Tag: courage
How Joshua Harris’s Church Was Safe for Me
Joshua Harris pastored my church for over ten years. To our surprise, he recently announced he is divorcing his wife and and that he is no longer a Christian! Additionally, he has adopted a “Side A” gay-affirming belief. Despite all this drama and the church’s many other issues, this place has been of some help to guys dealing with same-sex attraction.
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Do I Follow the God of Yes or the God of No?
Right on cue, in walks that cute guy again. Instantly, I’m back to spiraling, back to wondering if this faith thing can really work out in the end, or if I’m actually as crazy as I sound when I tell someone I’m pursuing celibacy. It’s in these moments that God feels like the eternal God of “no” — no sex, no boyfriend, no husband, no romance, no intimacy. No love. God becomes the God who won’t let me eat the fruit from the one tree I’m craving, instead of the God who provided an entire garden just for me.
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Do Our Stories Actually Point to Jesus?
Stories have power, and people love them for it. As such, that power can misused. The power of a story can be wielded in a way that causes untold damage and pain. As I’ve done more and more to reach LGBTQ+ individuals outside the church, I’ve had to face a stark reality: Christians have abused select people’s stories to the detriment of the Gospel.
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Allowing Myself to Thrive in Missional Community
“God has placed us together for a specific reason — that the times, stories, and experiences we share are beneficial for each other,” she said. This led to discussion about how community requires vulnerability. Even with a wide open invitation, I remained a silent listener in the community.
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Self-Hatred and the Struggles of Being Gay
As a kid, I said a lot of derogatory things about LGBTQ+ people. I cringe at the things I remember saying. When I realized I was gay, all of that hatred that I showed to others turned in on myself. That realization drove me to reparative therapy. The logic makes sense: I hate gay people, I am gay — thus, I need to not be gay.
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Here and Queer: Redeeming My Sexual and Gender Identity
I’m queer. That is how I now identify my sexuality. And it’s how I can best define my experience of gender, too. In my pursuit to grow more like Christ, I was setting aside part of my life as a mystery spot. How could I submit my sexuality to Christ if I didn’t even know what it was?
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Saying Goodbye to Emotional Dependency — and My Best Friend
A point came in our relationship when I realized just how dependent I was on him and just how one-sided our friendship was. For my own well-being, I needed to step away from the relationship. What follows is the lament and reflection I wrote in saying “goodbye” to our friendship.
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Running from the Call to Come Out
When the call came, it wasn’t that I couldn’t hear it; it was that I had no interest in obeying. For Jonah, that call was Nineveh. For me? It was coming out. My “solution” for my sexuality was quite simple: I’d tell no one, become straight, and then move on with my life. A secret I’d die keeping rather than ever share; I could hardly admit it to myself, let alone another human.
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Straight Men are Scary
Straight men have always been scary. They’ve long been “the other,” going all the way back to first grade. We may not share the same tastes for sports and media consumption, but we still share a common masculine heart. One fraught with hauntingly familiar masculine thorns.
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Is Being “Side B” Just Internalized Homophobia?
Do I live the way I live purely because of the way I was raised? Do I still harbor any internalized homophobia of myself and others? Is that why I’m “Side B”? Is this all coming from a place of pious self-righteousness?
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