Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, is not a fan of gay conversion therapy, saying that people from the LGBT community have a better chance of going straight using the "full wisdom of the Christian faith."
Before speaking during their seminary's three-day conference called "Homosexuality—Compassion, Care and Counsel for Struggling People," Mohler took a jab at psychological therapy, including reparative therapy, saying it is a "superficial" response to people's struggles with homosexuality.
"In the case of many people struggling with this particular sin, we do not believe that some kind of superficial answer whereby they can turn a switch from being attracted to persons of the same sex to being attracted to persons of the opposite sex," he said, according to The Washington Post.
What he suggested instead was that people from the LGBT community seek wisdom from God's words, and take heed of the Biblical definition of marriage—which is solely between a man and woman. Only then, he said, would true conversion begin to happen.
"By God's grace, that might happen over time as a sign of God's work within the life of that individual. But... for many, many people struggling with these patterns of sin, it will be a lifelong battle," he said.
The Christian community is also at fault with the rising number of homosexuals, said Mohler, since they ignored "their presence among us by remaining silent when we should speak the truth and by reducing a massive human struggle to simplistic explanations."
Despite his strong beliefs, Mohler knows that the basis of marriage is "decidedly not what is heard in the larger secular culture." With their conference, however, they are given the chance to discuss "what this moral revolution will demand of us and how we can respond with the full wisdom of the Christian faith."
"Our message is the Gospel for all people, and that means that we call all people... to be converted to faith in Christ," he said.
