.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Saturday, August 06, 2005

 

Love in Action founding saga continues

Well, it is better than nothing. John Evans has commented about the beginnings of LIA through Wayne Besen's website. I am still comparing time lines from all three men, Frank Worthen, Kent Philpott and John Evans but it appears there are some differences.

I think this whole issue is confounded by the use of the word founder. As it appears from both this post from Mr. Evans and what I am hearing from Mr. Worthen and Rev. Philpott, there were possibly as many as ten founders, if by founder we mean those who were at the meeting when the name "Love in Action" was suggested. Love in Action as such did not exist before that meeting. John Evans in this post makes it sound like everyone dropped out. Frank Worthen didn't, and there is at least one other "founder" who is still ex-gay although I do not have permission to use his name.

As the reference to the Third Sex? makes clear, there were multiple organizers and participants who helped make these early LIA meetings go. Statements such as: "Former ex-gay John Evans, who co-founded Love In Action with Rev. Kent Philpott in 1973..." are misleading.

I think a more accurate description would be, "one of several founding members," or "one of several original participants." Mr. Evans' post makes it even more clear that LIA at the beginning was little more than people gathering in a group for Bible study and or mutual encouragement. Furthermore Mr. Evans says in this most recent post that he didn't envision a change ministry when he came to the first LIA meeting. This does not sound like he and Kent Philpott were on the same page, as one would expect with co-founders. A participant yes, a founder? I guess maybe this is in the eye of the beholder.

Comments:
What strikes me as telling -- as someone who often needs sort out this type of mess -- is a very clear, unexplained gap.

John Evans freely mentions others. Frank Worthen talks about himself.

My first thoughts -- in that simple difference alone is more than meets the eye...
 
It looks to me, Dr. Throckmorton, like you have gotten yourself stuck in quicksand. The more you struggle and flail to redefine terms so that you can exclude the failures, the more you have to include other failures.

Yes, these ministries formed as most ministries do, when likeminded people gathered together, ironed out their differences and worshiped and sought enlightenment together.

You got so many deus ex machinas going to get rid of all the folks you need to eliminate to get the results you want, you can barely quantify it now.

Your next denouement is going to come when you realize that if you try and exclude Evans because he wasn't on the same page as Philpott, you're going to eliminate today's love in action itself, because its now claiming to address "same sex attractions" and teach how to change behavior, not the underlying nature of the person himself.

That claim, which apparently even today's love in action is unwilling ot make, was the false one that resulted in all these, how you say it?, "founding members," leaving the ministry in the first place.

Wasn't that the original question you were asking? If it isn't isn't that just as valid? How many of the founding members still believe the way they did when Third Sex was written.

Its starting to appear that the more you look, you find more people, and more of these have failed.
 
Quicksand???

No. You may see that as golden quicksand, but I see that as a blue road to the Truth.

(c) Smid Ex-Colour Ministry.

PS Please don't HELP Warren -- all he needs is a prompt :-) [smily face for both of you]
 
pbcliberal - we do not appear to be reading the same posts. This is a blog and I am thinking and working out loud. It may look like quicksand to you but it is pretty interesting to me. If I start to go under, I will let you all know.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?