Is Grove City College Still ‘Authentically Christian’ if It Abides Pro-‘Gay’ Professor Warren Throckmorton and his ‘Sexual Identity Therapy’?

Therapeutic approach values “gay identity”

Would you want your child counseled at Grove City College? How can an evangelical Christian college like Grove City that claims to follow the Bible affirm a "gay" "sexual identity" that values "same-sex eroticism" -- especially for a person struggling in his conscience against homosexuality? The above excerpt is taken from Page 7 of GCC Professor Warren Throckmorton's (and Regent University's Mark Yarhouse's) paper, "Sexual Identity Therapy: Practice Guidelines for Sexual Identity Conflicts" (emphasis added).

TAKE ACTION: Contact Grove City College (President Richard Jewell: 724-458-2500; rgjewell@gcc.edu) and ask them if GCC professor Warren Throckmorton’s unorthodox views on homosexuality represent “authentically Christian” teachings on this issue. (GCC advertises itself as a solid, “authentically Christian” institution.) Request a written response as to whether Throckmorton’s writings on and approach toward homosexuality honor Grove City’s Christian charter “rejecting relativism and secularism.” Please share the response you receive with us at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

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By Peter LaBarbera

Folks, I had to laugh the other day when heretical Grove City College Assistant Prof Warren Throckmorton accused pro-family groups advocating a walkout on the nationwide, pro-homosexual “Day of Silence” with “mischief.” You see, “Mischief” is Throckmorton’s middle name. Here’s Warren taking a cheap shot at Americans for Truth About Homosexuality in one of his many Uganda posts.  (Note how Warren sounds like … well, a “gay” activist … in cynically accusing Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa of “tak[ing] his pornography show to church”; Ssempa was using video to warn fellow Ugandan Christians about the reality of homosexuality.)

Question for Warren: is AFTAH doing a “porn show” when it exposes to the rest of America that twice a year in San Francisco, home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — third in line to be President of the United States — “tolerance” is so distorted that men are allowed to walk around publicly by the hundreds completely naked as the authorities stand idly by?

Here’s one of Throckmorton’s particularly snarky posts against Christian ex-“gay” advocate Richard Cohen (what about that Golden Rule, Warren?). The latter is a frequent target of Throckmorton’s barbs, perhaps because Cohen — unlike the Grove City professor — actually has helped many, many people experience real change and overcome homosexual desires.

There are good defectors and bad defectors in this world. Exemplifying the former are ex-“gays” like Pete Lines — whom I just interviewed for AFTAH’s new radio show — who have walked away from homosexuality toward a biblically faithful life. Warren is a bad defector. Though he works for an evangelical institution, Pennsylvania-based Grove City College, which advertises itself on faith-based websites as “authentically Christian,” Warren promotes a new, morally neutral paradigm on homosexuality that affirms people’s “Sexual Identity” according to their feelings (and comfort level with same).

As you can see above, Throckmorton’s and Regent University’s Mark Yarhouse’s “Sexual Identity Therapy” model grants the possibility that some clients may come to embrace a positive “gay identity” that “modifies” their religious beliefs in such a way as to “allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity.” Hold on…. This is wholly against Scripture: there is nothing in the Bible or the long history of Judeo-Christian tradition that even hints at ascribing a morally-neutral or worse — a “valued identity” — to sexual sin.

And Warren Throckmorton has the audacity to lecture the Ugandans about their approach toward homosexuality?

Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College

We applaud Throckmorton’s past and current work affirming homosexual strugglers’ right to live by their own religious and moral creed and seek counseling help to move away from  “gayness.” But his  “nonjudgmental” Sexual Identity Therapy approach affirming those who choose to embrace a “gay identity” wouldn’t pass the smell test if it were applied to any other sinful temptation. (“Doctor, I am so happy now that I’ve finally decided to embrace my core identity as a Sexual Swinger….”)

So we say to Grove City College and Regent University: let Throckmorton and Mark Yarhouse apply their “gay”-tolerant theories on their own — privately — but if you continue to allow them to do so under the auspices of GCC (or Regent) — then stop misleading people by promoting Grove City as “authentically Christian” (and Regent as “education from a Biblical perspective”).

And further questions remain: what is Professor Throckmorton teaching his students about homosexuality and the pro-homosexual activist movement? Does he counsel students struggling with homosexuality at GCC — and if so, does the school sanction his unorthodox, anti-Biblical counseling approach?

Larger Issue: Course of Modern Christianity

Understand this: Throckmorton —  who was once a respected part of the pro-family movement before he lost faith in people’s ability to change and leave homosexuality behind — is not the issue. (“I now believe durable change in basic attractions is very infrequent,” he writes.)  The larger issue is what is “authentically Christian” teaching on the matter of homosexuality? What is sin, how relevant is the Bible, and what is the real application of the Golden Rule? The Christian Church is at a pivotal moment regarding homosexuality: will Christians abandon Biblical orthodoxy and begin recognizing and affirming “gays,” “gay Christians,” and/or a homosexual “sexual identity” — or will they adhere to the historic Christian understanding that holds homosexual practice as sinful and which rejects the notion of a positive “identity” based on homosexual desires?

I’ll apply this high-stakes question to the most important people in my own life. If one of my sons — God forbid — came home from college one day with the revelation that he is “gay,” I wouldn’t accept that “identity” for him. Instead, I would emphatically plead with him that “being gay” is NOT “who you are” nor even a part of “who you are.” (It may be a burden with which he would have to bear with God’s help.) Of course, I would love my son as much as I’ve always loved him, but I would warn and counsel him that practicing homosexuality is a sin; that it is extremely unhealthy; that if he does not repent and turn from it, this sinful embrace could lead to his eternal separation from God; and that the Lord can help him to be an overcomer in this struggle — just as He has aided untold millions of sinners struggling with other difficult, besetting sins.

In other words, I wouldn’t be “neutral” or “nonjudgmental” — and certainly not affirming — on the matter or make the primary determinant of my counsel to my son his “feelings or stated “attractions.” Instead, I would seek to imitate as best I could — with much prayer — God’s heart on homosexuality — balancing love and truth. The Lord is merciful, forgiving and just but being holy He cannot affirm “gayness” (homosexuality) any more than He could affirm porn-use or promiscuity, etc. (e.g., a “porno identity”). We’re all born sinners, but it is a cop-out to say our “orientation” or “identity” is tied to any special sin.

And by the way, I would throw the book at anyone who ever tried to harm my son in any way or whose only response to him would be to hate and ridicule him.

Today, in post-biblical America, “Christians” who defect from the Truth are a dime a dozen. The challenge for you — committed Christian — is to hold to the Truth and love “gays and lesbians” (the quote marks are there because sin does not define personhood) enough to tell them the truth: that God loves them and He will forgive them — that is why He sent his Son to die for their sin — but that they must repent and turn from that ungodly lifestyle.

My good friend Linda Harvey is right: Warren’s namby-pamby “Golden Rule Pledge” isn’t biblical, and it isn’t truly compassionate. God has a better plan for today’s youth than to confirm or affirm them in a “sexual identity” linked to behavior that He calls an abomination. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.com

P.S. On behalf of Americans For Truth, I have asked Throckmorton for his views on “same-sex marriage,” “civil unions,” homosexual “special rights” (“sexual orientation”) laws, etc., but he has not answered my queries. We will be presenting these and other questions to Throckmorton publicly.

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• Grove City College Prof Throckmorton Misapplies the Golden Rule on the ‘Day of Silence’
• What Qualifies the United States to Lecture Uganda on Homosexuality?
• Grove City Prof Warren Throckmorton Affirms Homosexuality as ‘Normal, Natural and Healthy’