁷ He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together [Rom 11:36].

¹⁸ He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything [Col 1:16-18].

[1] Charlotte Lieberman, “The History of LGBTQ Conversion Therapy,” Talkspace, April 24, 2017, accessed March 11, 2022, https://www.talkspace.com/blog/the-history-of-lgbtq-conversion-therapy/

[2] Patrick Kelleher, “Charting conversion therapy’s harrowing history – from its barbaric roots to present day cruelty,” Pink News, February 4, 2022, accessed March 11, 2022, https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/02/04/gay-conversion-therapy-history-origins-19-century/

[3] “Evangelical obedience” describes how the Christian loves God and neighbor based on the grace and blessings of the gospel, the “evangel.” It is not sinless obedience, but it is sincere. It is not perfect obedience, but it is purposeful. It is the obedience of a child of God who loves the Father who accepts, sustains, forgives, disciplines, and develops the child by the Spirit into Christlike maturity.

[4] The words worship and serve are taken directly from the Second Commandment.

[5] Paganism is essentially the worship of creation rather than the Creator. Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, is one of the most important sentences ever penned. Paganism’s pantheism, “all is God,” and panentheism, “all is in God and God is in all,” are denials of God as the Creator. As we will see in Part 2 of our consideration of conversion therapy, the pagan’s refusal to honor God as God and to worship the creation rather than the Creator is the very heart of the issue.

[6] When Paul preached to Jews in the synagogue, he could assume their knowledge of God as Creator and he rehearsed the history of God’s dealings with the theocratic ethnic nation of Old Covenant Israel, informed them of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as interpreted by the prophets, asserted that Jesus is the Messiah promised to David, and summoned his hearers to faith in Christ, warning them against unbelief. See Luke’s summary of Paul’s sermon in the synagogue at Pisidion Antioch in Acts 13:14-41. Luke summarizes Paul’s modus operandi in Acts 17:2-3, According to Paul’s custom, he went to them [the synagogue in Athens], and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”