Pray Away - Netflix documentary on Christian 'conversion therapy': Review by Anthony Venn-Brown

Netflix poster promoting Pray Away documentary

Anthony Venn-Brown’s best-selling autobiography A Life of Unlearning – a preacher’s struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith details his journey from being one of the first in the world to experience religious ‘gay conversion therapy’, becoming a married, high-profile preacher in Australia's growing mega-churches such as Hillsong, to living as an openly gay man. PHOTO: Joanna Kelly

IN JUNE 2018 Anthony Venn-Brown spoke to the Open Table community at St Bride’s Liverpool as part of a tour to research his forthcoming book The Quest To Cure Queers.

OCCASIONALLY a seminal work appears that becomes a defining piece, a turning point or breakthrough in a particular area.

For the religious LGBTQ conversion movement, the documentary Pray Away, released on Netflix on 3rd August, could be that work.

After professional mental health organisations realised that LGBTQ people were not sick and their decades of cruel, and at times barbaric treatments, had failed, the Christian Church stepped into the space. The ‘ex-gay’ movement, later to become more commonly known as ‘conversion therapy’, was born.

In the early 70s, individual but unconnected ‘ministries’ sprang up like mushrooms in the US and other parts of the world, including Australia and the UK. These ‘ministries’ grew out of the Jesus Revolution, which was outside the church, the Charismatic Movement and its emphasis on the supernatural, and modern translations of the Bible mentioning the word ‘homosexual’ for the first time.

As Michael Bussee, a pioneer of the movement, tells us in the documentary, some of the US groups came together in 1976 and founded Exodus.

Exodus grew to become the umbrella organisation with hundreds of affiliate ministries globally. At its height, president Alan Chambers, who also appears in the documentary, claimed that Exodus International, received over 400,000 inquiries each year from people wanting to ‘turn straight’ and that hundreds of thousands actually had.

In less than a decade Alan would not only be admitting publicly it was a lie, and that 99.9% of the people he knew had not changed orientation, but also apologising for the harm and deaths caused by those lies and the organisation. This process is also explored in the documentary. Exodus closed its doors in 2013.

Previous leaders and spokespeople for the ‘change is possible’ movement and organisations, John Paulk, Yvette Cantu Schneider, Randy Thomas, and Julie Rodgers, all have a story to tell. There are uncomfortable and sometimes chilling moments as they talk about their involvement, regrets and moments of awakening. As a survivor, I found various scenes and statements triggering. One was particularly grueling.

Archival footage is shown of each of the former leaders professing what they have since rejected. There is also footage of now-deceased ‘ex-gay’/’ex-trans’ advocates Joseph Nicolosi and Sy Rogers who some will be familiar with.

Current proponents Anne Paulk, from Restored Hope Network, and Ricky Chelette,from Living Hope Ministries, refused to be interviewed. Considering Julie Rodgers’ claims of manipulation by Chelette while she was a part of Living Hope, his unwillingness to go on camera is understandable.

To think that this documentary is just about a series of historical events would be a HUGE mistake. It is still happening now, and new groups have started up.

In every non-affirming evangelical, pentecostal and mainstream church, young LGBTQ people are going through the same emotional, psychological and spiritual torment many of us endured for decades. Within some cultures and countries today the pressure to conform to a heterosexual norm is enormous, even life-threatening. Exorcisms to cast out homosexual demons still occur in Christian and Islamic circles.

One thing that isn’t explored in the documentary is the intermediary step Randy and Julie took on their journeys. When I spent time with them at the final Exodus Conference in 2013, they had both moved to the ‘it’s okay for me to be gay, but I can never act on it’ space. They were looking at a celibate future. Falling in love changed that.

In some circles there has been a movement away from ‘change is possible’ to a celibacy model e.g. Sydney Diocese Anglicans. The celibacy model, however, is still based on the same outdated belief that was the foundation of the ‘conversion therapy’ movement. That is, the belief that any deviation from a heterosexual orientation or binary gender model is sin and a sign of brokenness. It took Exodus four decades to realise they were wrong and the harm they had caused. God, I hope it doesn’t take that long for the celibacy movement to wake up.

The above does not detract from the content of the documentary.

Pray Away is chock full of excellent and powerful material. The only reason you’d turn it off is to give yourself a break from the highly emotional content.

Director/producer Kristine Stolakis and her team are to be highly commended for their well-thought out and constructed documentary.

Let’s hope and pray that the documentary will go way beyond the viewing of the LGBTQ people and allies, and be the catalyst for change, so desperately needed, in conservative churches and denominations, and in the lives of religious leaders and parents.

Five gold stars

Pray Away is a must SEE, must SHARE documentary. 

Warning: If you have experienced LGBTQ conversion practices or religious trauma you may be triggered by the content. On the Pray Away website there are some tips and resources to prioritize your mental health before, during, and after viewing the film.

Review first published by Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International on 2nd August 2021. Republished with permission.