Be Not Deceived: The Sacred and Sexual Struggles of Gay and Ex-Gay Christian Men

Chapter 1: The Problem with Being Gay and Christian

In the spring of 1995, the Reverend Jimmy Creech was a guest speaker at a meeting of gay and lesbian students on a university campus. Creech, a former Methodist minister defrocked because of his gay-affirmative ministry and activism (cf. Hartman 1996, 1–24), talked about the ridicule and harassment he had suffered because of his work and about the damage caused by his church’s tenacious assertion of heterosexist doctrine. When he finished , he invited comments and questions from the audience. Among the many speakers was a young woman, a newcomer to the group, who told a story of the confusion and betrayal she felt as she sought salvation in a church that condemned her. She was a first-year student at the university who had experienced homosexual attractions since puberty. She despised these desires, she said, because she felt “they were against God.” Hoping to find a way to rid herself of these desires, she had recently confided in her pastor , who told her to pray and then quickly dismissed her. The next Sunday, the pastor preached a hellfire sermon against homosexuality, declaring that one of the “demonic” was among the congregation. His sermon so clearly revealed the identity of this “demon” that the woman left the church, humiliated. When she returned home several hours later, her belongings were in the driveway, the doors were locked, and no one answered her knock. She gathered her things and returned to school. “No one in my family has spoken to me since then,” she said, The Problem with Being Gay and Christian 1 3 4 “ B E N O T D E C E I V E D ” adding, “I don’t know what to do. I have never felt so dirty or so alone. I think I might be going to hell.” The young woman’s story gripped me. I wondered why she felt badly about herself, rather than angry at being betrayed by her pastor and family. As a nonreligious heterosexual, I had had the luxury, until attending that meeting, of never thinking much about such issues. Now that I was confronted with them, I was puzzled and irritated. How could avowed Christians act with so little compassion? Why did this woman care about that lousy pastor? It was not until later, when I had heard similar stories from others, that I began to understand the woman’s story, her predicament, and the depth of her feeling. In a faith that demands heterosexuality, people who feel homosexual desire can experience themselves as sinners, frauds, and failed Christians. This young woman felt that her homosexual desires went “against God” and disqualified her from being the kind of person she had always hoped to be, a situation that felt dire because of its potential consequences and because she had yet to figure out how she, as a Christian, might cope with these desires. This woman’s story, this kind of struggle, while troubling, is not unique. At present, there are thousands of Christians who experience homosexual desires and who must come to terms with what those desires mean in the context of their faith and in their lives. For some, predominately those from liberal or mainline denominations (cf. Roof and McKinney 1987, 155–157), such deliberations may pose little problem either because diversity is better tolerated within these groups and/ or because adherents feel assured of God’s love and see no significant contradiction between their religious beliefs and their sexuality. Some also choose to handle the situation by leaving the church and its teachings behind. For many others, particularly those affiliated with conservative denominations, these deliberations are enormously difficult and consequential. Unable to alter either their religious beliefs or their sexuality, these Christians feel that what is at stake in this struggle is much of what they hold most valuable: relationships with friends, family , and a faith community; their sense of themselves as good and moral; and, most critically, their spiritual journeys and eternal salvation. Ensconced within a religious community that unequivocally condemns homosexuality as against God’s teachings, these people, like the woman above, feel great anxiety and shame about their sexuality. They can also experience an overwhelming fear for their souls. In these situa- T H E P R O B L E M W I T H B E I N G G AY A N D C H R I S T I...