Be Not Deceived: The Sacred and Sexual Struggles of Gay and Ex-gay Christian Men, and: Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement (review)

Michelle Wolkomir and Tanya Erzen have written ethnographically rich books about men experiencing conflict between Christianity and homosexuality. Wolkomir spent time with men in a Bible study of gay Christians and men in an ex-gay ministry group in a Southern city in the Bible Belt. Erzen focuses on New Hope ministry, a residential treatment program in San Rafael, California for men seeking to rid themselves of their homosexuality. Both authors present engaging descriptions and carefully nuanced analytic arguments about these men's personal struggles and the larger religious and societal contexts that create them and in which they take place.

Wolkomir opens Be Not Deceived with the prayers of the men in each of the two groups she studies. Both are asking for God's help, she explains, but they are praying for opposite things. While the men in the Bible study of gay Christians she names Accept ask God to help them accept their homosexuality as God's will for their lives and heal the wounds inflicted by teachings to the contrary, men at the ex-gay ministry group she terms Expel ask for healing from the spiritual and emotional wounds that caused their homosexuality so they can follow God's will and live their lives as heterosexuals. The rest of the book explores how each group of men came to offer these prayers and how they understand them to be answered.

After describing the historical and theological contexts and the institutions (the Metropolitan Community Church and Exodus International) with which these groups are affiliated, Wolkomir outlines these men's identity dilemmas in their own words. All of them experienced their conservative Christian identities as too valuable to be cast off, but because of their sexual experiences were not able to follow the identity codes necessary to be good Christians. Their feelings of in authenticity intensified over time, Wolkomir argues, leading them to confront the contradiction between their spiritualities and sexualities in part by joining one of the two groups she studies. Their decisions about which group to join were emotionally based, with good feelings as evidence that they had made the right choice. Which group felt right, Wolkomir argues, was based largely on the biographical and social contexts in which each man first joined a Christian community. Those who were raised as Christians were more likely to join Accept, the gay Christian group, than men who came to Christianity later in their lives. The possibility or actuality of losing a relationship and/or the people these men met in this process further influenced the group that they joined.

Each group then helped these men construct a revised form of Christianity that accommodated their sexuality. Rather than questioning God, both groups focused on human, therefore fallible, interpretations of God's word. Men in the Accept group completed a 12-week Bible study that helped to create theology-based affirming interpretations of their struggles with homosexuality, which is viewed as innate. Men in the Expel group learned psychological explanations for homosexuality which helped them to view it as a sin and disease, curable through relationship with God. Through these processes, men in both groups sought evidence that their changed beliefs were in accord with God's will. Those who made such transformations reported higher self esteem, lifted depression, the possibility of creating relationships in which they felt known and valued. The gay Christians benefited more fully from their transformations, Wolkomir argues, often seeking long-term monogamous relationships. While the ex-gay Christians learned how to value the struggle against sexual temptation, few reported changes in desire and only one reported a significant change in sexuality. Wolkomir concludes the...