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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Criminal Minds Season 8 Episode 15

On Wednesday Feb 20, NBC aired the Criminal Minds* episode "Broken". It featured a homosexual serial killer suffering from an identity crisis. He loves men and cannot love women the way he feels he should. So he kills his sexual partners. Parallel to the plot is the condemnation of the horror of conversion therapy -- an effort to convert or change sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. "Broken" may not refer to the homosexual character, but to the fact that misguided therapy has ruined his psyche. There is an effort to blame the therapy rather than the serial killer, and in the end viewers may even be drawn into sympathetic association with the killer. FBI agents are mortified by the conversion camp and know it must be even more horrendous than they can even imagine. Finally they discover the ostensibly Christian camp uses physical abuse, drugs and forced heterosexual sex therapy as part of their conversion methods. One fan praised the episode for "shedding light on the darkness of so-called fix 'em camps." I expect such a camp is mostly Hollywood fantasy that produces more heat than light.

I am not a proponent of "conversion therapy". It sounds like just one more of the many shady psychiatric treatments that has been foisted on a gullible American people. On the other hand, the American Psychiatric Association promotes many vague and unnecessary psychiatric treatments, while condemning conversion therapy. Why? Because it is "based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation." There's the catch. It's not really the "conversion" they object to, but that they believe there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. It's still alright to analyze, therapize and convert alcoholics or fat people -- maybe even hoarders -- even if they were born that way, since society says these things are bad. (Pity the poor fat people; it's always OK to skewer them for any reason or no reason.)

Criminal Minds’ episode "Broken" is one example of the continual Hollywood bombardment against Christian moral beliefs. A belief is caricatured and the caricature then demolished. One down; another to go. Intellectually stimulating shows such as Criminal Minds probably do more damage than the mindless fodder of such offal as The Simpsons or Family Guy.

In keeping with the Bible and centuries of Christian moral teaching, I believe that homosexuality is a sin -- regardless of what Hollywood or the APA says. It is a sin of extra-marital sex and defilement of God's natural creation order (man & woman). Homosexuality is one of many sins perpetuated by depraved sinners. It is not the only sin. Conversion therapy is not the answer to that or any other sin. An experience with God and conversion by the Lord Jesus Christ is necessary for us all.

*Criminal Minds is a "procedural thriller about the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, which profiles criminals to solve crimes."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let him who has no sin cast the first stone. We are not called to accept or participate in acts of sin, but we are also not called to scrutinize anyone else's free will. He gave that freely to all of us. The job of the Christian is to love ALL and treat ALL as well as you would treat yourself! As someone who is fighting desperately to love ALL and lead people to Christ by example, I am begging you not to portray yourself as such an ignorant, judgmental Christian. That gives us all a bad name. Yes, it is a sin, but it is not your job to judge.

R. L. Vaughn said...

Anonymous friend, thanks for your comments on Old Paths. It is a true biblical desire to "judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24). You are correct that we are to love our neighbors and treat others as we wish to be treated, as Jesus taught in His sermon on the Mount. Part of that wish should include the desire to be instructed and warned if something we are doing is against God's law.

I was interested in and intrigued by your last statement. You wrote that "it is not your job to judge." Yet in your own paragraph you judged -- formed a conclusion and stated it -- not once, but twice. First, you judged/formed a conclusion that I am portraying myself as an ignorant, judgmental Christian. That may be true; you certainly were able to come to a judgment about it. You also judged that "it is a sin." Can we not have strong feelings about what is and what isn't biblically permissible sexual conduct? Is it wrong to express those feelings? What about adultery? Is reciting the seventh commandment taboo as well? Ultimately it is not our judgment, but the judgment of the word of God.

But the judgment I passed (and perhaps it got lost in a not well-written piece) mainly is on an unfair and disjointed portrayal of what is called "conversion therapy." Though I don't think it is a good thing, I nevertheless believe that the writers of that episode of Criminal Minds skewed things for their own purposes, whatever they might be.