At age 11 the realization hit me. The fact was that I felt toward other guys the way they felt toward girls. 1984 was a terrible time to realize you\u2019re gay. As the year progressed, around 1
\nSo I\u2019ve lived my life as a unicorn in a field of horses, constantly hoping that no one notices the horn. Years ago I was teaching a group of seminarians who were learning to preach, and one of the students mentioned in a sermon illustration how \u201cnobody wants to be an Average Joe.\u201d I was dumbfounded. I\u2019ve never wanted anything more than to be an Average Joe. I\u2019m inundated with invitations for me and my spouse. I have to decide which friend\u2019s phone number to put on the back of my diabetic ID bracelet. When I welcome people to my fantastic little condo with my Saarinen table and Corbusier chairs, I compulsively mention that my undergrad was in architecture. It\u2019s an instinctive strategy to obfuscate their gaydar.<\/p>\n
In the late 1990s, I sought out a pastor I respected, and I opened up with him about wanting to share my story with my church. I was fatigued from a lifetime of trying to hide my shame. \u201cDo not do it!\u201d he thundered. \u201cIf your church knew, they would never be able to accept you.\u201d I was still young and impressionable, and I accepted his voice as the voice of God. For decades, I\u2019ve had Christian leaders asking me to please not share my Christian testimony, despite my thorough agreement with the church\u2019s historic teaching on sexuality. Even the language of same-sex attraction\u2014which many believers have found helpful as a way to disassociate themselves from assumptions about being gay\u2014feels to many others like a tool of concealment, as though I were laboring to minimize the ongoing reality of sexual orientations that in practice seldom change.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thankful that a campus minister named Bill loved me. He didn\u2019t try to fix me, control me, or ship me off to a conversion therapy camp. He loved me, welcomed me into his home, sat with me, and invested so many hours in me. He was the first person to suggest I pray about going to seminary.<\/p>\n
Jesus hasn\u2019t made me straight. But he covers over my shame. Jesus really loves gay people.<\/p>\n
The gospel doesn\u2019t erase this part of my story so much as it redeems it. My sexual orientation doesn\u2019t define me. It\u2019s not the most important or most interesting thing about me. It is the backdrop for that, the backdrop for the story of Jesus who rescued me.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n My sexual orientation doesn\u2019t define me. It\u2019s not the most important or most interesting thing about me.<\/p>\n It is the backdrop for that, the backdrop for the story of Jesus who rescued me https:\/\/t.co\/ddfQQzQbHO<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) May 20, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n