“Ban Conversion Therapy” is the current rallying cry of the gay rights movement. Across the United States, LGBTQ activists and their allies call for the criminalization of counseling geared to helping people turn from homosexual behavior (a form of counsel often labeled “Conversion Therapy”), and most of that counseling is provided by Christian counselors, pastors, or ministry leaders. Conversion Therapy remains poorly defined, subject to reinterpretations according to the whims of whoever criticizes it. The actual work done by counselors in this field hardly matches the definition of Conversion Therapy, yet the term, ominous and loaded with emotional baggage, helps disparage the persons to whom it is attached. The problem with Conversion Therapy, then, is the way it is presented — sometimes inaccurately; sometimes dishonestly — and the way it is practiced. Like other forms of counseling, some of its practitioners have errored seriously, but that hardly calls for an end to the practice itself. Ultimately, the outcome of efforts to ban Conversion Therapy will have enormous ramifications for freedom of religion and the church’s ability to continue preaching and teaching the full counsel of God in Scripture. For this reason, believers should closely watch, and act on, efforts to criminalize Conversion Therapy.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Joe Dallas about Volume 42, Number 1  article “What’s the Problem with Conversion Therapy?”

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