Restoration Path: Background information when reading Boy Erased

Restoration Path

This article relates to Boy Erased

In his memoir Boy Erased, Garrard Conley discusses both his struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality and his parents' attempt to return him to heterosexuality through Love in Action (LIA), which was renamed Restoration Path in 2012. According to the program's website, "Restoration Path is a Christian discipleship ministry that exists to restore those trapped in sexual and relational sin through the power of Jesus Christ." It further states that "Restoration Path is passionately committed to helping people discover the truth about God and about who they really are in his son Jesus. In the safety and strength of God's love men and women of all ages have found the courage to step out of destructive and life-dominating patterns of sexual and relational sin."

Conley talks about his LIA therapy with John Smid, the program director. During his time there, Conley never fully embraced the "ex-gay" or "reparative" approach LIA promoted. In addition to the program not being effective for Conley, he indicates in his epilogue that his experience was counterproductive in that it negatively affected his relationship with his parents and God. He writes, "My ex-gay therapists took Him [God] away from me, and no matter how many different churches I attend, I will feel the same dead weight in my chest. I will feel the pang of a deep love now absent from my life."

Much of Conley's later anger is directed at John Smid, for whom LIA's purpose also apparently failed. In 1990 when Smid became director of LIA, he was living his life as an ex-gay who eventually married a woman. According to a Huffington Post articlefrom November 19, 2014, Smid resigned from LIA in 2008 and divorced his wife that same year. In 2014, he married his partner, Larry McQueen.

Smid would later acknowledge that homosexuality was a part of his life. He now runs Grace Rivers, "a ministry with the gay community that reveals the message of an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ and genuine community with His followers – because every person deserves to know that Jesus loves them."

Smid has done an about-face in regards to the principles of LIA's teachings. It is also important to note that founding member, John Evans, changed his mind as well after his friend committed suicide because he could not change his sexual orientation. Evans spent the rest of his life as an ex ex-gay and dedicated himself to speaking out against these kinds of reparative programs.

These two men made it out of LIA apparently safe and sound. But for some of its former participants, like Garrard Conley, the damage has already been done. Their lives have been forever impacted by their experiences there.

Filed under Society and Politics

This "beyond the book article" relates to Boy Erased. It originally ran in August 2016 and has been updated for the February 2017 paperback edition. Go to magazine.