Arndt Braaten's assertion in his Feb. 3 commentary that a person's sexual orientation can be changed ("Gospel can bring change into homosexuals' lives") offered an incomplete medical picture and a misleading interpretation of the gospel.
The American Psychological and Psychiatric Associations' Web sites clearly state homosexuality is not a disorder and that efforts to change sexual orientation aren't recommended and are potentially harmful. By citing the differing opinion of one psychiatrist, Braaten failed to give an accurate view of the consensus of the national health organizations.
That the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America doesn't agree with so-called "reparative" therapy demonstrates not that it "silenced" other voices during its studies on sexuality but that it continues to take scientific consensus seriously.
It also takes the gospel seriously. Jesus' grace and welcome toward Zacchaeus indeed resulted in transformation, as Braaten noted. But using this encounter to justify "reparative" therapy distorted the gospel's transformative power, as it forgot what is really being transformed. Through Jesus, Zacchaeus experienced forgiveness and a change of heart toward his neighbors, toward more just living relative to the poor, toward people he had wronged. Zacchaeus wasn't changed into something he wasn't, but realized more deeply who he was, in relationship to God and others. This encounter is actually an encouraging model for how Jesus' grace and welcome has the power to transform all people toward faithfulness, toward repentance when we have wronged others, and toward just living in all relationships.
I'm thankful the decisions of the ELCA call for this high level of social accountability. In a world suffering from economic disparity, hunger, environmental degradation, and war, rather than continuing to judge one another on the basis of sexual orientation, the church must ask deeper questions of faith and discipleship and seek to involve all people in the kind of personal and societal transformation that really matters.
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The Rev. David Carlson
Duluth
The writer is pastor at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (ELCA).
