Editor’s note: As part of Outpost’s 50th year, we are interviewing those who can speak into the history and trajectory of Outpost and our type of ministry. The following is the last of the three conversations we planned.
Dear Friends,
Linda Seiler is the president of ReStory Ministries, a Restored Hope Network (RHN) affiliate that focuses on equipping the church in matters of biblical sexual identity. Linda has shared her story of gospel transformation and healing out of transgender desires and unwanted same-sex attraction. Her book Trans-Formation is one of Outpost’s most recommended resources for overcomers, family member, and pastors. Leading up to Outpost’s 50th anniversary celebration, I wanted to get Linda’s insights on new questions regarding LGBTQ+ that readers should be aware of, as well as any encouragements in how God is at work in our culture.
According to Linda,
“To be honest, [this type of ministry] was not my life’s ambition. I was the director of Chi Alpha—an Assemblies of God outreach to the university campus—at Purdue University. I honestly thought that was where I was going to be until Jesus returned. I didn’t have any ambition or plans to do anything else.”
Linda recalled an encounter with God years ago at an inner healing conference. She was still in the middle of her eleven-year healing journey, and was discouraged seeing other people “getting blessed and healed and delivered.” At that time,
“I sensed the still-small voice of the Lord saying, ‘Your healing is not for you, and it’s not just for a few. I’m doing a deep work in you.’ So I had a sense, ‘Okay, He’s gonna transform me, and it’s not just going to be for me, but it’s gonna help out other people.’ But I was still [walking] out my own journey. I guess you call that a calling or [how] God was going to use me in the future; [I] just didn’t know what that would look like.’”
Although Linda later experienced significant transformation and healing,
“I sensed from the Lord that I wasn’t to speak out publicly in 2005 because I wasn’t yet ready. There were still things He was doing in me to reinforce His healing, and the healing He did in me needed to be tested. And I needed to be refined and broken and prepared for what He was calling me to. And in 2005, our culture was in a different place than it is now, so it almost would have been a message that would fall on deaf ears. So I said, ‘God, I’ll never share this publicly until You make it abundantly clear that it’s time.’”
Everything changed in 2013, the year Exodus International—the pre-cursor to RHN, whose leadership strayed from the Gospel and God’s clear message on biblical sexual identity—shut down.
“Within 24 hours of [Exodus] shutting down, I fell into a clinical depression and couldn’t even get out of bed. I had no idea what was going on because I wasn’t connecting those dots. The Lord spoke to my heart, and basically throughout that summer as I was seeking Him for greater clarity, His message to me was, ‘Exodus was holding a place in the spirit realm of contending for transformation’—basically leaving a vacancy.”
“…I heard the Lord say, ‘You’re about to enter your eighth year of freedom, and eight is the number of new beginnings. I’m doing a new thing in you, and I want you to begin sharing your story publicly.’ I had enough fear of God in me where I was like, ‘Could You confirm that, Lord? I think this is what I’m hearing from you, but could You please just confirm this in a way that I know it’s from You?’ I had two people independent of me, who didn’t know what God was speaking to me call me out of the blue—[people] who knew me and knew my story privately, just friends—and say, ‘You know, I really think God’s going to start using your story in a public way.’ And then I was at a minister’s gathering for the Indiana Assemblies of God, and there was this woman who—again she did not know what God was speaking to my heart—we’re taking communion, and this woman says, ‘You know what? God is sending you into a new place, but there’s been opposition from the enemy, and we need to pray for you regarding that new season God is sending you into and the opposition [of the enemy].’ [Then] she put her hand on me and started praying in tongues. I said, ‘Okay.’ God was showing her what was happening in the spirit realm. To me, that was like, ‘Wow. God is confirming what I’m praying in private.’”
Linda had the opportunity to share her testimony publicly for the first time at the beginning of 2014. She had already agreed to speak at a conference on the topic of LGBTQ+.
“God made it clear, ‘I want you to share your story.’ It was like the Lord set me up. That was the first time ever I shared my testimony publicly. I really sensed a release after that as I shared my story for the first time. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it was like something being released in the spiritual atmosphere. I had no idea that within a year, in 2015, gay marriage would be legalized, and Bruce Jenner would come out as Caitlyn, and the transgender thing all of a sudden becomes normalized on the heels of gay marriage. I had no idea within 18 months of starting sharing my testimony, our culture was going to take a 180-degree turn. I could see God’s timing in that.”
Since then, Linda has shared her testimony many times. She has also shared her dissertation research on people who have experienced Gospel transformation in their sexual identity.
Linda began to shift from local on-campus ministry with Chi Alpha to a national role in 2020. She was already serving on the board of ReStory, but her work with Chi Alpha began to focus more on equipping pastors and campus ministers.
“I ended up in 2020 off the local campus and moving into a position where I work with Chi Alpha in a national capacity, equipping campus missionaries and student leaders on matters of what we call applied theology and culture—addressing where is our culture is at, how do we address those issues, [with] LGBTQ being one of those major issues we are addressing: how do we equip our missionaries to address that on their local campus? But [this was done] with the understanding I would be cross-pollinating; the resources I create for Chi Alpha are also helpful for local churches, pastors, parents, and so-forth. I began working much more closely with ReStory at that point.”
Linda was voted in as executive director of ReStory in 2022. While ReStory was hosting national conferences at that time, ReStory began to shift to providing teaching and training digitally.
“What we did with the [ReStory] conferences is we recorded the main sessions…and turned it into a video library that has subtitles and study guides and further resources. [We made it] like an on-demand video library to bless pastors, parents, overcomers who couldn’t come to one of those conferences, but could still benefit from the information.
So we really did a what we might call a digital discipleship pivot after that conference in 2024. We realized our efforts would be better spent investing in creating more resources digitally, rather than try pulling off another conference, [which are] a lot of work.”
ReStory continues to be a place of excellent resources for overcomers, family members, and pastors as they navigate biblical compassion without compromise in the areas of LGBTQ+ issues.
LGBTQ+ issues continue to shift and morph as time goes on. It is crucial for the Body of Christ to be aware of what is going on, as well as how to navigate said issues with grace and truth. I asked Linda what new questions she has seen emerging regarding LGBTQ+ identities and behaviors, and how the Body of Christ can prepare to respond to said questions.
“I think the latest phenomenon we’re seeing with the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) among Generation Z, especially the latest is that about 20%—1 out of every 5 students—is identifying as some form of LGBTQ. And then we have the [ROGD] spreading like wildfire among young girls. It seems to be a social contagion in the same way that bulimia, anorexia, cutting used to spread among girls. Now with the advent of social media and smart phones and a culture that is LGBTQ-affirming, it is now the cool thing to do. It’s, ‘Do you want to be one of the cool kids on the block? Then this is what you do.’”
Linda made the connection between Critical Theory and our culture’s divide classifying everyone as either the oppressed and the oppressor. ROGD, she noted, is most common among middle to upper-class white girls, though transgender identification is also seen in boys to varying degrees. Linda also noted it is common for youth to identify as non-binary first, as a testing ground of sorts. Without resolving underlying issues, this tends to lead towards full transgender identification.
“What it does is [give them a sense that they] are part of the oppressed class, a sexual minority. And so you get this special almost like a victim label. You are no longer the oppressor and get special status. As soon as you come out on social media as non-binary or transgender or whatever alternate identity…you are automatically [validated]: ‘Oh, you’re in the cool club now! You do you, be your authentic self, that’s awesome!’ They get all this praise that they’ve never gotten. And now nobody can say anything against them…so it’s like an automatic shield against peer rejection; and what teenager do you know who doesn’t want to be immune to peer rejection at a phase in your life when peer approval is more important than air or water? So we see this spreading. And because of social media, it is spreading faster than it would by word of mouth.”
Linda also pointed out how Satan seeks to deface the image of God in humanity, and how LGBTQ+-related issues are part of his work to steal, kill, and destroy.
“The enemy is using it to prey upon the vulnerabilities of children who are in that very crucial phase of life—of the developmental milestone, of sorts—where you go from being a child into adulthood. It’s a rite of passage; we all go through it…you’re uncomfortable in your body that’s changing. And you’re just so vulnerable to needing affirmation and really discovering who you are—it’s an identity phase. And that’s what LGBTQ is: it’s identity. We have to be aware that population is being preyed upon and how can we [have] answers to those questions and meet those developmental milestones in healthy ways without affirming a false identity and see the vulnerabilities for what they are, and even pre-empt them by intervening and affirming children as who God uniquely made them to be.”
I also asked Linda about polyamory, which has become more prevalent in recent years.
“As soon as we start redefining marriage, and it’s no longer one man with one woman in a lifelong blood covenant, then we start opening up to other options. It could be two men together, two women together, or why not a throuple?”
In all of these cases—whether young people are influenced by the media or peer relationships—our call as believers is to biblical compassion without compromise. Whether that means limiting social media, certain books and movies, and online chat rooms—including gaming chatrooms for online games like Roblox—or having conversations in the home, followers of Jesus are empowered to meaningfully engage with children and young adults about God’s design for sexual identity.
The escalation of LGBTQ+ issues in our culture, Linda said, are not a surprise. Our current cultural landscape, Linda explained, has been forged over time, and is not simply the result of human brokenness. From normalizing gay-identified individuals on TV to the legalization of ‘gay marriage’
“It was never about legalizing ‘gay marriage;’ you’re not all of a sudden going to legalize ‘gay marriage,’ and then everybody’s happy. I liken it to with Hitler: in my history class, we learned about what was called appeasement. If you try to appease Hitler by giving him more land, it’s never going to be enough. He would not have stopped until he had world domination and he ruled the world, and that was his aim, and that’s why he had to be stopped. [In] the same way, you cannot appease a demonic principality and power. It’s never been about, ‘Well let’s just do them “gay marriage,” and that’ll be enough.’ Nope. Because [of] the principalities and powers that are operating behind that, it’s not about marriage; it’s about destroying the concept of male and female altogether, because we are made in the image of God, and our maleness and femaleness—especially marriage as God designed it—is a foreshadowing of the ultimate marriage to come between Christ and his bride and church. [Therefore], the enemy is out to destroy that because he hates us, [and] he hates the image of God in us. [The enemy] can’t destroy God, so the best thing he can do is destroy what’s valuable to God, and that’s us. And what’s valuable to God is marriage and family and all of that. So everything escalated beyond gay marriage, and then the transgender thing hit.”
In the end, Linda pointed out the truth from Ecclesiastes: there is nothing new under the sun.
“It’s the same concept where ‘we’re going to go after what we want instead of what God [says].’”
Not everything is doom-and-gloom, however. Linda observes shifts in our culture—particularly around women’s sports—that reveal the incoherence with LGBTQ+.
“Gay marriage [was] legalized in 2015, and then on the heels of that, the transgender craze began. And it escalated to now we have biological males playing in women’s sports, and all of a sudden the NBA is like, ‘What is a woman?’ The WNBA—they don’t know if the W stands for ‘woke’ or ‘woman,’ and if it does stand for woman, is it a biological woman or a trans-woman? Nobody wants to offend. And [in] the Olympics—where we had a biological male that was boxing against females and hurting them—now the Olympics have come out and said, ‘You know what? We’re going to do genetic testing, and only biological women can compete against biological women.’ So we’re starting to see the tide turn, and I think this is one of the ways that you see the enemy overplay his hand.”
Linda also explained that the attempt to combine transgenderism with homosexual identity and behavior has increasingly shown to be incoherent.
“What we call LGBT, that didn’t exist back in the 80’s. It was the lesbians and the gays. And the transgender, it was, again, a rare phenomenon among a minority of people that was mostly fetish transvestite, fringe-ish. The L’s and the G’s didn’t necessarily team up with the T’s, but that’s what you saw in modern times: putting it all together and it’s fundamentally incoherent. [Identifying as] gay [is] on the basis of sex: a biological woman attracted to another biological woman is what’s called a lesbian. But as soon as you start transcending sex and saying a biological woman can be a man now—and so she’s now a trans-man—but if she’s attracted to women, it’s still a biological woman attracted to another biological [woman]; she’s still a lesbian. But now we’re saying she’s transgender and she’s a trans-man. It’s logically incoherent when you start erasing sex and replacing it with the idea of gender. So, we’re seeing all of this stuff be exposed for how illogical it inherently…is, and especially with the biological males competing against biological females. There are enough people who are speaking out now. You don’t even have to be a Christian to recognize how ludicrous it is and how we need to speak out against this.”
Like in my interview with Joe Dallas in June, Linda talked about how recent Supreme Court rulings help strengthen the ability for ministries like Outpost to offer support to those who are seeking wholeness in their sexual identity. She also stated that despite Gen Z’s tendency to self-diagnose,
“our culture is becoming more and more aware of how trauma from our past can inform our present reality, and the way we respond to triggers and things like that. And so you hear all over the place now it’s like, ‘Are you trauma-informed?’ I do think you know some of the Gen-Z’ers take it a step too far and they’re over diagnosing and all of that. But the fact that people are becoming more and more aware of trauma and its impact—that is a new day for us, because we know so many people that struggle with their sexuality actually do have trauma from their past that needs to be worked through. As they work through it, many times they start finding that their struggles sexually diminish to the degree that they’re dealing with the trauma and finding healing.”
I closed our interview by asking Linda what her encouragement to readers would be.
“[LGBTQ+ issues are] no different than any other matter of discipleship in the Christian life. We all break in different ways, but the solution is the same: it’s Jesus. It’s surrender to Him. It’s aligning ourselves with His word, His will, His way. [It’s] surrendering all of who we are to Him and trusting…God to conform us to the image of Christ each day that we walk with Him. [We are] putting off the old self, being made new in the attitude of our mind, so we can put on the new self [that is] created to be like God and to hear his voice (Ephesians 4:22-24). The feedback I get everywhere I go, Scott, is people [coming] up to me afterwards and [saying], ‘You know, I have never struggled with LGBTQ; I have a different area where I’m struggling. But everything you shared today applies to my struggle!’ And I [say], ‘Yes,’ and it’s because discipleship is the same for all of us. ‘Whoever would come after me,’ Jesus says, ‘must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Me.’ That’s what it is and just the process. It’s not about, ‘Oh, I have to change my sexual attraction’—that’s just a byproduct, that’s just fruit of a deeper root.
I think the church, as a whole, took the bait that [LGBTQ is] somehow…different. [It’s] the argument that you’re born that way, can’t change. So somehow, [LGBTQ] is [seen as] different than any other area. I’m sorry, the murderer is not ‘born that way, can’t change.’ Nor is the drunkard, or the thief, or the arrogant guy, or the promiscuous girl, or whatever. Sin is sin. Yep, the desires are strong, they’re real. But ‘such were some of you,’ and homosexuality is listed in a list of all sorts of sins we’re used to seeing people get free from all the time. If Scripture doesn’t list it as a separate category of sin, then why in the world are we treating it as if it’s somehow different? [Or] that it’s the leprosy of all sin that you can’t get free from? No, it’s not.”
We are so grateful for Linda’s testimony and insights. Although we see a lot of confusion and pain in our world, God still redeems and restores through the Cross. As we look ahead to our 50th anniversary celebration this October, we want to celebrate what God has done for those seeking wholeness in their sexual identity. We also look forward to looking ahead at what God is calling us to as a ministry. Your partnership allows us to continue the ministry God has entrusted to us; you are a vital part of this ministry. We invite you to celebrate 50 years of ministry with us. To God be all praise, glory, and honor! Amen.
Check here for details on upcoming events. We would love to celebrate with you!
