A 23-year-old pre-med student who "got caught up with friends who were pulling him" toward homosexuality is well and undergoing Christian counseling, his family says.
But a gay activist who created a Web site to locate the "missing" man says Bryce Faulkner's silence speaks volumes, claiming that the young man's religious parents are controlling his every move in an effort to "cure" him of his homosexuality.
If we assume that this young man's parents are only doing what they've said and take his statement as his freewill testimony of what's going on, then his parents have done for him what love and their faith demands--they've lovingly confronted the sin in their son's life and come alongside him to help him turn from it. In God's view, this is right and good.
In the world's eyes, however, these parents look like intolerant, fundamentalist criminals. They kidnapped their son (because it had to be against his will) and are subjecting to him to what to the world calls brainwashing (but only if they disagree with the subject matter). They make the argument that such "conversion therapy" is extremely "emotionally damaging," all the while ignoring the damage, emotional, spiritual, and even physical, that they leave behind in their own wake.
We must remember who we're dealing with here--on the one hand, sinners in need of love and grace, and on the other, self-proclaimed enemies who wish to distort God's image and His truth for their own advantage. We must respond accordingly, in both love and truth, never neglecting one for the sake of the other.
