Our Witness: The unheard stories of LGBT+ Christians.

Brandan Robertson introduces his new book with a powerful, emotive and personal account of LGBT+ experience within the Church …

The stories of LGBT+ Christians are not untold, but they are often unheard. Throughout the history of Christianity, LGBT+ people have been playing an integral role in their communities of faith, whether or not they were able to be open about their sexuality or gender identity. We have produced good fruit and often been some of the brightest lights for the Gospel of Christ in the world. But so often, when we are brave enough to speak about our sexuality or gender identity, our light is forced under a bushel and we are cast out from the communities that we have loved and served. After we are expelled for embracing our God-given identity, we are silenced. Our voices are drowned out by the sound of dogmatic preaching about being ‘unnatural’, ‘abominations’ or ‘threats to family values’. Our voices are ignored by Church leaders who sit high in their positions of power, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of our lives and our faith for fear that doing so would threaten their own position of privilege. Our voices are even sometimes silenced by our families whose cold obedience to Church teachings lead them to force us into programmes to change our identity or push us out of their lives until we ‘repent’ for being who we are.

But in the midst of all of this abuse and injustice, we keep speaking. In every city, in every denomination, in every church, there are LGBT+ Christians who refuse to be silenced. Who heed the call of Christ to proclaim the truth and shine our light without fear of persecution or rejection. Who continue to fight for our place at the table of God’s grace. Or who decide to make our own tables in our own faith communities that embrace the truly radical message of God’s unconditional love and acceptance of all. When all of the Church tells us to sit down and be silent, we continue to speak. We continue to embrace the love of God. We continue to follow the radically subversive way of Jesus. And as we do, we’re bringing the queer masses with us.

In 2015, the Pew Research Center released a poll which showed that, while every major demographic of Christians was in decline, one of the few areas where there was a steady uptick in identification as ‘Christian’ was among the LGBT+ community (1). Around the world, LGBT+ Christian organisations and churches are popping up, drawing thousands upon thousands of LGBT+ people of faith and our allies together to worship, learn, and dream about how we can be more faithful disciples of Christ. And yet, a majority of Christians around the world don’t know that this is happening. Or worse, they deny that this is happening, because this evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work among open and proud LGBT+ people directly contradicts their theological paradigm. But when your theology and your reality come into contradiction, often it’s time to rethink your theology.

The Spirit of God is moving among sexual and gender minorities on every continent around the world. Openly LGBT+ people are being raised to the highest levels of leadership in churches, organisations, and denominations, and while those who seek to resist the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work among these devoted followers of Jesus shout loudly from their pulpits and publishing houses, it seems to me that the voices of LGBT+ Christians are only getting louder and harder to ignore. Whether worship leaders, pastors, celebrities, bloggers, activists, or laypeople, LGBT+ Christians are boldly and bravely reclaiming our rightful place in the Body of Christ. We have a story to tell, a message to share, a Gospel to proclaim. And the Church would be wise to quiet its own voice of resistance and listen to hear what the Spirit of God might be speaking through us.

My own journey of faith and sexuality has been a rough one. I first realised that I was bisexual when I was a pre-teen. I remember sitting in the back of my church, realising that I had an uncontrollable sense of attraction to another young man a few pews in front of me, and running out of the sanctuary to the bathroom to ask God to forgive me for this ‘destructive’ attraction and seeking to be healed. As the years went on, my commitment to Christ grew stronger, but my sexual orientation never seemed to change. When I was finally in Bible college, studying to be a pastor, I began confessing my ‘struggle’ to friends on my floor during our ‘accountability’ meetings, and quickly found that many of the men studying at my school also struggled with ‘same-sex attraction’. All of us had strong callings to ministry and had flourishing relationships with God, but lived in constant terror that this fundamental part of our identity would somehow render us damaged at best, damned at worst.

The realisation of how fearful we all were about our sexuality led me on a journey of deep biblical study and prayer. I visited churches, met with theologians, read books, and began to realise that maybe the Bible wasn’t quite as clear in its condemnation of LGBT+ people as I once thought. That maybe the openly LGBT+ Christians that I had encountered truly did have a relationship with God. That maybe God didn’t make a mistake in his creation of LGBT+ people. As I began to come to these realisations, I also began a conversion therapy programme as a last-ditch effort to see if God truly desired to heal me of being bisexual. After a year of trying to be healed of my sexuality and of wrestling with God, I finally came to a sense of peace in my heart about who I was. I felt the Spirit reassuring me that I had nothing to fear. At the same time, I knew I couldn’t speak about this peace and assurance to anyone in my college or my church because it would lead to certain expulsion. So I remained in hiding.

As soon as I graduated Bible college, I moved to Washington, D.C. and decided that I needed to begin to work hard to advocate on behalf of LGBT+ people in the Church. I wasn’t ‘out’ publicly yet, but I felt the Spirit tugging at my heart, telling me that the next step in my vocation was to do work that would be incredibly costly, but essential. I stepped into the role of national spokesperson for a new organisation that had been formed called Evangelicals for Marriage Equality, founded by two straight Evangelical men from opposite sides of the political spectrum, but who both felt convicted that Evangelical Christians should not be seeking to prevent LGBT+ people from having equal rights in our society. We launched our organisation with an op-ed in TIME magazine, where I wrote about my own sense of conviction about how my fellow Christians were doing great damage to the cause of Christ in our world by seeking to marginalise and prevent LGBT+ people from having equal rights under the law. Within 24 hours, leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention responded to our article with their own op-ed in TIME, as well as on national radio, podcasts, and various other blogs and articles. Overnight, I went from being a ‘faithful Christian’ in the eyes of many, to a deceived heretic – and they didn’t even know that I identified as LGBT+ yet.

Over the next six months, I would be invited to participate in conversations with major Evangelical leaders on radio and in front of live audiences, and every time, I was publicly shamed for my position and told that I was leading many into destruction. This experience of rejection culminated in February of 2015, when I turned in the manuscript of my first book, Nomad, to my Christian publisher and was abruptly told that – unless I signed a statement condemning same-sex relationships as contrary to God’s created plan – then they could not publish my book. When I saw this email, I knew that I could no longer hide the truth of what I believed and where I stood in regard to my own sexuality. I wrote back to my publisher and let them know that I wouldn’t sign their statement, and soon after was told that my book contract had been cancelled. When news of this story reached a reporter at TIME, she told me that she wanted to write a story about this loss, but that she wanted to tell the full story, including the truth about my sexuality. At this point, I knew it was time. I knew that if I remained closeted and hiding in fear, I would be doing more harm than good for myself and for the LGBT+ people who were being affected by the public work I was engaged in. I agreed to let the reporter write a story, under the condition that I would be given a few weeks to come out to my friends and family. She agreed, and we moved forward with the story.

Just a few days after talking with the reporter, I was sitting in a room playing a game with some friends and my phone began to vibrate uncontrollably. Message after message began to pour in by the dozens. I had no clue what was going on. I opened my text-messaging app and saw that the first message was from the reporter at TIME – ‘I’m so sorry! My editors published the piece early by mistake!’ her message read. I felt my heart skip a beat, as I scrolled over to Facebook to find myself tagged in a headline that said ‘Young Evangelical Leader Loses Book Deal After Coming Out’ (2). The only problem with the headline was that I hadn’t come out to most of my friends or family yet, and the flurry of messages I received were from people in my life responding, with both affirmation and strong condemnation, to the revelation of my true sexual identity. The next few days are now a blur to me, but they were filled with some of the warmest embraces and coldest condemnations from various mentors and friends in my life. My family reacted surprisingly well, which was a relief. But some of my closest mentors filled my inbox with messages like:

I wonder [if] you tell the people how dishonest, cunning and manipulative you are. I wonder whether you tell them about your addictions and compulsions. I wonder whether you tell them about how actively you cultivate a sin life while being so inactive towards righteousness and how damningly lazy you are? Do you tell them how disinterested you are in the Word? So where exactly do the bridges you allegedly build lead? Certainly you are a leader, Brandan. It is safe to say that in the current trajectory of your life you will usher many into a hellish existence.

And when you need the blood of Christ to wash away your sins, where will you turn, now that you have renounced His redeeming and transforming work so thoroughly? I know you like to be coddled. True words feel so harsh to you. (This, of course, keeps the door to your personal prison locked.) Nevertheless, only one word makes sense to speak: Repent (3).

I had experienced rejection for my support of marriage equality before, but now that I was publicly identified as LGBT+, the words of condemnation I received were harsher and more cutting than ever. For the first time, I really experienced the harm and deep wounding that so many of my LGBT+ friends had told me about. I knew this would someday be a reality that I faced, but I had never really counted the cost. Now, I was being personally attacked by those who once loved me; I was told that my future in pastoral ministry within my Evangelical context would never be a reality; and I became a scapegoat for so many non-affirming Christians to throw all sorts of accusations upon.

When all of this was happening, I entered into a period of severe sorrow. But it wasn’t sorrow for myself or my future – I believed that I would make it through this and was relentlessly committed to pursuing my calling regardless of what my opponents said. My grief instead was for the Church. A community of people who have committed their lives to follow the life and teachings of Jesus, who so quickly had turned to cast stones at me and so many other LGBT+ people simply because they disagreed with experienced the full force of rejection and condemnation of many in the Church, I never truly understood just how unchristlike the Church’s posture towards LGBT+ people really was. On dozens of important theological and social issues, Christians have agreed to remain in unity in the midst of their disagreements. But on this one issue, one that affects so many people at the most intimate levels of their Being, the Church has chosen a posture of full-on attack and rejection, and in doing so, has isolated and harmed so many beautiful, talented, faithful followers of Christ.

My sorrow over the Church’s response to LGBT+ people has continued to this day, but it has now largely been overshadowed by a profound, subversive hope. Over the past five years, I have met thousands of LGBT+ Christians around the world, and have witnessed the work of the Holy Spirit moving through them in the most profound ways. I have been blown away by how many major, global Christian leaders have reached out to tell me that they too have felt the Spirit of God nudging them to step forward and embrace LGBT+ people as faithful members of Christ’s Church. I have watched as societies around the world have stepped closer and closer to affirming and embracing LGBT+ people as equal and essential parts of their communities. And I have seen true revival breaking forth in the midst of LGBT+ Christian communities. So, while I am continually grieved as I watch my brave LGBT+ siblings step out of the darkness and into the light of who God made them to be and be subsequently abused by Christians, I am also profoundly confident that this movement that we are a part of is a movement of the Holy Spirit of God, and that nothing and no one will be able to stop this wild river of inclusion.

The more that straight, non-affirming Christians witness the work of God in and through the lives and stories of LGBT+ people, the more I see hearts of stone soften, and the doors of churches open just a little wider to welcome LGBT+ people into our rightful place at the table of Grace.

And that is the inspiration and vision behind this book. Because I believe that God is doing a new thing through LGBT+ people, and I also believe that the only way for anyone to truly understand this movement of God is to hear the authentic, raw stories of LGBT+ Christians. Since the very beginning of our faith, Christians have been a people of story and of testimony. We have always known that when people hear our stories and experience life through our eyes, hearts and minds will change. And these brave siblings of mine have poured out their souls onto these pages, giving you a glimpse into their authentic struggles, pains, and triumphs. It is truly a sacred privilege to be invited into these lives together, and I hope that as you read these words, you feel humbled by the invitation that has been extended.

My hope for my new book, Our Witness, is twofold: first, that LGBT+ Christians and our allies will be able to hear the powerful witness contained in these stories and find strength, encouragement, and hope to continue to press on in our fight for inclusion. For my LGBT+ Christian siblings, I want you to know that you’re not alone and that there is great reason to hope. For our allies, I hope that these stories add fuel to your fire, and that you will be moved to find ways to uplift the unheard voices of LGBT+ Christians in your communities.

Second, I challenge non-affirming Christians to read these stories in their entirety, without looking for points of disagreement or debate, but instead hearing the truth of the experiences of these LGBT+ Christians. As you read, I challenge you to be in prayer, opening yourself to whatever the Spirit of God might be saying to you through each life that is poured out in these pages. My goal isn’t to convince you to change your mind necessarily, but for you to develop empathy and consider the great harm that has been done in the name of Jesus by those who hold your theological commitments. And after reading these stories, I hope that you will reach out to an LGBT+ person in your community and ask them to share with you their story as well, and that you might posture yourself in humility and repentance for the harm that has been done in the name of Christ by non-affirming Christians.

More than anything, my hope is that these words, these stories, these lives will bear witness to the power of the love of God and the truly good news of the Gospel. I pray that, as our collective light shines forth, many would see the good work that God is doing in and through us, and be moved to worship our expansive, diverse, and inclusive Creator. May it be.

This is an extract from Our Witness: The unheard stories of LGBT+ Christians by Brandan Robertson, available now in paperback priced, £12.99. Brandan is currently touring the UK and Ireland too – for more information visit his website - http://www.brandanrobertson.com/speaking/ .

1 Pew Research Center, ‘America’s Changing Religious Landscape’, 12 May 2015.

2 See the article here: TIME, ‘Young Evangelical Leader Loses Book Deal After Coming Out’ (21 February 2015), http://time.com/3716350/brandan-roberston-destiny-image/.

3 This is a quote from an actual email I received from an actual former mentor of mine. Some details of the quote have been omitted or changed for privacy reasons.