Transcript

Andrew

Many Christians today want to combine their faith with them. What do you all say about that?

Morgan

The first thing that comes to mind when you ask that, and I remember this thinking this when I was younger, in the midst of a very divided life and acting out and so forth. But I knew that I was made for something else. But like, I the, the concept of like, what am I made for? And am I actually living that out?

Marco

Yeah, I would agree. I, I feel like there's something inherently stunting to the queer culture and identity for someone to actually come forth into what is God's best for them. At least that's what I experienced in terms of my own inner fantasy life. Holding on to a kind of gay fantasy narrative. And it was actually stunting me in some way. I was trying to hold the tension of that in my discipleship, but yet I had to let one of them go. They can't coexist. They don't combine. Well, I founded both of them, demanded much allegiance from me, and I actually needed to shut the door on one to actually let the other one come forth.

Amanda

I understand the temptation to to want those two to go together because of the intense feelings of same sex attraction that I've had. But I have found that it's a very low ceiling, and it's not sustainable.

Christie

I it seems to me like feelings are so strong. And to think that God would want me to keep wanting something that he doesn't want for me, does it make a lot of sense to me? Like, why would God sort of bless this idea that, oh yeah, you can have my heart, except your heart's going to be totally not what it's supposed to be here.

Anyway, he's so big and he's so good and he can do so many things. This is not it didn't feel like a super high praise. It wasn't the hardest thing about following him because it was like, if he really is as amazing as he says he is in the Bible and all you Christians are telling me, then this is isn't small small potatoes for him?

Andrew

Well, and for me, just very simply, I just don't like labels. I don't like sexual labels. I don't like those boxes. And I don't like the label of being straight. I don't like the label of being gay or queer or rainbow anything. I just think I'm a human being and I'm following this Jesus. And I don't want to complicate that with labels have not been my friend, and so I don't want to do anyone the disservice of putting them in a box. I would rather invite them into thinking a little bit outside the box and when it comes to Jesus, bring it on. Jesus. Yeah, you define me. You know, I don't want to get in the way of that.

Morgan

It's like, where is this heading? Where am I heading? And I think you're right. Labels. If I had adopted a particular label that I lived under and people knew me as, it would have been much more difficult to know where is God calling me?

Christie

I totally get the desire to have a label though. Like especially when I don't have a confidence in who I am. Like I walk in the room like where do I belong? I belong over there with those other women who also are same sex attracted. That's a comfortable space for me. And so the label sort of permits that in a way that says, yeah, look, that's the problem.

Andrew

So in a way, queer is a safe space and a social space. This is a space for me. I have a I have a I'm a member of a subgroup in this binary culture. Right. And that's where I think obliterating some of those labels is so important. So that when we gather together as Christians, it's perhaps more about Jesus than about my experience of my sexuality. In this season, if you will. I think it takes time to get there. But I speaking of tell us, I think that's where we we have to go as a church or we're not being faithful to, the unity Jesus is asking of us simply as human beings seeking help from a variety of, starting points. Right? Yeah.

Marco

You know, I found it refreshing that I didn't have to be in some sort of fixed gay destiny. I found that really refreshing because I always felt other than. And so when there was some sort of simplicity to the gospel, I could, could let go of that and just be a male who struggles. That was refreshing. So, you know, the the whole idea of I felt more comfortable in a label. I really can't relate to that.

Andrew

And how would you encourage Christians who have lost hope in Jesus? Capaci, to bring about a shift in their queer, or their their other than binary sexual reality?

Morgan

The first thing that comes to mind, is where I was age 22, in total conflict, around my sexuality. You know, what I was pursuing with other men was terrible. Yet also pursuing Jesus, was hopeful at some level, although that that flame was burning down the what ignited hope in me was just sharing that with somebody for the first time. And there was a lot of shame around my history sexually. But there was this one man.

He was about ten years older than me. So it was, you know, I was in my early 20s. He was in his early 30s, but I felt like I could trust him. And I just shared with him, here's what's going on. Is that somebody that I could trust further down the road and mature? Really offered me a glimmer of hope that I could follow Jesus and and become more like him. And the flame began to get a little brighter quickly and...

Andrew

Just breaking the silence.

Morgan

I absolutely had to break the silence. I was too quiet. I was I was just dying, inwardly dying. And I had to break the silence.

Amanda

I, I've had seasons where I felt like the temptation of my life was so strong that I, I it's like I wanted to leave Jesus. And then the other part of me was like, I didn't want to not want to leave Jesus. And so, I understand needing hope, but what God has taught me through, you know, the ebbs and flows of these difficult seasons of temptation is that he is always faithful.

And, you know, we can think of that as Christians, but like, oh, that's so cliche. He's oh, yes, we know that. But he truly gave me just what I needed, right when I needed that. Whether that was just a friend to, like go and have coffee with when I was in Seasons of Temptation, whether it was another friend who just, I'm like, hey, will you just tell me the truth right now?

And honestly, I don't understand the I don't understand that we say we have this God of, you know, that split the Red sea. We have this God that raised people from the dead. We have this God that kept the, the, the grave open and rose from the dead. And he could transform every area of our lives. But for some reason, he just can't touch that.

I just don't understand that I don't it doesn't make any sense to me. And I, I want to believe God over my internal intense struggle.

Andrew

Yeah, right. And I think the point about same sex stuff or being at odds with your own masculinity or femininity, those are deep and shameful experiences, especially when, like I've had, it's accompanied by this extensive fantasy life that no one else knows about. So I think the experience of this is getting worse, not better. I think it's that's only broken. The hope breaks in when we we find advocacy with loving truth for people.

So we break the silence in that way. I think we have a responsibility, you know, in other words, the people that say, well, I have been I've been praying for two decades about, you know, these same sex attractions lessening, my question is always, well, who knows? You know, like, where is your solidarity? Like who has come alongside of you to bring this deeply internal reality out into the open, which immediately, I think decreases the intensity?

It doesn't reroute everything into this great, you know, chaste order, but I think it's the only it's the only ground in which that can happen.

Marco

So yeah, I, I totally agree with you about the responsibility piece moments where I experienced extreme discouragement. I realized I also had a hand in my own despair, like I needed to to change my attitude. I needed to shift expectations like, oh God, I still have SSA. So therefore you're not working in my life. It's like, well, I actually need to mature in my expectations of what healing looks like.

And I, I actually need to be more open to Jesus in this area instead of just abdicating in in a in a posture of despair to say, okay, Lord, this is tough, I'm going to acknowledge that with my fellows and I'm just going to say, Jesus, I trust in you.

So that that is actually really helped me in moments where I don't necessarily know what God is going to do, but I trust that he's going to do something. Yeah, because the track of my life shows that he does to always do something.

Andrew

And I dare say, and I would say this in my own experience of my sexuality, the mercy of God is greater and and mightier than my feelings. The mercy of God as as a real current of his desire of love for me is greater than my feelings in a disordered way. At any point in time. And I just, I really believe that this unseen flow of love towards me is deeper and supersedes my experience of sexuality, whatever that is, you know?

Amanda

When I identified as queer, I think there was a couple things that brought satisfaction to me, and one was a sense of belonging that I received, you know, as a teenager, I came away from my household. And so I moved out at a very early age at 16. And I really found a home and community in that identity. And then with others that I identified the same way.

Dean

My time in the queer community was it was really a time of euphoria. Something that had been such a source of of shame was now being celebrated. It my struggles with it as a kid forced me into hiding in a lot of ways, and this queer community was calling me into it. They were calling me out, they were celebrating me. And there was a euphoria that really fueled all of all of my revelry.

Taylor

Yes. The wandering of my sexual brokenness and same sex attracted ness was the I felt wanted. I finally had someone who. Pursued me, and that was somebody who would listen to me. And, like, fought for me to be honest in that I feel like every human desires to be wanted and to be known.

Christie

One of the things that I think was really hard for me as I started coming out of the what I would call the gay lifestyle, was realizing that there were things that it really fed in me. I needed it in a lot of ways. I needed it to make me feel like I knew who I was. I felt like I had a place, a sense of belonging, a sense of home.

I remember feeling like, oh, I finally arrived when I when I started acting out on these same sex relationships, I was like, oh, this is what I've been looking for. So there was a real sense of like, release for me. It was also like I lived in a lot of pain. There was childhood trauma, pretty intense childhood trauma. And then added to that was my parents divorce and and then getting sent away.

And so I was walking around with a lot of pain in my gut and the same sex relationships, even when they didn't become physical, just being kind of lost in the emotional trauma and drama of them falling in love and longing for someone to want me back. That was a much, much happier space for me. It was something to orient my life around that wasn't so intensely painful. So that world was one that I was.

I was really comfy to, and I liked it. I'm not going to lie, it was covered a lot for me, and gave me a great sense of, of importance in that space.

Steve

From 24 to almost 40. Leo Thomas, sexually confused about my sexuality, sexually addicted. During that period. I was with a partner for most of that time, and he was sort of like my mother figure. This entangled relationship with my mother. I remember walking down the street and fell, oh, the, the son and here's the mother. So it was like an entanglement that I was. I didn't have to face the pain. I didn't have to face the confusion. I didn't have to face to face the, disorder in my soul. I could just live off into la la land and let the years roll on.

Bonnie

You can be a Christian. You can be gay. No issue. And I had already read the Bible, so I kind of knew better, but I was really trying to make it work. And, I went to a conservative Christians camp for the summer, and I knew my relationship with my girlfriend were was grounds for, dismissal. But I went there anyway because I needed I just needed answers.

And I was kind of miserable, like, I loved, I loved the relationship, loved her, loved everything about it, but I couldn't. I just didn't have peace. No peace. And I'd known peace before. And so the absence of it was palpable. And so I went out on the dock and I said, Lord, I'm asking. I'm listening is a sin or not? And in a very small, tender voice I heard him say sin.

And I was like, oh, no, it. So what? That was just so gentle and so kind and so, so loving of to to finally hear the correction. And then I had to do something about it. The relationship with this woman did for me. It, was taking the edge off pain that I had no idea I had laying underneath. So much, so much pain, which you don't know is not normal until you realize it's not normal.

And so, the there was a lot of comfort, a lot of connection, a lot of easing of, of anxiety and pain that I just, I hadn't even identified. And so it felt really good. It felt really right. Except for the Lord going like this all the time.

Dean

A real catalyst for me was being diagnosed with HIV. At the time it was 1989, it was still very much a terminal diagnosis, and it really awoke me to the reality of of how low I had gone. You know, how and really going after my choices, my idea of what was right, seeing, seeing the real depravity of that. It it caused me to to look at the reality of my relationships, which were all very empty and self-serving. So it really forced me to reckon with just how awful my life was at that point.

Amanda

I was encountered by Jesus in my living room as I read some scriptures. It felt like Jesus was in my room with me physically, even though I couldn't see him. And the love of God overwhelmed me and I fell on my face before him. And you know, I share this sometimes, but it's like when I had, when I fell down, I had a heart of of that was stony. And when I stood back up, I had a heart of flesh that the intrinsically just wanted. What he wanted.

Taylor

One of the ways that Jesus made a way for me in the process of. My relationship with this woman was, there was many opportunities. That's why I said he's patient and he's kind, but he's so jealous to a point where it's kind of annoying, like, okay, but. I had a deep sense of conviction inside my body and spirit and, I week after week, I would end this relationship, and week after week it would start again.

And I remember being on my bedroom floor and like, weeping and like, crying out to God, like prevailing prayer. And I was so angry, I didn't understand, but I all I knew was that he had something more for me. Because no, nothing anybody could say could change what I knew God had called me to do. And I think that is one of the miracles of. Hey, I'm going to open this window for you.

And then later on, my community, a friend of mine told me this is another story, but a friend of mine told me once I finally went to Living Water for the first time, I was living, you know, a year post like, felt like freedom to an extent. Cleanse.

I told my friend and she said that God, she had a dream like a year before that, had told her that I was in this relationship and highlighted the person and her job was just to love me and to you know, continue to pray for me and, and continue to point me to the truth. And so that's another example of, whoa, God, you've actually been in this doing stuff this whole time where I felt utterly alone.

Christie

I remember the very first day I ever told anyone that I was same sex attracted. I was like, I'm gay and God has to fix it. And that was like my perspective on it. And the first miracle really was that the person I told this to just laid her hands on my on my shoulder and said, let's just pray and see what God has for you today.

And there was just this welcome space of letting God move. That in and of itself to me, was really miraculous. There was no like, well, you need to go here, here, here. We're going to, you know, pray the gay away. None of that. It was more like, let's just invite Jesus into this sacred space of your heart and see what he wants to do. And that was a great way to start that journey for me.

Steve

I'd made a childlike decision as seven years old, but because of all the disorder in me. So it was there. A seed was planted. But it took some change, some desperation on my part to be free of that. And Jesus met me there. I had been in churches before who did not address the issues of people who have same sex attraction or gender confusion, or sexuality confusion. They just didn't address it.

And I was on the way to accepting it and just way to live my life. And then the Lord radically started bringing people around me who could shed a different light, who had stories to tell about transformation, and that I want that transfer, that transformation. I had that desperation in my soul that I needed more than this. I was settling for far too less than what he has for me. And he's been faithful.

Amanda

There's a there's a couple of ways in which the church, in her good intentions and her loving intentions, in, in some ways failed me in and in critical moments in my walk with God. And one was that they they did not know how to care for me or what for me. I got a lot of cliche Bible verses in the moment which did not help me, in the sense of like a good pastoral care. But also I've had parts of the church that would tell me, hey, this is who you've been your whole life. This is how you are still attracted by these desires, and this is just who you are, and you're unique in your queer Christian identity, and you should just embrace that.

Dean

You know, without knowing it, the church kind of forced my silence in the way that they voiced the queer culture as the worst culture. And, it just reinforced the shame I was already dealing with. God forbid they should know that was something that was going on in my life. And, I was I was compelled to keep that hidden because of, of the shame attached to it.

Really the just the reality that you weren't allowed to have a savior and, you know, they they preach you. He's our savior, but they don't give you the opportunity to really need a Savior. And in contrast, what was healing was as an adult and really having gone through a place of repentance, finding myself in a community where I was encouraged to have a Savior.

And it wasn't just about my need for a Savior, but it was all of our need for a Savior. And finding the community that that welcomed my continual need for a Savior.

David

So I still remember that I get emotional. I still remember that Sunday when my lead pastor asked me to sit on the front row, and we're going to walk with you through this. We're not going to kick you out the door. So the church helped to say, hey, I see your brokenness. I know your story. And then to have five men in my life that I totally didn't take my mask down.

They knew a little bit behind my mask, but they didn't see the full David. And when I was, my addiction was when my addiction was exposed. And I came to my wife and shared a laundry list of my sin. The church helped me because these five men were in the church and they were leaders in the church, and I brought my full story to them. So I there is so much shame and guilt through that.

And then actually, could I be real with another man and really share my true sin or my true pull to same sex attraction and really take my mask down and be seen?

Christie

One of the things that was really powerful to me when I first started meeting people who were Christian, I was really blessed because my introduction to the Christian world was actually through women who were struggling with the effects of abuse, and they were pushing so hard for their own freedom. And I was so impressed by both their integrity and their willingness to, like, really live real life. And boy, was that an eye opener for me.

I thought to myself, what are these women doing? But the love and the care and the life and the truth, like you couldn't deny the truth of that. There was no way you could deny the truth of what they were doing compared to me, where I was like running into the the comfort of the arms of another to hide from the world.

Marco

And I talked to this priest. I'm like, hey, father, this is this is kind of my moral resume. I have a history of acting out homosexual. I have a had an addiction to pornography. At this point, I was pretty clear from committing all the mortal sins, so to speak, but I will.

I was still under a low ceiling of, okay, I just have to be kind of a gay celibate, because there's really not much else for me to do. Like, the church is just saying, don't commit the gay mortal sins. And this priest was like, I think there's more for you, and you need this empowered community to help envision you for that. More. So I came to this training and it completely blew my mind.

I mean, really, it really was empowered witness of people's lives being transformed by Jesus that I had never heard before. And it was the power of that witness and the power of the Holy Spirit that just gave me a new joie de vivre. I don't know, a new I can do this, you know, I can actually aspire for more, you know? And honestly, that changed the trajectory of my life. I went back to the seminary.

I left the seminary because I'm like, I could be a father of, like, real children, you know, I could be a biological father, something that I had always disqualified myself from because of this queer thing.

I thought I could hold both. I couldn't.

Those who've been where you are, in honest conversation and personal interviews.

The moment the story started to crack.

Can you follow Jesus and still build your life around a queer identity? These ones who tried answer honestly, and describe the moment they realized the two couldn't coexist, and began to suspect they were made for something the identity could never give them.