Illuminating the Gospel: An Anonymous Conversation with a Gay Christian

“I have this innate recognition that without suffering we don’t know Christ. Without suffering in this life, there is no chance for me to understand the gospel it its fullness… What an incredible, tangible, in my face, loud opportunity I have on a daily basis to see myself as in need of the grace and the love of Jesus Christ and the wholeness that he gives me, even when my flesh screams for wholeness somewhere else.“

The following is a conversation I had with a friend of mine. He is involved in ministry at a neighboring church and from a very young age has recognized in himself an attraction to men. It is only recently that he has started to be more open about his experience and he has yet to make it a part of his public ministry (so he has asked to remain anonymous). The conversation is separated into three chapters for easier reading (in case you need to stop and pick up where you let off later), but it is meant to be considered as a whole. Some of the ways that he interprets his experience may be upsetting to some – in fact, I am certain of it – but the point is neither to comfort nor to convince, but to promote and encourage understanding. If the conversation angers you or raises questions for you, I hope that you will read to the end and embrace the tension. Being human is neither simple nor easy and faith in Christ is often complicated. Still, I hope that you learn from my friend – as I often have – how suffering illuminates the gospel and the privilege of knowing intimately our dependence on Christ.

If you would like to read in three separate sittings, you can find links to the chapters below:

My words are in bold while his words are not.

Chapter One: Communities

Did you grow up in church? What was your family like and what kind of community that you live in?

Yeah, I grew up in a Methodist church. My family was very discipleship oriented – very righteousness oriented – and I think looking back at my childhood, even though things weren’t perfect, I had an incredibly healthy example in my home life and in my upbringing of grace and righteousness coming hand in hand, being called to live uprightly and regard your sin all the time. I had parents who were always asking you to ask for forgiveness from your siblings and explaining why things were wrong and bringing everything back to the Lord. Like, vacuuming the den on a Saturday morning was a spiritual task that my mom would talk about, like, how can you do that to honor the Lord? Annoyingly upright and like righteousness-driven, but not legalistic. There wasn’t really this attitude of needing to be perfect and needing to be better. There was a lot of grace in my house and there were a lot of tears. There were a lot of conversations around hurt and pain.

I really think that’s a lot of what saved me regarding my own sexuality: my parents intentionality toward my own pain and holding me with grace and teaching me righteousness. But I think what would have made the world of a difference in ways that I can’t even imagine is if they would have let me see it in them. They never let us see it in them, how they were messing up, or how they were in need of grace, or they were in pain. Never, like, at all.

So did your parents know about your own temptation or struggle?

No, not till I was in ninth grade, and they knew because my dad saw the internet history that I was searching for hot or attractive or whatever pictures of guys and knew it wasn’t my little sister because she was 10 at the time. Back then 10 year-olds definitely did not know about pornography. Nowadays, that’s different.

How did he approach that?

They were really… they both called me into the room where the computer was and I knew. I knew why they were calling me up there because they had been up there for about an hour and everything was really quiet. So, they had been talking about something. And I walked in, and they were both red-eyed and weeping – like, quiet weeping not loud weeping – but they’re just red-eyed. And they had clearly been crying for a long time. And… and you know, it was the whole like, “son, we need to talk” and “what is this? Is this you?” And “do you struggle with these things?”

Their conversation with me was incredibly loving and incredibly calm and also very healing-driven. Like, “we want to see you healed and we want to believe in your healing and we want to do everything we can as your parents to love you and encourage you toward healing.” I don’t think they believed that that something was going to heal me. I think they just believed that God has a heart to heal me. And so, why not care about that above all else? It felt really loving to me at the time and kind of exciting as a young ninth grader who knew his whole life that he’s gross, or outcast, or wrong, or messed up, you know? For all of a sudden, in one day, for that to just be switched and my parents know me and see me and love me and say, “you’re gonna be healed; we’re gonna be praying continually and we believe God’s heart is to heal you.”

I was all for it. I was all for it. And I still kind of am to an extent, but there’s been a lot of change even in that realm of things. Even whenever it first happened, my parents saw Satan at work in their son and that God desires to heal their son. And it’s… it’s become over time much more of a story—they’ve had a change of heart. It’s become much more of a story of Satan has attempted our son’s whole life, to ruin him, but in the middle of the pain, confusion, fear, and anxiety, we see time and time again how God has been faithful and God has been good. How God has been loving. How God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s attention toward us has continually called our son home… without fixing him. It’s been much more of a thing that’s illuminated the gospel rather than a thing that’s hindered the gospel. Whenever they first found out about it, “oh, we need to see the gospel alive in our son, so, we need to get rid of this thing,” you know? And that’s changed over time.

But right now you’re not “out” yet. I mean, you’re telling certain people, but it’s not a part of your public ministry.

Right.

So, how would you identify, I guess, privately? You know, there are these conversations about whether Christians can call themselves same sex attracted or a gay Christian or a Christian who struggles with such-and-such. How would you identify and what was the process like coming to that realization?

I think most people that I agree with theologically would expect me to identify Same Sex Attracted, or Struggles with Same Sex Attraction, which I’m fine with. I’m fine with that. I also know there’s a spectrum of sexuality and it’s really helpful for people who… who are atypically on the spectrum to recognize that there’s a spectrum and to recognize that everyone struggles with temptation uniquely. There’s not just a pool of straight people and a pool of gay people and a pool of bi people, you know? The spectrum has helped me a lot to recognize that sin is sin and temptation is temptation and lust is lust. But on that spectrum, I would identify same-sex-attracted and even gay. I’m fine with gay and I’m fine with homosexual. I like homosexual a lot, because I think that’s really clear. I think same sex attracted a lot of times sounds like I’m trying to sugarcoat something.

I believe sexuality is a huge part of our identity. I know that my identity is rooted in Christ, but I don’t buy all the talk of like, well, that’s not your identity and don’t make it your identity. I just feel like we can’t help but wrap ourselves up in things that are that are huge, whether family, or passions, or jobs, or giftings. And sexuality is a huge part of who we are. And I think sometimes it takes being an atypical sexuality – or what would be deemed an abnormal sexuality – to recognize how big of a role it plays in who we are. I think maybe straight people might see sexuality is something that, of course, is a part of life, but isn’t part of identity. And as a gay man, I’m like, yeah, it is. You don’t realize how much of your life, your conversations, your friendships, your interactions, the things you’ve been involved in, the things you haven’t been involved in, the people you’ve flocked to, the people you haven’t flocked to… like, you don’t realize how much of your life has been formed by your sexual desires.

It’s like, being outside of what’s considered normal, you’ve been rubbing up against that.

I’ve been rubbing up against it. Because so much of my life has been formed by my sexual desires. It’s just in my face. I recognize the friends that I’m attracted to, the friends I’m not attracted to, the situations that I’m afraid of, the situations that I feel like I can have power over. It’s always on my mind. So, I have a hard time believing it’s not always on straight people’s minds. It’s just in different ways. More incognito, maybe.

But I went to I went to a college where there’s a lot of gay people or LGBTQ people and so I’m very comfortable with those people as being people. There’s a lot of people who struggle with homosexuality who are still homophobic, just being raised in this culture. I know many of those and I would not say I’m one of those, because for many years, while I still was ashamed of myself, or kept my sexuality silent, I was friends with a lot of LGBTQ people.

So, to identify as gay is not offensive to me in any way, because I have many gay friends who I love dearly and regard as normal people. And so I even kind of like identifying as a gay Christian, or a gay man, or whatever, because I just think it’s clear. I think it just tells someone what they almost expect to hear and it’s not wrong, you know? I almost kind of love someone hearing that I’m gay and then assuming whatever they want to assume and then me helping clear it up. Well, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean that I’m having sex with men or that I’m practicing, you know, relationships of homosexuality. I kind of like that rather than saying I’m same sex attracted and people wondering, “what do you mean by that?” or “how much?” or “so, just like a little bit? So, you just kind of like guys a little bit? or, you know.

(sarcastically) But you’ll be married to a woman one day?

(chuckling) Yeah, yeah, exactly. “But you can be straight even though you’re same sex attracted, right?” or things like that. But if I just say I’m gay, then I kind of like run and jump off the cliff without letting them assume things and then I get to kind of reel it back in, you know?

So, growing up in these communities, did you ever think that you would just embrace that and walk away from the church and Christ and just leave that all behind?

I never did never once.

What do you think kept you from doing that?

Shame. I think I would want to say fear of God kept me from giving in because I believe God is who he says he is and he knows what’s best and he speaks truth and he calls me higher. There was some of that, of course. That’s intertwined in all that, because I do love the Lord and have always loved the Lord. But fear of man has been the thing that’s kept me from giving in. I am so addicted to being accepted by people, not only because of what I struggle with, but also just because of my personality. I happened to be a very people-oriented, relationship-oriented person who is a people pleaser, even absent of my sexuality. The thought of being – even if people don’t reject me – the thought of being dismissed, or seen as weak, or seen as not loving the Lord enough, of being dismissed from a platform of leadership in the church, or the community of Christians being kind of taken away because of what I’ve chosen, the thought of any of that is way worse than the thought of not having sex with a man my entire life.

Of course, I have dealt with pornography – secret sin – and would and could very much so see myself having some time in my life dabbling in homosexual relationships, but only secretly in shamefully. I really think, knowing myself, the only way I will ever dabble in that physically is if I give in to a secret temptation and it somehow probably ruining me and it probably coming back to bite me in the butt. I don’t think I would ever give in as a lifestyle or embracing this as my earthly identity – embracing this as me – because it just has never felt like me. It’s always felt like something that’s not me. And it’s probably because I’ve hated it for so long.

So, I do need to do some healing there because there is an extent to which I need to kind of welcome it back in and not hate that side of me. And there is a fear that as I fully, or hopefully fully, welcome in the things that I’m shameful of in order for people and God to love me in that place and even see me healed in that place, that I would start being more okay with it. Like, maybe it’s fine? But even as I have started that process, I don’t feel theologically or personally any difference in my conviction at all. Not at all. I really don’t.

And you could, right? I mean, there’s plenty of people do. There are major movements in mainline denominations that would completely welcome and celebrate that. So, what keeps you from kind of that articulation of the church? What keeps you in more conservative theological communities?

I have talked with many people who are in my place sexually, regarding their sexuality, who have started to become a part of those communities you describe. At the risk of sounding prideful, I think I see myself as a little bit of a remnant or a set apart type of person—a child of God. I’ve always regarded those people in those conversations feeling like what I discern in them is ultimately a need to please themselves over the Lord. Ultimately, it’s a need to feel comfort over a willingness to feel suffering. I have this innate – I didn’t do anything to create it in me – this innate recognition that without suffering we don’t know Christ. Without suffering in this life, there is no chance for me to understand the gospel in its fullness, and when I see people do everything they can to even disregard some Scripture that we do have for the sake of comforting themselves, it just seems backwards to me. We use the truth of Scripture to comfort us in our earthly realities. We don’t change the truth of Scripture to make our earthly realities more comfortable. And that’s just always been clear to me. And I don’t think I did anything to create that. I really think it’s the Lord’s grace in my life and I think it’s true. I really think it’s true that as a gay man. What an incredible, tangible, in my face, loud opportunity I have on a daily basis to see myself as in need of the grace and the love of Jesus Christ and the wholeness that he gives me, even when my flesh screams for wholeness somewhere else.

So have you expressed that kind of faith and that kind of conviction to people who are affirming?

Maybe three or four or five times?

How is that usually received?

Not well, not well. Yeah, it’s not usually received well and I… it has been hard for me to feel like not only do I believe truth, but I know it to be true from my experiences of how God has been even more near to me whenever I even more forcefully reject sin or am broken in it. I feel like I’m interpreting the Bible in the right way and I also feel like that correct interpretation has found itself to be true in my experience of God. So it’s frustrating when those two things just fall on deaf ears. It’s so frustrating. And it’s been hard whenever it feels like, if there’s ever a time where my leadership is going to mean something, it’s right now, and even in that moment to recognize, oh my gosh, the Holy Spirit really does all the work. It’s not me. And love really is the most important thing, not my correction or my rebuke. It is the continuing to love that person, no matter what, that might ultimately work toward their redemption. For me to be to them what God has always been to me, no matter what I choose, no matter how much I hoard my sin, no matter how much I don’t confess, no matter how much I look at porn, or whatever. God’s always been like, “I’m still here and I still love you so much and I want what’s best for you.” The realization that I have to be that to the people that won’t receive the truth for me, you know? Well, man, I have not received it from God many times. So like, why would expect that? If God is humble enough to say, “I know that these humans I have created in my image will often reject me,” then why would I be prideful enough to think that I shouldn’t be rejected by one of those humans?

Right? Because you’ve explained it so well.

(chuckling) I’ve explained it so well, yeah.

They’re just not ready. They’re not ready. And that’s been hard. I thought my whole life I’m meant to change the homosexual community, and I think I can in a lot of ways, but it’s all God.

Chapter Two: Lowliness

“I’m okay with my homosexuality and I know that brings me toward God. It always calls me toward lowliness and into scary places of obedience. But like, I’ll keep holding it. It’s made me closer to God. Without Christ, I would still be very distant from God, and even if I was still choosing to not walk out in this, I think I would kind of hate God. But the example of Christ in his suffering makes God make sense and makes Christ makes sense and makes me feel kind of high. And maybe some of its prideful. But I mean, even the Scripture is like, he will bring you low in order to exalt you.”

So, this still isn’t part of your public ministry. What is that like? What is it like having a kind of private ministry, but also having this public ministry where you only talk about your sin in a vague sense?

That’s hard. It’s something that I… I don’t feel emotional right now, but I could cry over it, because it’s just hard. It’s such a desire I have and… it feels like it’s so impossible. What I’ve learned in my process of becoming more unashamed of the gospel and not ashamed of how my sin plays into that – so telling more and more people – what I’ve learned is that there are many times when I want to tell and it might not be helpful, and there are many times when I don’t want to tell and it’d be very helpful. I really do have to rely on the voice of God, that conviction of the Spirit in my own heart. But just knowing the leading from his Spirit, the peace that his presence brings, I have learned how important it is to regard that in my ministry, to not just assume. There are many situations where I go in like, “please, God, don’t make me share, please don’t make me share, I don’t want to share, I’m not going to share here,” I end up sharing and it’s so good.

I do want it to be more public, but I think that the moment of me actually sharing publicly in a sermon or in a teaching or something, somehow, somewhere, it’s even going to be a moment that God’s going to lead me to that I’m going to see and it’s going to be clear. I’m probably not going to want to do it, but I’m going to know that I should.

So, I wanted to be a part of my public ministry, but I want it to be I’d rather be a part of my public ministry because the people I shepherd more and more know that about me, rather than because I’ve announced it.

Well, because if you announce it, all of a sudden that is your whole ministry. All of a sudden, you’re a gay pastor who talks about how it’s okay to be a gay Christian and your whole ministry centers on that.

Exactly.

All of a sudden, that’s all you can do, even though we don’t treat other sins that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a college guy who used to be in the church here and was back over winter break and was talking with me about life, you know, and like, he wanted to talk about singleness, because he was struggling really hard with having roommates who were either engaged or almost engaged. He’d had a couple failed relationships and didn’t really see a wife in his near future – or a girlfriend or fiancé in his near future – and was feeling very distraught about it. He really was a very godly, very Christ loving and fearing man who was just struggling with all this anxiety and frustration and fear with his singleness.

He asked me for advice because he knew me as a late 20s man, still single and seemingly okay with it, and I knew in that when he was sharing this, it just it was one of those Holy Spirit, like, the kind of pressure calming weight on you that like, I need to share this. And it didn’t end up being a homosexuality conversation. I just told him, “you think you know what I’m going through and I appreciate your encouragement, but you don’t, and for me to tell you what I’ve learned about the Kingdom in my singleness, I need to tell you a lot more about me.”

It ended up being a conversation of idols and false gospels, that in my life and my singleness I have had to repent of false gospels I have believed. Like, I’ll be saved if I’m straight, or, I’ll be saved if I’m married. I’ve had to repent of those. I had to actually believe that intimacy with the Lord is all I need. I’ve had to call God up on that, you know, and ask him to meet me. I’ve had to believe in the family of my friends and of believers in my church. I’ve had to welcome couples into my life to know me in my sexuality and still lovingly include me in their family. I’ve had to do all these things to be okay with my singleness. And I know that he, as a straight man who really wants to have a girlfriend and wants to have a fiancé, is in a completely different place that me, but similarly, would he be willing to repent to false Gospels and false narratives? And would he be willing to go to a kind of humble broken place before the Lord and seek him as his satisfaction in similar ways that I’ve had to and ways I’ve chosen to?

It’s been here in that moment, he didn’t know me as a gay pastor. He didn’t know me as gay pastor, he knew me as a man after God’s heart that he wanted to ask advice for and I got to use my raw, shameful places of brokenness to shepherd his heart toward the Lord. And I want that to happen so much so that people start to know it about me and even share it with other people without feeling bad about it. But yet, I’m not known as like the pastor who only leads in that thing. Anyways, that’s kind of rambling.

I feel like God has been preparing hearts in my community to hear my story, you know. And I’ve felt God saying, “these are going to be people that I’m going to ask you to share with,” and I’ve even seen how he’s kind of prepared their hearts to be able to have this conversation and be like minded with me. I felt him over and over in ways that I would have never imagined with people I would have never imagined. I felt him gaining and growing my community of loving, sharpening, edifying believers, and I know that it’s probably ultimately for a season where I’m not going to experience that from believers, where there’s going to be more persecution, or more hatred, or more rejection. But I think if and when that comes, I’m going to be ready for it in ways that I’m not now and I’ll respond like Christ would. But I think right now I might respond with more anger, or hatred, or self-righteousness. So that’s one hope that I have is that he’s preparing me for that.

So, going off of that, how has this experience affected your relationship with Christ? Not so much how has Christ affected the way you struggle, but how has having this as part of who you are had an influence on the way that you follow Christ, the way that you love Christ, and the way that you approach him?

It’s good. It’s made me not… in a weird way, it’s made me not assume that he owes me something. It’s illuminated his sufferings in my mind. I’ve been dealt this hand that seems unfair. But ultimately, I find life in this place of suffering, and that’s the story of Jesus—dealt a hand by God that would very much so seem unfair and ultimately finding greater glory, greater satisfaction, greater wholeness, and a lot of eternal purpose in his obedience to the suffering.

The older I get, the less I wish that my life were more comfortable and the more I kind of cling to the discomfort. I kind of like the suffering and I feel really close to Christ in my suffering, in my confusion, and kind of cling to it. And I don’t get mad at God because of it, because I see how it’s made me love Jesus more and believe in Jesus more. I believe in his story more, the story of the passion of Jesus Christ. It’s made me believe in it more in like, that it has to be true. And God had to have done that to save me and to love me and to bring me in. And I don’t want to rid myself of it because I kind of want to, like, keep holding it.

I’m okay with my homosexuality and I know that brings me toward God. It always calls me toward lowliness and into scary places of obedience. But like, I’ll keep holding it… Yeah… it’s made me closer to God. Without Christ, I would still be very distant from God, and even if I was still choosing to not walk out in this, I think I would kind of hate God. But the example of Christ in his suffering makes God make sense and makes Christ makes sense and makes me feel kind of high. And maybe some of its prideful. But I mean, even the Scripture is like, he will bring you low in order to exalt you. So I feel exalted, even in my place in ministry, even in not being “out” publicly. I often talk with people and feel like, I get the gospel way more than all of you do. I feel kind of exalted by God. I’m like, thanks. Thanks for exalting me in my suffering.

I think there’s many people like you in my life who don’t struggle with homosexuality, but yet have welcomed brokenness in their life and experience God exalting them in different ways. I don’t think it has to just be tragic death, sex, brokenness, or adultery. There’s plenty of people that I’ve been friends with that I’ve seen that same sense of welcoming suffering to be exalted in Christ and haven’t had the big crazy thing that they unveil, you know, like the big secret. So, I think there’s a lot of people that get it, but don’t have the big thing, but I am kind of thankful to have a big thing, because I think it’s helped me know Christ.

So, what are some of the helpful ways that people have approached this with you, as you’ve shared? And what are some of the unhelpful ways that people have approached it?

Unhelpful, I just think of people who expect me to be healed from it, or people to expect me to be normal. It’s really burdensome. Whenever someone finds out that I’m homosexual, their first thought is wanting to come alongside in prayer for my healing. But it’s like, do you just not want to see how much the gospel has been magnified through this? Come on, like, come on, man! God didn’t mess up in doing this to me, and you’re worried about me being healed quickly seems as if you think he messed up. That pulls me back to my elementary and middle school days; you wanting me to be healed so badly is like shoving me back in that middle school, elementary school kid where I thought God messed up, where I was so confused and so pissed, because he must have messed up and he must have forgotten to make me normal.

Then the other thing is that when people expect me to want to be married or want to date. I do want to I want to have a wife. I do. I really do. And I want to have sex with her and learn how to enjoy and how to how to serve her and vice versa. I want to raise kids. I like dating. I even like pursuing women. There are things about me that still want a female partner, to comfort and to hold her, too. I want a lot of those things, but when people assume that I, like, crave dating women like they do, that’s been really burdensome for me.

I had a conversation with my dad one time where he was always expecting me to start dating. Just to like, dabble in it, you know? “Son, it’ll be good for you.” And I agreed with him, but finally said, “Dad, the thought of you dating a man romantically, like, how does that sit with you? You know?” And he was like, “well, that’s, I find that disgusting.” And I said, “even though I can agree with you that heterosexuality is holy and homosexuality is not, you have to recognize that I, in many ways, see myself dating a woman very similarly to the way you see yourself dating a man, and you can just pretend that that discomfort isn’t always present in me.” And he handled that really graciously and understood.

So when people expect me to act straight, and when people expect me to want to be healed quickly, I like… I think straight is good and I want to be healed. It sounds awesome and I believe in it. But it’s when people come to the table with that first that it hurts me, because you’re missing something.

And then, when people respond good, the biggest thing has been when people tell me they trust me. I’ve told one of my mentors one time and he just told me that he trusted me more than he did before. He said, “I would let you be alone with my son even more joyfully and more excitedly than then 20 minutes ago, because it’s not about how sinful you are or are not. It’s about your integrity, and it’s about your confession, and your willingness to build trust with me. And your confession means the world and I trust you more than ever before.” That was huge.

When you tell people, do you feel like all the sudden they feel that your relationship with Christ is kind of their responsibility? They feel like they need to make sure you’re getting it right or make sure you’re doing it the right way.

Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. The same thing that I was trying to do with the gay people who don’t agree with me, theologically, you know? Yeah, yeah, I feel that.

So the more helpful times when people don’t do that.

(chuckling) Yeah, right. That’s a good point. When they just regard me. Yeah, that’s been the most helpful times. Trust means the world and when you do everything you can on your own accord to build trust with people your whole life because you think you don’t deserve it, and then you actually allow yourself to lay before them broken in confession and realize that for the first time this actually built trust. It just illuminates the gospel, like, the upside-downness of the gospel of Jesus. The things you don’t think are going to bring about holy outcomes end up doing just that.

Chapter Three: Redemption

“My testimony is not a homosexual testimony, it is a sin and redemption testimony. I want my understanding of sin and redemption in my life to speak to other people’s understanding of sin and redemption and their life, whether or not it’s the same sin. That’s what we’re missing in America. That’s freaking what we’re missing in America. I mean, like, suburbs and fences and locked doors and social media, all the things that that enhance manipulation and deception and allow people to live in secrecy. Our churches are the same way.”

What are some things that you wish people understood about your experience?

A lot, you know, but one this is… in adolescence, everyone around you has started talking about their sexual attractions to people, using their mouth to describe what they like on a daily basis, almost on a daily basis, and multiple times a day for most people. Even things like men, she’s hot. Or like, well, yeah, she’s cute, or I really like her or, or even more than that.

I have never – never in my life once – not used my mouth to describe what I’m feeling sexually. And I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know if it’ll ever be something that I just feel like I would like to say, or to describe, you know?

Why you think you haven’t done that?

Well, totally fear of being of it being disgusting to the person that’s listening, or being really uncomfortable.

Not even to people who share your experience or people who would be pretty affirming of your sexuality?

Honestly, that’s never really cross my mind. It’s mainly been the opposite. I’ve never talked about my sexuality with someone who would want… actually there’s two people that love the Lord a lot that I shared with that really wanted me to experience it, to live out homosexuality. And like, 30 minutes into the conversation their hearts kind of changed, because they do love the Lord but are very liberal and lived in L.A. and were friends with a lot of people and had kind of just submitted to saying, “I care about loving them more than I care about whether or not it’s right or wrong.” And they didn’t even think when I confessed it to them or talked about it with them to encourage me toward holiness. The first thought was like, “You’re, you’re fine, you’re loved. Like, I want you to be happy.” And I was like, but I want you to hear me say that it won’t make me happy. They’re like, “why?” And, you know, having a theological conversation with them was kind of weird.

So, it’s mostly because I want to be normal. I don’t want people to be grossed out. One time, a friend and I were talking about sexuality and he was talking about wanting to care for me and love me and be accountable with me just to like his straight friends. He was being kind and saying it’s no different. But he’s like, “we’ll be at a restaurant and there’s a really good looking waitress and like, you know, we say that it’s really hard not to look at her butt while she’s walking away,” you know? But if I were at a restaurant with him and we had a waiter and he started walking by and I was like, “man, his biceps are nice,” even if he weren’t offended or weirded out, he’d probably be like, “oh, thanks for telling me and trusting me,” or like, “I hear you.” And like, even if you’re loving about it, like no one… no one wants their normality to be deep every time they bring it up. It’s always either weird or deep. You know, it’s either like “ew, gross,” or it’s like, “thanks for being vulnerable.”

It’s a thing every time.

It’s a thing every time! And if you didn’t make it a thing, that would feel like a thing, too. If he were like, “yeah, man, he’s freaking buff,” I’d be like, it’s kind of weird that he’s trying to kind of encourage my attractions and my sexual desires right now. And I know he’s doing it to make me feel normal or typical or seen or loved or whatever for who I am, but he can’t win. There’s nothing he can do to win in that situation. I just have to accept that.

Do you have more encouraging or open conversations like that with people who share your experience?

Not at all. Not at all. And I think we’ve kind of talked about that before. Like, why do I never open up like that with people who struggle like me? I do want my sin to be a normal sin and talk about it with people, but maybe not. But maybe I’m just judging straight as easier than it is. I perceive heterosexuality as something where you can discuss your sexuality frequently, even in ways that don’t feel like you’re discussing your sexuality, like whenever I told a friend that the fact that his wife is in his phone as “Sexy Wife,” that is him expressing his sexuality, even though he doesn’t realize it.

It seems like heterosexual people get to regard their sexuality all the time in healthy ways or in ways that don’t immediately trigger them to dabble in an addiction or to commit adultery or to lust like crazy or whatever. Even if there’s always temptation and lust there, it seems as though our culture or society allows heterosexuality to be discussed frequently. If I saw a movie where two men were making out, I would probably be like, this isn’t good for me to watch. But we see straight people making out all the time and it’s normal. And maybe straight people just are always lusting – and I am too – but I mean, maybe it’s just like, they don’t realize how sinful they are, how deep we are in lust we are as straight people in our culture, but it’s like, I can’t. I mean, none of my sexuality can be normalized, because it just feels wrong and it feels like I’m always fighting it. So even to be with a safe person where I could be like, “that guy’s really attractive,” and he would be like, “yeah, of course he is,” after that comment it’s kind of like, why did we even say that? Why did we even go there? We didn’t need to go there.

But it seems like straight guys can be like, “that girl’s really attractive” and be like, “yeah, of course she is,” and there’s this normality to it. As long as we don’t really say anything bad or keep talking about it, it’s totally fine to regard her as really attractive, you know? Yeah… and I don’t know what’s true or not true. Is it okay for me to regard my attractions a little bit more normally? Or has it just revealed to me how lustful our whole world is always? Not to condemn people who talk about attractive people; I just mean, wow, we really are so lustful all the time. Maybe I just have a greater awareness of that, you know?

There are going to be people who read this interview and this doesn’t answer hardly any questions. This is more just your experience an what it has looked like for you. People will have questions. People will be angry – on both sides – about the way that you’re interpreting your experience or the way that you’re handling your ministry. But for the people who have questions and want to do this right, how should they go about it? How should they be better brothers and sisters to people in your situation?

I think relationship – community – I think it changes everything, and if people could hear my experience and just be encouraged by the fact that when I, for the first time in my life, started to actually let people see me in my worst, that was the first time in my life that I felt people love me, actually. People’s love and attention toward me was a healthy thing that mended me, rather than just a comfy thing.

The people who I’ve talked to who are gay, who do not agree with me theologically, every single time, they don’t have community. That’s become, to those people, my encouragement. Before you decide for yourself what you will do the rest of your life, allow yourself to actually be held by people who love Jesus. Give the darkest places of yourself over to people who profess to love the Lord and believe in grace, and watch how the gospel of grace – whenever your darkness is held by people around you – watch how that starts to change, hopefully, the way you decide is true and untrue.

I am someone who has allowed his feelings and experiences to be interpreted through truth and tradition, and when people have allowed their experiences and feelings to be interpreted by their experiences and feelings, it goes nowhere. And that bridge from experiences and feelings to also reconcile that with truth and tradition, that bridge has been relationship, actual relationship, every time. It’s been someone crying with me or me crying with them about actual pain, and actual confusion. And it’s never not illuminated the gospel—with family, with friends with mentors, with people by whom I’ve been taught, with strangers even. It’s never not illuminated the gospel whenever actual confession and brokenness has existed. Like, Satan doesn’t have a place. So, I hope that people could, like, read this and… and be encouraged to not just want to know more of the people around them, but to let them know more of them.

Because this isn’t really a conversation about struggling with homosexuality. Yeah. It’s about struggling with sin.

Yes! Yes, that’s good. Yes, this is… and that is the reason why I haven’t yelled from the pulpit my sin struggle, even though I want to, and I think there’s good in that. There’s good in that. Because I’ve become more whole as I’ve realized that my testimony is not a homosexual testimony, it is a sin and redemption testimony. I want my understanding of sin and redemption in my life to speak to other people’s understanding of sin and redemption and their life, whether or not it’s the same sin. That’s what we’re missing in America. That’s freaking what we’re missing in America. I mean, like, suburbs and fences and locked doors and social media, all the things that that enhance manipulation and deception and allow people to live in secrecy. Our churches are the same way. I don’t want my whole church to know that I’m gay. I want my whole church to know everyone’s sin in our whole church, and that includes my whole church knowing I’m gay. And I know I actually don’t want everyone to know everyone’s sin. I just want everyone in our church to be known by people in our church, fully. So, part of that narrative is my church knowing I’m gay, but it’s not because I told my church I’m gay, you know?

 It’s because they know about your sin, holistically.

Yes, yeah.

So really, what the most helpful way to go about this is not to find a gay Christian in their community and fix them or try to convince them that they trust them or anything like that. It’s just to start building communities where we’re more open and we’re more honest about our own brokenness, and we see our own brokenness for what it is. So often we seem to think it’s about the straight church helping the gay church, or whatever. And instead of it being like that, it’s about all of us being broken and humble, just sinners and saints who love each other and mutually need Jesus. This isn’t really about how we bear the burdens of our gay brothers and sisters. It’s about how we bear each other’s burdens and let our gay brothers and sisters bear our burdens as well?

 Yes. Like, can we repent? Can we freaking repent, but then be instruments of real unity? No matter your upbringing, no matter your pain, you know? Real pain and real error, real things that need repenting of, and I think the same thing about my homosexuality. I think it’s a huge gateway to our church actually repenting of some big sh-t and starting to walk in real oneness with everyone’s pain and everyone’s confession.

Right? Because, yeah, one type of Christian is not the savior of another.

Yeah. That’s right.

We are all mutual sinners in need of a mutual Savior.

Yeah, so, the straight Christian is not the savior of the gay Christian and even the opposite. I find myself sometimes thinking that I, as the gay Christian, can be the savior of the straight Christian, even.

Sure, but I mean one side needs to learn a lot from the other. One side does need to learn a lot and other Christians who struggle with heteronormativity – the idea that theirs is the normal temptation – need to learn from people who share your experience. No sin is normal. Yeah, that’s probably the most frustrating thing to me about this these conversations is that no sin is normal to being human, including, you know, the ones I struggle with from my side of the sexuality spectrum. So, we can start we can learn a lot, I think, from gay Christians and the ways that people with your experience are loving Christ and loving other people, and the things that it’s teaching you about community. Even heterosexuals shut people out of our own struggle and we like to pretend that maybe we need Jesus a little bit less.

Right, that’s good. (chuckling) Yeah, you could do this whole thing without me; you don’t need me.

(chuckling) Well, I learned it all from you, so, no, I couldn’t. But, we are out of time. Before you go, are there any resources you would suggest for people who are interested?

Two books: Gay Girl Good God by Jackie Hill Perry an Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill.

Jackie talks a lot about false gospels – whether you’re straight, gay, or anything in between – and the importance of recognizing that Satan is always trying to tell us that something will save us when it won’t; only Jesus will save us. And she talks a lot about the Marriage Gospel and the Hetero Gospel, but other things, too, depending on your story. And I love the false gospel conversation regarding heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Wesley talks a lot about the family of God and how – whether your sin is gay, or straight, or temptation, or lust, or addition, or anything – the church being a family would really heal a lot of our illnesses, if we started to walk in familiness. And he thinks that, in his experience, homosexuality has been a glaring invitation to actually find family in believers. I don’t feel called to celibacy, but he felt called to it and so had to say, “well, where’s my family?” and then realize, “well, duh, the church is my family,” and then realize all the ways the church was not acting as family at all.

I think those two things are really important, because this is a sin conversation not a gay conversation. I want the church as a whole to start rejecting false gospels that we believe are true. And I want the church as a whole to start regarding themselves as a family unit and to hold each other in really deep, painful places where we don’t do that.

This was one of the most edifying and wonderful conversations I’ve had in a long time. Anytime I speak with this friend of mine, I always walk away feeling like I learned more about myself than I learned about him; I always feel that I have learned more about what it means to cherish and adore Christ in my own brokenness. Of the two books that he suggests, I have read Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill, and it is more a book about brokenness in community than it is about homosexuality. It has been several years, but it remains the best book on sin and our need for Christ that I have read to date.

I hope that you have learned from this conversation, as well, and I pray that we can become the kind of community that he dreams of, one in which we are all open and vulnerable enough to admit that we all are in need of a Savior, we all are in need of a healer, and the ground is level at the foot of the cross.