Boy Erased

The film, Boy Erased (2018), is a drama that deals in a serious  way with the question of whether homosexuality is a choice, and thus whether conversion therapy is effective or an ideological ruse under the subterfuge of psychology and religion. Directed and adapted to the screen by Joel Edgerton, he could have dived deeper in writing the screenplay by making explicit the contending assumptions and ideas. Surprisingly, nowhere in the film do any of the biblically-oriented religionists quote the applicable verses in the Old Testament or in Paul's letters, or engage in a theological debate. The film could have gone further intellectually than the relatively superficial emphasis on the dramatic narrative.

The story centers around the post coming-out tension between Jared Eamons and his parents Nancy and Rev. Marshall Eamons. They are biblically-oriented, socially conservative Christians. That Marshall is the pastor of a church tells us just how important religion is to that family. Nancy and Marshall send Jared to a conversion-therapy day-program run by Victor Sykes. Jared is under pressure to lie in order to avoid having to move into one of the bunk houses on the church premises for a year. This is not, however, to say that Victor is an ordained clergyman; neither is he educated or even trained in therapy or even counseling, as Nancy finds out when she finally comes to remove Jared from the program. She tells her son that he will be coming home with her in spite of Marshall’s decision that the boy could no longer live in the house as long as he is gay. The assumption here is that a gay person could become heterosexual.

That Victor has no credentials either in religion or psychology is something that Nancy suspects after looking over Jared’s materials from the program (Jared and his mother stay at a hotel during the day-program). The lack of credentials as a clergy or in Christian counseling or therapy is not made much of in the film. The matter of clergyless congregations, such as Quaker unprogrammed Meetings, is thus not attended to. Specifically, the assumption typically under the rubric of the priesthood of the people dismisses or otherwise ignores the theological and ministerial knowledge (and practice) gained at divinity schools and seminaries. To be sure, clergy atop a church hierarchy can exploit their esoteric knowledge by ignoring that of the laity. Hence, some congregations have clergy whereas others do not.

I visited a Bahai place of worship a few times in 2019 because I had not studied that religion in my formal education. Believing that anyone can have access to the knowledge contained in the scriptures, the members of the Bahai religion eschew a clergy in principle and practice. I detected a real bias against people who have advanced knowledge. In fact, some of the members and even an associated non-member displayed an instinctual-like aversion to me after I had informed them of my academic credentials, including a ministry degree. In a discussion group, for instance, when I was introducing myself, the group leader (not a Bahai member, though a regular) interrupted me with the false claim that the group was representative of the Bahai faith. I suspect he was trying to discredit me, perhaps from a fervent belief in ideological egalitarianism which denies the value of expertise. 

I returned to the group a few more times, as I was able to learn quite a bit from the Bahai members about their religion. The same man was presiding. After I had just spoken, a woman asked me a specialized question directed to me (i.e., related to the expert knowledge I had just imparted). The group's leader interrupted me as I was beginning to answer the woman, aggressively insisting, "The question is for the group!" I saw in this response a stubborn refusal to recognize my expertise in religion. That he thought some non-scholars could answer the question just because they were laity demonstrated to me the cognitive-warping impact of ideology, including prejudice. I left the group immediately; I had seen enough. I understood why the religion refused to have clergy.

A week later, a Bahai member who had been at the group called me to try to convince me to come back to the group. Enforcing my scholar-identity, I said I would be glad to come back and give a talk or lead a discussion group. The member bristled, as if I were claiming too much for myself. This told me that he (and others) were disinclined to recognize me as a scholar (i.e., having expert knowledge) to such an extent that they had ignored my stated reason for being there and instead thought I was there because I was interesting in becoming a member. In actuality, the members who eschewed my credentials impiously presumed too much for themselves.

In the late 1960's, students at some universities in the United States held teach-ins because those students presumed that a professor was not necessary for knowledge to be learned. I have run into (usually young) people who declared to me that they are self-educated, as if this were equivalent to a college education. Even students getting a doctorate entirely online (one of whom didn't know what a thesis statement is!) tend to believe that they are getting a doctorate without even having to go to seminars. 

A similar issue concerns nurse practitioners who are becoming interchangeable with physicians at some medical clinics. Such nurses who specialize in psychiatry represent themselves as psychiatrists, while counselors over-reach onto doing therapy with impunity. Although saving costs has no doubt been driving this trend, I have been stunned to hear more than one nurse tell me that the training of a nurse practioner is the same as a physician’s own. Once I made a check-up appointment with a physician only to find myself with the nurse-practitioner, who of course insisted that she had had the same training. In general terms, dismissing credentials--typically those that the person does not have--can be viewed as the democratization of a vocation. This is, I submit, a case of decadence particularly severe in American society. 

In the film, that Victor gets away with having no credentials in either religion or psychology is stunning; this implies that he arrogantly assumes that he does not need the requisite education and training. Furthermore, it shows how much an ideology can stretch religion beyond its domain, such that therapy can legitimately be done without education and training in psychology. A disrespect of the encroached-upon domains goes with the over-reach. This could have been made explicit in the film.

Although Nancy objects to Victor's lack of credentials, she does not call him out on having encroached on another domain. "Being a biblical Christian does not enable you to do therapy," she could have said as she is shouting at him in the parking lot (and she is not the first to do so). Viewers could have received the idea that religion may have the proclivity to encroach excessively onto other domains, even without the need to undergo entrance exams at the borders.

Fortunately, the viewers do get to learn about and even assess the therapy program from seeing it from the perspective of the boys and girls in it. To be sure, more could be grasped with access to Victor and his staff away from the kids! Why does the staffer become so aggressive toward Jared when he grabs his phone in the office? Does Victor and his staff realize on some level that they are mistreating the kids, as when Victor invites one boy's family to spank the boy with a bible to rid him of the demon? That boy goes on to commit suicide. 

Nevertheless, some viewers may pick up on the fallacious logic that claims that because a person is not born a physician, it must therefore be a choice to become one. That is, Victor conflates vocations with instinctual urges. A participant objecting would mean that more viewers would grasp the fallaciousness of the argument. Also, as Victor accuses Jared of lying about having stayed over at a friend’s house without doing more than holding hands in bed, Jared could be made to say something like, “Hey, you didn’t believe me when I told you I’m not angry at my dad, and now you want me to lie about what I’ve done. I bet you’ve never studied psychology! You’re a fraud!” If saying this is unrealistic because Jared fears being sent to one of the facility's bunk houses for a year, the lines could come from another boy. 

In short, I’m suggesting that film is better as a medium when it is written like a music composition of more than a few levels that the mere dramatic can provide. In terms of homosexuality, more of a theological basis could have been in the script. Is being gay a sin? Is it caused by a demon inside the gay person? What is the religious basis for the claim that homosexuality is a choice? Quoting the relevant Old Testament passages as well as Paul would have brought this perspective out at a deeper level than is in the film and helped to distinguish this basis from a basis in psychology. This does not mean that the latter has necessarily viewed homosexuality in positive terms. The APA considered homosexuality to be a mental illness until 1973. Interestingly, Victor pushes the religious (demon) explanation rather than the mental-illness angle even though he is claiming to do therapy. 

The relationship between religion and psychology is difficult to discern, in large part because of how different the two underlying paradigms are. Pointing to a demon as a cause is much different than pointing to a medical cause. Relating the two seems almost impossible, yet this was not always the case. The ancient Hebrews, for instance, regarded the medically ill as sinful. Sin involves the absence of God. To Aquinas and Leibniz, this meant something less than from full being. It makes no sense to say that a person with a mental illness has a deficiency of being. Whether mental illness results in an absence of, rather than relationship with God is a difficult question. In his text, People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck theorizes that malignant narcissism is actually a defense mechanism surrounding a sense of emptiness inside. Such emptiness might resonate with a feeling of being apart from God. Does evil lie in the felt-emptiness inside or in the narcissistic attitude and conduct? Felt-emptiness inside is not necessarily the same thing of the lack of being that Aquinas and Leibniz associated with sin. Relating two very different paradigms, including basic assumptions and tenets, is fraught with difficulty even if the two overlap a bit. 

Unfortunately, the film does not go much into theology, including on whether homosexuality should be taken as a sin (and as distinct to a mental illness). Instead, homosexuality is likened to, or categorized with) alcoholism, violence in the home, and mental illnesses. Looking at the Biblical text itself, homosexuality is a sin. However, some Christians argue that the biblical claim is culturally and time-specific, meaning that the view of homosexuality in Israel millentia ago is reflected in the text. But does it even make sense to invalidate something that is part of Scripture? I submit that good arguments exist on both sides. Unfortunately, the film does not make this tension explicit. When Jared's father has two other ministers come over to discuss Jared, a discussion involving Nancy could have delved into the theological level. Nancy's first misgivings would be evident so her confrontation with Victor in the church parking-lot would be more believable.

The film does best with the dramatic levels centered on Jared’s inner struggles and that which exists between him and his father. The ending of the film is on those two trying to reconcile; that Jared would remain gay is almost treated as an aside. Nancy’s turnabout in coming to the aid of her son after he calls for her to pick him up is also salient toward the end of the film, but another opportunity to go deeper is missed because she does not tell Jared (and the viewer) what she found so objectionable about the therapy. Was it just Victor’s lack of credentials, or the basic assumption of gays being able to rid themselves of the instinctual urges?

The medium of film, even with its confining duration of a few hours, can go beyond the emotional levels of the dramatic or comedic to evince ideational tensions and even the underlying assumptions tussling for supremacy. Just as an antagonist tries to conquer a protagonist, ideas and principles, whether philosophical or theological, jest with each other. In fact, Nietzsche claims that an instinctual urge is the content of an idea. Ideas tussle for supremacy in the unconscious; the idea that comes to the conscious surface is the most powerful. Film can reflect this multi-level structure even to the point of including less powerful ideas that the viewers are not aware of, yet are influenced by. This should not be used, however, to shirk the ideational level of a film, especially when the story contains a salient controversial theme or aspect.