And I’ve been wrestling with the issues at the intersection of healthy sexuality and Christian faith all my adult life.

Every person’s journey to faith and every person’s journey to accepting and integrating their sexual orientation into that faith is different, but let me tell you my story so you will know how I have made my journey through life as a gay, Christian man who only gradually came to accept and have confidence in the fullness of God’s love.

I began my life in a Christian home.

I didn’t make it to church the first Sunday of my life because Sunday was the day I was born. The following Sunday, however, I was in church, worshipping in a congregation which my father’s ancestors had founded in 1864. My mother’s family were staunch Baptists and produced a number of pastors, evangelists and deacons.

I learned of a loving and powerful God in a powerfully loving community from intelligent people of faith who loved God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and encouraged me to do the same.

God and the Bible were my best friends growing up.

As an only child until my sixth birthday, I knew I was loved by my parents and the other adults in my life, but I longed for someone my age to be my companion and confidant. My prayers for an older brother didn’t seem to work, and so I turned to reading the Bible cover to cover–again and again–as a way to entertain my mind and feel a sense of connection to the communion of saints.

I committed my life to Jesus my Savior as soon as I felt he would take me seriously.

At the age of 11, a little before my tradition held me accountable for such decisions, I decided to give my life to Christ and join the church.

Even before puberty hit, my desires for affection and commitment from other boys became more powerful.

I had been aware of my attraction to other boys since kindergarten. I was crushed in the 8th grade when my best friend started dating a girl and no longer had time for me.

However, believing that my same-sex attraction was merely a phase, something that completing puberty would resolve, I didn’t despair over this quirk of my personality. I had heavily armored myself to keep other people from finding out (I found out later that they knew. They all knew.) so I thought I would be fine until such time as God changed my affections to fit the images of myself I had in my mind.

During college, I panicked.

Even though I had searched the scriptures diligently for years, I had kept myself from any situation that might have turned sexual.

I got powerful crushes on every handsome guy I met–and there were lots of handsome guys. I faced constant torture as I was confronted by their athletic, naked bodies in the communal bathrooms and locker rooms I had no choice but to share. My desires became so uncomfortable that I even dropped out of crew, leaving a tight-knit brotherhood of guys I loved, in order to free myself from the daily temptation of being so close to the desires of my heart yet being fearful of any meaningful engagement.

Nevertheless, engagement was impossible to avoid, so…

I eventually fell in love… with a deeply committed Christian man who loved me back.

Now I’m not saying that I had a full-fledged gay relationship. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was and is straight. We did nothing sexual. I only had one dream about him which was even vaguely sexual, and that dream scared me to death! But I am convinced that he loved me as a brother in Christ and I loved him right back.

But by the end of college, I realized that it was possible for me to love another man with Christian love, and, despite my desires I still loved God. It was at that point that my heart knew I would be happy living with another Christian brother or brothers for the rest of my life, even if I never ever in my life got to have sex.

I decided that I was going to be gay (celibate if I had to be) but hold onto my faith in Christ.

But at that point, I couldn’t see how life as a Christian man–even a self-affirming, gay, Christian man–could reconcile walking in the ways of the Gospel and same-sex sexual activity. Fortunately, in addition to my parents, my family included a beloved aunt who had never married (or even dated, as far as I know) and a loving uncle who lived in singleness with his mother and sister. Both had a deep devotion to the church, and from them I realized that not getting married and producing children might have some advantages in a committed life of faith.

However…

My parents weren’t thrilled about a gay son, celibate or not, so I tried to change.

Even with the faithful, Christian witness of my single aunt and my bachelor uncle, my parents did not want that life for me. Furthermore, the counselors I met with on a weekly basis knew of organizations that promised to help me change my affections to heterosexual and bend my desires towards marriage (whether that was what I wanted or not).

One sincere counselor became my guide and accountability partner. He told me that I was not alone in my struggle (he wouldn’t tell me who else in my community was struggling, however!) and gave me hope that someday, with enough prayer and obedience, I could come to desire a woman and children as head of a Christian home.

As a last-ditch effort, I signed up for a conversion “therapy” group.

Because our prayers weren’t answered by the time I graduated from college, I started going to a “reparative therapy” group in New York City, where I encountered half-a-dozen very sorrowful–yet intriguing–men whose testimonies were filled with tales of backsliding into the pleasures of the flesh. As I got little glimpses into their lives outside of sexual “acting out” and “lustful thoughts,” I realized that–aside from the sex–their lives didn’t seem all that bad. And their desires–and mine–never seemed to change.

I soon tired of listening to the complaints of people who seemed to be living interesting and creative lives.

Finally, I stopped demanding God do something for me and asked God what God wanted.

The answer was clear: God wanted me to trust him.

To the extent that I had been sinning, God convicted me of lying. Of being untruthful to myself and about myself. Sure, I had stopped lying about being “same sex attracted” but God wanted a deeper level of honesty. God gave me the assurance that the way I was created was the way God intended, and that the energy I was spending fighting my own, God-given nature was energy I wasn’t spending fully loving and appreciating God, fully loving and appreciating my neighbor, and fully loving and appreciating myself.

21 years later…

In 2016, I was married to my husband by the Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey in my affirming faith community at the diocesan cathedral with 170 people in attendance. Many from the wider community were impressed and touched by the beauties of the service and the sanctuary.

Today, my life is blessed.

Currently, I have been with my husband for over 25 years. I thank God every day for the blessings of our love and the good it has generated not only in our lives but in the life of our extended family and our community.

Thanks for hearing my story!

It’s important for you to not only know that there are thousands of gay Christians out there, but that you hear their stories as testimony to a Gospel that bears good fruit and truly is good news.

I’d love to hear your story, too.

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