With the caveat that I did not know these two really well, having encountered them in about four congregational meetings and talking to them face to face a few times, my assessment was that there was not all that much reasoning involved in their decisions. It was primarily emotional—the emotion of fear.

I believe that, from the start, from their first sexual awareness, they found themselves attracted to members of their own sex, and from what they had absorbed from the culture around them, they felt there was something wrong with them. They didn't respond to members of the opposite sex like most of their peers, schoolmates and such. They found themselves attracted to members of their own sex. And they undoubtedly picked up the general belief that what they were feeling made them "queers" or "fairies" or "dykes," as the case may be. Sexual awareness usually sets in in a big way during one's early teen years, and the pressure to blend in and be like everyone else is pretty strong. And to get the distinct impression that you are what others would call "a pervert—" Rough go for a kid. And then, added to that, the idea that if they followed their urges, they would be committing a "sin."

So. If someone who is a long practicing homosexual and is not of a particularly philosophical or critical mindset wanders, or gets dragged, into a revival meeting where they get a promise of "redemption" for their "life of sin and perversion," along with the threat of eternal Hell-fire if they don't, they might just "come forward" as the preacher bids them. Carrot and stick.

Interesting to note that, despite the numbers of people who come forward at revival meetings (such as Billy Graham's televised "crusades" some years ago), only a small percentage of these conversions actually stick for more than a few days. How well and how long they stick generally tends to be directly proportional to the element of fear of what would happen if they "backslide."

No, I think a true conversion comes with a lot of long, hard thought and soul-searching, not with a sudden burst of hope spurred on by fear coming from a charismatic, pulpit-pounding preacher.

So I believe that the only "powerful" thing that came to them was the aforesaid preacher and his emphasis on Hell-fire if they didn't repent, i.e. mortal fear. I don't think there was any real reasoning involved, strictly the fear and the promise of "redemption" if they "accepted Christ as their Savior."

"Renounced" as a form of "repenting?" Yes. And as I say, they didn't just renounce homosexuality, they renounced sexuality.

I did notice that these two people seemed to have an underlying emotional base of anger. They were both very confrontational, even when responding to fairly innocuous comments and questions.

Thanks, GfS, for an opportunity to put forth serious observations and opinions with the hope that they will be taken, in turn, seriously.

Don Firth