Tag: Journey into Manhood

People Can Change Becomes Brothers on a Road Less Traveled

Several years after the collapse of Exodus International, now comes sexual orientation change group People Can Change to say they are changing focus from change of orientation to a focus on living congruently with traditional religious teaching on sexuality. My prior posts on People Can Change and their flagship program Journey into Manhood can be view by clicking the links.
I wasn’t a fan of the program when it was People Can Change. I doubt this will improve things much although I can say it gets closer to a more honest presentation of what is possible. In any case, if the procedures and processes haven’t changed, then I am still not a fan.

‘People Can Change‘ is Changing Its Name
International Fellowship for Men Who Put Faith and Values Before Homosexual Attractions  Takes on a New Identity as It Marks Its 100th ‘Journey Into Manhood’ Weekend Program
Contact: Rich Wyler, Founder and Executive Director, Brothers, Road, 434-227-9346,[email protected]
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Oct. 4, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ — A high-profile non-profit organization that provides peer- support programs primarily for men who experience same-sex attractions – but who chose not to live gay lives or to identify as gay – is changing its name.
Known since its 2000 founding as People Can Change, the international non-profit is renaming and rebranding itself as an interfaith fellowship called Brothers on a Road Less Traveled – or Brothers Road for short. Its website is moving fromwww.peoplecanchange.com to www.brothersroad.org. Its new self-descriptor: “Men supporting each other in addressing our same-sex attractions in affirming ways that align with our faith, values, morals and life goals.”
This change also reflects an important acknowledgement of what has long been the reality of its mission and membership – that it is largely a religious community supporting members of a wide range of faith traditions, including Christians of all denominations, religious Jews, Muslims and others.
The group is best known for its experiential weekend intensives called Journey Into Manhood. In fact, this past weekend in Texas the organization concluded its 100th three-day Journey Into Manhood event. Since the first “JiM” weekend in Maryland in January 2002, the group has now presented Journey Into Manhood 100 times in 11 U.S. states and in England, Poland and Israel.
Some 2,500 men from 45 U.S. states and more than 40 countries have participated over the past 15 years. Participants range in age from 18 into their 60s, although the average age is about 36. About a third are already married to women. Participants attend primarily in an effort to make peace with themselves and their sexuality, to minimize their eroticization of other men to the extent possible, and to bring their sexual behavior and feelings more in line with their morals, values and life goals.
“Our new name, Brothers on a Road Less Traveled, better communicates who we are and what we’re really about,” explained Rich Wyler, founder and executive director.
“The word ‘Brothers’ emphasizes our vital need for authentic brotherhood, community and acceptance as we seek to meet our same-sex bonding needs through deep platonic friendships rather than sexual relationships,” Wyler said. “The phrase ‘on a Road’ emphasizes that this is a life journey-a new way of living, not a quick-fix. And the words ‘Less Traveled’ recognize and honor the reality that we are a minority within the larger gay minority.”
The reference to a road less traveled comes from the 1916 Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken, in which the writer encounters two equally valid choices but concludes, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
“Experiencing deep internal conflict over same-sex attractions can feel for many of us like standing at that crossroads where two roads diverge,” Wyler said, “Do you follow society’s gay-affirming path, or do you take a more faith-affirming road that acknowledges the reality of same-sex attractions but addresses those needs through platonic brotherly love rather than sexual relationships?”
Wyler emphasizes that the newly renamed organization is not backing away from the personal, lived experience of so many of its participants who have, in fact, seen profoundly positive changes in their self-esteem, thought lives, relationships and behaviors. Many have seen their same-sex sexual attractions diminish over the years or have seen sexual or romantic interests in the opposite sex develop or increase. These kinds of shifts are not universal, Wyler says, but they’re not unusual either.
Based near Charlottesville, Virginia, Brothers on a Road Less Traveled is an interfaith fellowship serving members of numerous religions. It is run as a virtual organization with no physical offices and no full-time employees, but with volunteers, contractors, supporters, participants and donors across the world.
The Brothers Road community offers eight to 10 inner-healing and personal-growth weekend intensives a year in the U.S., Europe and Israel, as well as online groups and webinars and in-person support groups and reunion retreats in some locations. It also offers a weekend program for wives of men who experience same-sex attractions or sex addictions, called “A Wife’s Healing Journey”-including one coming up Dec. 2-4 in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

Evergreen Celebrates the Nobleman

In 2010, the Jewish ex-gay group Jonah began recommending the human potential group Celebration of Being to constituents as a step on the ex-gay journey. At the time, I wondered if CoB would become a “new way to ex-gay.” Now People Can Change and Mormon ex-gay group Evergreen International are joining in.
A notice from Evergreen offers:

Breakthrough Healing with Women: The Noble Man Workshop
Celebration of the Noble Man: Healing Men’s Wounds With Women. An intensive experience for men from all walks of life who are ready to heal their issues with women. For more information, see http://celebrationofbeing.com/noble_man.html

Celebration of Nobleman is one of CoB’s weekend retreats, and focuses on men gathering with female leaders to “heal old wounds with the women in your life.”  For about $800 you can discover your manhood with the empowering help of women. CoB is collaborating with People Can Change for these workshops.
Read the earlier post for more about this group. Suffice to say that this is a pan-spiritual approach to finding your inner, hidden potential for masculinity while in the presence of women. While the pictures on the website indicate that hugging and physical affirmation are a part of these workshops, I don’t know if womean substitute for men in holding therapy common at People Can Change workshops. In a 2010 conversation, I asked one of the CoB leaders about such techniques but she declined to say what they do on the weekends.
CoB says they are open to men of all sexual orientations:

Celebration of Being welcomes all men seeking healing with the feminine regardless of sexual orientation or partner gender preference. Our policy is to be completely inclusive and respectful of everyone’s choice.

Lots of irony here. CoB partners with groups not offering this same kind of inclusivity. And then those groups are sending men to an experience which claims to be just fine with gay affirmation, even as the men attending are trying to change something that research demonstrates is infrequently changed.
CoB is supposed to be about acceptance of self, whereas People Can Change is about change. The ex-gay groups seem to be so sure that attraction to the same sex is about mother and father wounds that they recommend groups which claim to heal these in hopes that such healing will reduce the gay.
Often ex-gay groups claim that they only want to help people live in accord with their religious beliefs. This is what People Can Change’s Rich Wyler told NPR recently. However, recommendations to groups like CoB (and the Mankind Project) in order to change orientation seem to contradict this claim. If anything, CoB is more aligned with Buddhist and Sufi teachings. Very little that is going on in these workshops is in congruence with religious teachings of a particular faith. The aim is change, not acceptance and congruence.
My purpose is not criticize other religions. My observation is that change groups put change above congruence, while articulating a congruence message. Whether it be the Exodus ministry that articulates acceptance and faith congruence while promoting reparative therapy materials, or the topic of today’s post, it seems that the rhetoric of congruence is more common than its application.

NPR addresses controversy over Journey into Manhood story

Via the Advocate.
Called, “The Furor over Conversion Therapy” NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos attempted to address the issues raised by critics in the aftermath of the report.
Go give it a read but I don’t think NPR still gets it.
Just want to get the link up now, I will have more to say shortly, especially about NPR’s characterizations of Wyler’s therapy.
UPDATE: Well it took me awhile but here are some links to posts at Religion Dispatches about the NPR’s non-apology.
Change v. Change at NPR (my post)
Blaming the Listener: NPR’s non-apology
Ex-Gay NPR Report Closets Mormon Side of the Story

NPR fails to take a Journey into Manhood in ex-gay segment

National Public Radio aired interviewsof Journey into Manhood’s Rich Wyler and ex-ex-gay Peterson Toscano this morning on the subject of sexual orientation change.
The segment omitted some key details of Rich Wyler’s involvement in gay change therapy. I posted my quick thoughts on the subject over at Religion Dispatches.
Most troubling to me about the portrayal of what Rich advocates is the omission of the touch therapy and highly provocative, ball bat wielding elements of JiM. The NPR reporter Alix Spiegel made Rich’s work sound like calm cognitive therapy. Hardly.
Here is a Nightline segment about JiM:

As I pointed out at RD, JiM is fringe even in ex-gay circles.

Writer Journeys into Manhood undercover

According to a Salt Lake City newspaper, writer Ted Cox wanted to know what an ex-gay program was like so he signed up for a Journey into Manhood weekend in Utah. He planned to write a story about it but was derailed by JIM founder Rich Wyler.

Cox, a former Mormon, is a heterosexual who, earlier this year, pretended to be gay in order to attend a JiM workshop for men wanting to “overcome same-sex attractions.”

Upon learning of Cox’s story proposal, JiM founder and life coach Rich Wyler quickly intervened, urging City Weekly not to run Cox’s story because Cox signed a confidentiality agreement barring him from speaking about the weekend. City Weekly decided not to publish Cox’s proposed story but rather to ask Cox why he went undercover to get the story.

Richard Cohen got Ted interested in the ex-gay world.

This started in 2007, after I saw a segment on the Daily Show where the correspondent interviewed Richard Cohen, who is a pretty infamous ex-gay therapist, and I was surprised … that they didn’t at all delve into the religious motivation behind the ex-gay movement.

I found local ministries, and I’ve attended different support groups. I’ve also gone to a couple of conferences that deal with the ex-gay movement. All of it is a look of what is going on, who goes to these things, and do they work—which is, of course, the really big question.

The article doesn’t reveal much more but the agreement that Cox signed is reproduced at the link above. This seems much like the ManKind Project confidentiality agreement. If what we reported earlier this week is accurate, MKP may be doing away with their confidentiality agreement. Will JiM follow suit? JiM grew out of MKP’s NWTA and apparently uses some of the same processes, without the nudity.

C’mon Rich let him publish his article. Co-write it with him. MKP says they are letting the sunshine in, how about little brother JiM?

Speaking of the Daily Show with Richard Cohen, Crooks and Liars has it…

Update: I spoke to Ted Cox by phone earlier today. He declined to discuss the JiM weekend but he did say on the record that he did not become aware of the confidentiality agreement until after he had paid a non-refundable deposit and paid for a non-refundable plane ticket. Then he was given the option of signing or not attending and not getting any money in refund.