Fortunately, in our community there are gay affirming congregations. They understand the Gospel of inclusiveness that puts all of us in the same tent for worship and ministry. To be able to love another person is a gift from God! As human beings we have
Part One of a series of essays concerning the struggles of married life as a gay man. This essay covers life before marriage, and the pressure to be involved in heterosexual relationships many gay teens face growing up in a fundamentalist culture. Early childhood was
I’d been raised a Roman Catholic, but when I came out at the age of 17, I assumed that God and I would go our separate ways. After all, the Catholic Church is infamous for its shabby treatment of homosexuals, both in the lack of
There is a lot of prejudice against gays in the church. Society also has used gays to explain things that go wrong. Especially when things happen and there is no ready explanation. Just as the Nazis blamed the Jews for the ills of society, so
This message is intended for those wondering if their sexual orientation is keeping them from being a child of God. This, indeed, is a time of harvest and many of us wrongly assume we are unable to be harvested. The main thing that prevents us
From out of their isolation and stumbling in the glare of the sun they came, those deemed unclean and therefore unable to live within ordinary society. The authorities had condemned each of them to death, the slow death of physical and spiritual separation. Society chose
“You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” — Luke 15:16 “How do you know right from wrong?” the woman on the phone implored frantically. It was 1995 and I had answered the phone at the television station where I
“Here I am — this is me in my nakedness, with my wounds, my secret grief, my despair, my betrayal, my pain, which I can’t express, my terror, my abandonment. Oh, listen to me for a day, an hour, a moment, lest I expire in
I was “raised in the church” and as a child reveled in the type of religious community where everyone knew your name, adults looked out for you, and everyone praised your academic and social progress. My schoolteachers, my barber, my mentors and friends of my
In October 1996, I was attending Berea College, a small, private college in central Kentucky. I was also dating a girl I had met on campus. Her name was Jessie and she is still one of my best friends (even today). I was a different