Thursday, June 17, 2010

Anyone have any SSA book recommendations?

Hey all believe it or not I have never read any books on christians and homosexuality / SSA etc... Dont know why. I guess it was part of my denial/shame all these years. I have a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate that is burning a hole in my pocket so figured I would use it to buy a couple of books that may be a help to me instead of spending it on junk!

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on books about this issue? Here are a couple I was thinking about reading:

1.Growth into Manhood: Resuming the Journey
by:Alan P. Medinger

2. The Broken Image
by: Leanne Payne

Anyone read either of these books? Were they helpful at all? Did you experience any "healing" or whatever the right term is after reading them? Did you learn more about your self and this struggle? Were they a help?

If neither of these books are any good does anyone have any other book recommendations on SSA and homosexuality?

One problem for me in trying to find a book to read is alot of them seem to be for people who have been in same sex relationships in the past or currently are in one now. I have never been in one so not sure which books apply to me or not. Or maybe those books would still be helpful too?

Thanks guys for any recommendations!

10 comments:

  1. I enjoyed Andrew Marion's "Love is an Orientation". It's not so much about how you're supposed to deal with SSA in your life, or how to fix yourself, but how to look at this from a different perspective; not that's it's okay or it's wrong, but what are the issues they deal with, and how have they dealt with them.
    (and it's really geared towards straight Christians, but I read the book in less than a week, I liked it that much).

    Here's the amazon link

    http://www.amazon.com/Love-Orientation-Elevating-Conversation-Community/dp/0830836268

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  2. I have a few book reviews on my blog.
    I liked Healing Homosexuality: Case Stories of Reparative Therapy by Joseph Nicolosi. So did my son.
    The Payne book is better than Alans. I think Alan had a miraculous sudden change of desires, which is not the norm for people with SSA. It takes time, effort, prayer and focus. I didn't connect with him as well.
    I'm thankful you are struggling with SSA now and wanting to deal with it.
    I will pray for you in your journey and hope my son will reach the same place.
    The Broken Hearted Mom

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  3. AJ,

    Here's a few that I think are very helpful. Two are by Andy Comiskey: Strength in Weakness, and Pursuing Sexual Wholeness.

    I think you would also like Joe Dallas' book, The Game Plan.

    Leann Payne's book is a very good one.

    http://thom-signsofastruggle.blogspot.com/

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  4. A book that really ministered to me was Alex Davidson's The Returns of Love. It was written in the 1970s, ~15 years before I was born, but when I read it it was like I was reading my life's story. The author is just like you and me, AJ, he has never had sex and is committed to living a chaste life. A really, really good read, if you can find it (it is on Amazon, but is out of print, so you have to order it from one of Amazon's independent booksellers.).

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  5. Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far! I am going to go look on Amazon for them and see what they are about and maybe read some samples if they have the "Look Inside" feature.

    If anyone else has any suggestions please still post them!

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  6. I appreciate Andy Comisky's and Joe Dallas' books recommended above. Also, Erik, a good friend and one of my favorite Christian SSA bloggers, is writing a book that I would recommend even more whenever it is published. His web site is:

    http://battlingchristian.blogspot.com/

    Erik is a Presbyterian minister who is celibate and dealing with SSA.

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  7. Ya I have been to Erik's blog MR, He posts some great stuff! Would read his book for sure!

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  8. Hey Long thanks for the recommendation that sounds like an interesting book! I was looking on Amazon though and there are two similar books with similar titles by the same author and I was not sure which is the one you read. There was:

    1. Returns of Love: A Christian View of Homosexuality

    and also

    2.The returns of love: Letters of a Christian homosexual

    Do you know which one is the one you read? Thanks! BTW glad you commented I have not seen you comment here before, so welcome!!

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  9. "Growth Into Manhood" was a really good book. I've also read Joe Dallas' "Desires in Conflict" and Jeff Konrads' "You Don't Have to be Gay". I'd recommend either. That last one was pretty good though in that it read out like a series of letters between two friends and was really easy to relate to. There were plenty of times while reading it that I honestly felt like Konrad was writing directly to me. But Dallas' book had a lot of answers in it for me. Any of the three are good though.

    Best of luck.

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  10. Thanks Brandon those all sound great too! Wow this is getting hard so many to choose from.

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