Announcing the Imago Dei Summit: A Response to the #ACBC15 Conference

Announcing the Imago Dei Summit: A Response to the #ACBC15 Conference October 4, 2015

Today marks the beginning of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors IMAGOLogoNational Conference in Louisville, Kentucky on the topics of “Transgender Confusion” and “Homosexuality”. I wrote about this conference a few weeks ago on my blog, detailing my concerns about how the conference was organized and what sort of teaching and counseling would be promulgated among evangelical pastors who will likely deal with LGBTQ individuals in their congregations.

As I thought and prayed about how I might respond to this conference, it became clear to me that what was needed more than anything was for these pastors and leaders to hear the stories of LGBTQ individuals who were harmed by their teaching and counseling and hear sexuality/gender experts express their deep disapproval of the sort of counseling that is being taught at this conference.

So over the last week, I have pulled together a virtual online summit that I am calling “Imago Dei Summit” where I have brought together LGBTQ people from across the theological, cultural, and sexuality/gender spectrum to share their experiences along with pastors, therapists, and psychologists who will share their expert opinions with us about “biblical counseling” for sexual and gender minorities and how harmful it has proven to be.

My intention here isn’t to get in a war with my brothers and sisters over at the ACBC Conference, but rather to expose their teaching as being damaging to LGBTQ people like myself, and help them to hear the actual stories of actual LGBTQ christians and to be exposed to the expert opinions of the most qualified psychologists and therapists dealing with sexuality and gender identity. So many of these pastors have never interacted with an LGBTQ individual, and so it is my prayer that our material would find its way in front of them so that they would have to confront the real lives and real damage that their spiritual malpractice is responsible for.

Over the course of the ACBC Conference (Monday, October 5 through Wednesday, October 7), I will be releasing over a dozen interviews and talks with LGBTQ experts about what is being taught at the conference. The videos of the interviews will be available at www.ImagoDeiSummit.Weebly.com and on our YouTube Channel here. I am excited to share with you my conversations with these amazing individuals, including:

  • Rev. Allyson Dylan Robinson
  • Eliel Cruz
  • Matthias Roberts
  • Isaac Archuleta
  • Rev. Danny Cortez
  • Nicole Garcia

and many, many more. If you would like to follow along with the summit, stay tuned to social media by searching for the hashtag #IDSummit . Also, I hope you will help us get the word out by sharing your favorite videos on social media, using both our hashtag and the hashtag of the ACBC Conference (#ACBC15) to help ensure that our material gets in front of the pastors and leaders who need to see it most!

I am so excited to see what God will do through the witness and testimony of the amazing individuals I’ve gotten to interview for this summit, and I pray that you find inspiration and enlightenment as you participate in the summit with us!

For more information about the Imago Dei Summit, click here. 

To read my initial post about the ACBC Conference entitled “Exposing the Spiritual Malpractice of Southern Baptists and The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors”, click here.

Check out my official welcome video to the summit below:


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