Misunderstanding and mischaracterizing the Christian life is a favorite pastime of Hollywood…Faithful Christians are consistently portrayed as buffoons while, in this particular film, the ex-ex-gays are beacons of enlightenment.

Netflix’s latest original documentary, Pray Away—about the reparative therapy organization Exodus International—is yet another thinly veiled attack on Christianity by Hollywood. It’s not surprising that Netflix would seize on a false gospel to surreptitiously proffer a hit piece on Christianity in a lopsided tale of woe. Much of the media can hardly resist glomming on to extremes to further an agenda that denigrates Christians. What is surprising is how poorly made this doc is. Not only does it lack a cohesive and compelling narrative, but it attempts to throw any sort of anti-Christian spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
As someone who worked in Hollywood for decades, I’ve seen firsthand the contempt the entertainment industry has for Christianity. But only after I left my gay identity—in exchange for a new identity in Christ—did I realize the special resentment Hollywood reserves for converts like me. Pray Away is a case in point.
Celebrating Ex-Ex-Gay
The film opens on Jeffrey McCall, a former transsexual who had a powerful encounter with God and is now transformed by the gospel. The camera follows him on the streets of Georgia offering prayer to strangers. It’s clear the director capitalized on McCall’s lilting and effeminate Southern accent in an attempt to discredit him. Oh, those Bible-belt rubes and their quaint coming-to-Christ stories! But the focus on McCall is an odd choice and, as we see later, seems like a story from another film that somehow got mixed up in the editing room and mistakenly attached to this one.
The narrative inexplicably segues to former key leaders of Exodus International who have since come out as ex-ex-gay. Exodus was born in 1976 at a large conference in Anaheim, California, seeking to help homosexuals who wanted to rid themselves of unwanted same-sex attractions through a series of ad hoc and unscientific therapeutic methods. It’s no surprise these dubious methods failed. Attempts to “pray away the gay” all too often fail, leaving struggling folks not only mad at God or personally scarred but, far worse, in a state of apostasy. Tragically, the baby (the possibility of any change of affections) is usually thrown out with the bathwater (the problematic brand of “change” aimed at in conversion therapy). 
Producer/director Kristine Stolakis seizes on the faulty science—and unbiblical theology—of conversion therapy to castigate anyone who would dare leave, or desire to leave, the LGBTQ community. The message is clear: if you are denying your sexual desires in order to follow Christ, you are just fooling yourself. Those desires are what define your identity, and to tamper with who you really are is dangerous and delusional.
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Written by DouglasJ. Douma |
Monday, April 4, 2022
This is a valuable book which holds the interest of the reader, no small feat for a book on Presbyterian history. The value of the book comes not from any new thesis, but in its concise and informative account of American Presbyterian history.

Reformed & Evangelical across Four Centuries, The Presbyterian Story in America by Nathan P. Feldmuth, S. Donald Fortson III, Garth M. Rosell, and Kenneth J. Stewart. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022, 364 pp.
This is a valuable book which holds the interest of the reader, no small feat for a book on Presbyterian history. The value of the book comes not from any new thesis, but in its concise and informative account of American Presbyterian history.
While this volume is subtitled “The Presbyterian Story in America,” it actually doesn’t get to America until a section on “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England” in Chapter 5 (page 72) and finally settling on Presbyterianism on this country only in Chapter 6 (page 81). This is a substantial part of a book on “The Presbyterian Story in America” to not be on the Presbyterian story in America. But, perhaps ironically, I found this to be the best section of the volume. Naturally the story cannot just begin in America, but needs to reach back to the British Isles. In both places we see that church history is messy and, especially in the England and Scotland, much intertwined with national politics.
The connection between Presbyterianism in the Old World and that in the New World is especially valuable in the section on page 94 describing how views on subscriptionism (to the Westminster Confession) that arose in Ireland were carried over to the American scene. The debate over subscription in American Presbyterian history plays a major part in this book, and while the authors are fair to the issue, the writing, it seems to me, tends to favor the “system” or “loose” view over the “full” or “strict.”
Chapters on “Debate on the Question of Slavery,” “Presbyterians, Civil War, and Reunions,” and “The Darwinian Challenge” highlight some of the major issues of the 19th century Presbyterian churches. Chapters on 20th century issues felt more scattered and tended to veer away from the subject at hand (American Presbyterianism) as significant space was given to such diverse topics as Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel, Asian immigration, and rationalism in German Universities. Certainly these are connected to American Presbyterian in some way (isn’t everything connected to everything in some way?) but the authors tended to relate the topics back more to Protestantism in general than Presbyterianism specifically.
The change (I’d argue decline) of the PCUSA’s theology in the 20th century is noted (pp. 288 and 293 for example) and the decline of the denomination’s membership is also mentioned (p. 307). But never are these two facts related. This really is the elephant in the room.
As for the PCA, I think the authors get it quite right when they contend, “The group of ministers that shaped the PCA was roughly divided into two groups: those who had a vision of the PCA as a historically confessional Presbyterian body and a larger group who found their primary identity in being evangelical Presbyterians driven by the concerns of evangelism and world missions.” (p. 301)
Appendix I titled “American Presbyterian Denominations Ranked by Membership” includes some smaller denominational like the OPC and RPCNA but does not include what some may call “micro” denominations (such as the Bible Presbyterian Church, Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly, Reformed Presbyterian Church – Hanover, John Knox Presbyterian Church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Bible Presbyterian Church – Faith Presbytery, Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, American Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Reformed Church, Evangel Presbytery, and Vanguard Presbytery). Some comment on these smaller confessional groups seems warranted in the history. As the PCUSA inevitably continues its precipitous decline (and the referenced 1.2 million PCUSA members is highly doubtable), the confessional churches, NAPARC members or not, are generally stable or growing and are likely to play a more significant role in the fifth century of American Presbyterianism.
Douglas J. Douma is a Minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church and Pastor of the Unionville, NY BPC. This article is used with permission.

If you have been brought face-to-face with your sin and have come to believe that Jesus is your Savior, no name will be more precious to you than His. Though at one time you may have held Him at arm’s length, despised Him as nothing more than a profanity, or even thought that you could save yourself through good works, the name, the person, and the work of Jesus have now become dear, for you have drawn near to Him and experienced His compassion, kindness, and mercy.

When the angel visited Mary and Joseph to announce the birth of the Messiah, he gave clear instructions concerning the child’s name: “You shall call his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:31). Christ has many glorious names: King, Creator, Lord, Judge, Son of God, Son of David, Master, I Am, the First and the Last, etc. But the angel commanded that a very specific name be given Him at His birth—and we may wonder at the intention behind that choice. Why “Jesus”?
The name itself was not an unusual name. In fact, it is the Hellenized version of the Old Testament name Joshua. In Hebrew, it is Yeshua, and simply translated, it means “The Lord saves.” So of all the glorious names He might have been given, the name that would mark out the incarnate Son of God would be that which describes Him as Savior. Jesus’ name communicates His purpose: “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). As Peter would later proclaim, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
While Jesus’ name and ministry invite people into grace, many do not respond to Jesus Himself with warmth. His name is precious, yet so many treat it as peripheral, or even profane. During this Christmas season, then, we ought to ask ourselves, “What does the name Jesus mean to me?”
Profaned and Peripheral
Many people have no interest in the name Jesus, except perhaps as a curse word. They have no interest in Jesus as a Savior, they have not experienced Jesus’ power to change their lives, and they may even question whether Jesus really is who He says He is—but they still find the sound of His name to be a convenient interjection when they are surprised or angry. So they choose to profane the name of the incarnate God, who came to save us from our sins.
Yet it is not only the obvious offenders who profane Jesus’ name. Many people feel some respect for the name of Jesus, but their lives are busy, and so Jesus is ultimately sidelined. After all, there are places to go, people to meet, money to be earned, bills to be paid, and children to be raised. Jesus is just one of many obligations, and certainly not their chief desire. People thus have little awareness that they need to be saved at all, and they ignore the testimony of Jesus’ own name: that He has come to save them.
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