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Setting Love in Order
Telling his own story with great courage and vulnerability, Bergner describes how homosexual persons can turn from "disordered love" to healing and deliverance.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Mario Bergner
4 books2 followersThe Rev. Mario Bergner is husband to Nancy and father to their five children. He is the founder of Redeemed Lives, in the Boston metropolitan area and the Associate Rector of Christ Church of Hamilton and Wenham. He is an Anglican Priest canonically resident in the Diocese of Quincy IL, USA.
Mario is the author of Setting Love In Order (Baker 1995) and five pastoral courses: Redeemed Lives, Alive Again, Returning Son's, Shepherd's Voice and Growing In Virtue He has published articles in Leadership Journal, The Living Church, and the Jubilee Centre in Cambridge, England. He was a contributing author for The Christian Educator's Handbook For Family Life (Baker 1996). For over twenty years he has given pastoral healing missions in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
He has been a guest lecturer on Christian spirituality and pastoral care for the Christian Education Department at Wheaton College, Ridley Hall at Cambridge University, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and currently at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has served on the drama faculties at Boston University, Wright State University, Carnegie-Mellon University and Roosevelt University.
Mario is the author of Setting Love In Order (Baker 1995) and five pastoral courses: Redeemed Lives, Alive Again, Returning Son's, Shepherd's Voice and Growing In Virtue He has published articles in Leadership Journal, The Living Church, and the Jubilee Centre in Cambridge, England. He was a contributing author for The Christian Educator's Handbook For Family Life (Baker 1996). For over twenty years he has given pastoral healing missions in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
He has been a guest lecturer on Christian spirituality and pastoral care for the Christian Education Department at Wheaton College, Ridley Hall at Cambridge University, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and currently at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has served on the drama faculties at Boston University, Wright State University, Carnegie-Mellon University and Roosevelt University.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 14, 2022
The best story of healing that I have ever heard and read. Before this book, I could not imagine how much our love should be healed, including the will (griba). By reading the book, I not only went through the author's story but also reflected my own story and believe that my will was healed along.
In Latvian version, there is only title "Mīlestības sakārtošana", thus was not fully aware of what it contains. Additionally, the book came to me accidentally :)
In Latvian version, there is only title "Mīlestības sakārtošana", thus was not fully aware of what it contains. Additionally, the book came to me accidentally :)
May 17, 2024
AN ANGLICAN PRIEST RECOUNTS HIS OWN STRUGGLES, AND THOSE OF OTHERS
The Rev. Mario Bergner is an Anglican Priest; he is also the founder of Redeemed Lives, a ministry in the Boston metropolitan area. He is married and he and his wife have 5 children.
He explains in the first chapter of this 1995 book, “When I first came to Christ at age fourteen, I was overcome with joy at the thought of eternal life and filled with hope for my future… Unfortunately, the church I attended was not equipped to minister the healing I so desperately needed… Nonetheless, God was present in this Bible-believing community. In the year or so that I attended that church, many positive changes occurred in my life… Sometime during that year for the first time I came across the word ‘homosexual’ in a magazine. I now had a name for the sexual feelings surging uncontrollably within me. As I continued to sit under the preaching of this fine pastor, it became clear that homosexuality was incompatible with Christianity. Because the ‘homosexual’ in me was seemingly growing at a much faster pace race than the ‘Christian’ in me, I decided to stop attending church… For another three years, I struggled silently over my homosexual feelings and Christianity.” (Pg. 16)
He continues, “At age twenty-one I moved to New York City after passing the acting audition for admittance to a theater program there. There I came fully ‘out of the closet’ and began openly and freely to acknowledge myself as ‘gay.’ … That year I spent Christmas in New York City with friends. On Christmas Eve a group of us, most of whom were gay, decided to go to church… We were directed to a liturgical worship service for gays sponsored by a mainline denominational church… When it came time for the minister to preach, his sermon was about being gay---not about Jesus… His preaching did not have the ring of objective truth I had heard in the Biblical preaching of the nondenominational which I had attended as a teenager. Having heard the real thing, I recognized the counterfeit. I left that service more deeply convinced than ever that homosexuality was incompatible with Christianity.” (Pg. 18)
But he attended a class taught by Leanne Payne (author of ‘The Broken Image’). “Leanne encouraged all of us in her class to begin a prayer journal, which I did… I still was not convinced that healing from homosexuality was possible, but I had come to the point in my relationship with God that I could no longer deny Him… If He wanted to change my homosexuality, I was willing to let him… He attended the evening service at a church, and “with tears of sorrow pouring from my eyes, I repented of all my sins, including the sin of homosexuality.” (Pg. 28-29)
He asserts, “[Gay] Clones tended to date one another… The hyper masculine image they projected was their idealized and eroticized view of the same sex. Their external image of maleness served as a psychological defense against the internal deficit of masculinity. In lieu of real masculine love, attainable only through nonerotic means, they tried to encounter the masculine through and eternal image of masculinity in themselves and their same-sex partners. The love expressed between homosexuals is in stark contrast to the love between healthy heterosexual men. (Pg. 114)
He comments on an evangelist who “was exposed for leading a double life. He had for years solicited the services of a prostitute. He quickly repented publicly of his sin and asked his wife’s forgiveness… I to8ught that the statements this evangelist mad about his wife sounded similar to Romeo’s idealized view of Juliet in Shakespeare’s play… The flip side of this holy image of woman was a view of woman as a [prostitute]. It was with a prostitute that he sought to fulfill his sexual desires… It was obvious how the fallen condition of his heart had shaped his theology. His extreme teachings on the submission of wives to husbands and his outright rejection of the more feminine ministries within Christendom… were all symptomatic of his flight from the feminine. His repression of the feminine in himself and in others was a feeble attempt to control the distorted views of woman that propelled him into sinful behavior. Man, with his fallen view of woman, keeps the prostitution business afloat. If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then other-sex ambivalence is the world’s oldest neurosis.” (Pg. 150-151)
He summarizes, “my initial release from other-sex ambivalence had changed all my relationships with women for the better. This had enabled me to begin loving women aright. Gradually, the Lord revealed that there were layers to my confusion toward woman. At the right time, He brought me back to a place of suffering and abandonment to heal me more deeply. This freed me all the more to love woman in the right way.” (Pg. 198)
This book might be of some interest to Christians seeking ‘psychological counseling’ perspectives on homosexuality.
The Rev. Mario Bergner is an Anglican Priest; he is also the founder of Redeemed Lives, a ministry in the Boston metropolitan area. He is married and he and his wife have 5 children.
He explains in the first chapter of this 1995 book, “When I first came to Christ at age fourteen, I was overcome with joy at the thought of eternal life and filled with hope for my future… Unfortunately, the church I attended was not equipped to minister the healing I so desperately needed… Nonetheless, God was present in this Bible-believing community. In the year or so that I attended that church, many positive changes occurred in my life… Sometime during that year for the first time I came across the word ‘homosexual’ in a magazine. I now had a name for the sexual feelings surging uncontrollably within me. As I continued to sit under the preaching of this fine pastor, it became clear that homosexuality was incompatible with Christianity. Because the ‘homosexual’ in me was seemingly growing at a much faster pace race than the ‘Christian’ in me, I decided to stop attending church… For another three years, I struggled silently over my homosexual feelings and Christianity.” (Pg. 16)
He continues, “At age twenty-one I moved to New York City after passing the acting audition for admittance to a theater program there. There I came fully ‘out of the closet’ and began openly and freely to acknowledge myself as ‘gay.’ … That year I spent Christmas in New York City with friends. On Christmas Eve a group of us, most of whom were gay, decided to go to church… We were directed to a liturgical worship service for gays sponsored by a mainline denominational church… When it came time for the minister to preach, his sermon was about being gay---not about Jesus… His preaching did not have the ring of objective truth I had heard in the Biblical preaching of the nondenominational which I had attended as a teenager. Having heard the real thing, I recognized the counterfeit. I left that service more deeply convinced than ever that homosexuality was incompatible with Christianity.” (Pg. 18)
But he attended a class taught by Leanne Payne (author of ‘The Broken Image’). “Leanne encouraged all of us in her class to begin a prayer journal, which I did… I still was not convinced that healing from homosexuality was possible, but I had come to the point in my relationship with God that I could no longer deny Him… If He wanted to change my homosexuality, I was willing to let him… He attended the evening service at a church, and “with tears of sorrow pouring from my eyes, I repented of all my sins, including the sin of homosexuality.” (Pg. 28-29)
He asserts, “[Gay] Clones tended to date one another… The hyper masculine image they projected was their idealized and eroticized view of the same sex. Their external image of maleness served as a psychological defense against the internal deficit of masculinity. In lieu of real masculine love, attainable only through nonerotic means, they tried to encounter the masculine through and eternal image of masculinity in themselves and their same-sex partners. The love expressed between homosexuals is in stark contrast to the love between healthy heterosexual men. (Pg. 114)
He comments on an evangelist who “was exposed for leading a double life. He had for years solicited the services of a prostitute. He quickly repented publicly of his sin and asked his wife’s forgiveness… I to8ught that the statements this evangelist mad about his wife sounded similar to Romeo’s idealized view of Juliet in Shakespeare’s play… The flip side of this holy image of woman was a view of woman as a [prostitute]. It was with a prostitute that he sought to fulfill his sexual desires… It was obvious how the fallen condition of his heart had shaped his theology. His extreme teachings on the submission of wives to husbands and his outright rejection of the more feminine ministries within Christendom… were all symptomatic of his flight from the feminine. His repression of the feminine in himself and in others was a feeble attempt to control the distorted views of woman that propelled him into sinful behavior. Man, with his fallen view of woman, keeps the prostitution business afloat. If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then other-sex ambivalence is the world’s oldest neurosis.” (Pg. 150-151)
He summarizes, “my initial release from other-sex ambivalence had changed all my relationships with women for the better. This had enabled me to begin loving women aright. Gradually, the Lord revealed that there were layers to my confusion toward woman. At the right time, He brought me back to a place of suffering and abandonment to heal me more deeply. This freed me all the more to love woman in the right way.” (Pg. 198)
This book might be of some interest to Christians seeking ‘psychological counseling’ perspectives on homosexuality.
January 20, 2022
A false portrayal of the narrative that gay men and women are able to change their sexuality. Mario Bergner was caught cheating on his wife with a man and lost his relationship with his family years after this book was released. You can find this on his Facebook pages and websites. He is at the forefront of the ex-gay conversion therapy movement and he is a prime example of how his teachings are untrue. This book has caused immeasurable pain for many humans on their journey with Christ, making people believe that they are unloved by God and that all he cares about is them changing sexuality. I feel terrible for Mario because he is a victim of non-affirming Christians, however, he has taken his pain and caused much more for other vulnerable Christians. Please try and read Unclobber or God and the Gay Christian first, just because you're taught to hate does not mean you have to carry on the legacy. Do not give this to your children/friends/family if they come out to you, this book can cause deep mental health issues and self-hatred.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews