31 year old gay guy from Perth, formerly heavily involved in the charismatic movement until age 17 and now Christian but non-religious, identified as gay from 18, having gone some way but not all the way to find healing and a way forward.



Hi, I stumbled on this group a few weeks ago, thanks very much for providing an excellent resource. It was the first time I’d ever come across gay evangelical Christians and I have watched Ben’s piece on “Hack” and various other things which really made me think. I admire the honesty and trust of those here and I shall try my best to honour that in what I write. I also realise my own path may be different from others here – but in saying so, that there are as many valid paths as there are people. Apologies too for the long post – I couldn’t think of a way to split it up.

On faith

I’m 31, in Perth and I grew up “in the faith” which was real to me as a child. Today, I identify as Christian, I believe in God and in the gospel of Christ, but I don’t attend church, and beyond the basics I honestly don’t know what I believe and my faith is distant from me. I wish it could be different, but it’s not. Why not? I guess there’s an unresolved anger there about what I see as my lost years in the church. It’s dimmed over the years as I’ve grown, but there is always that knowledge that my experience damaged me as a person and I will never be whole again because of it.

I don’t blame the people involved – they thought they were doing the right thing, and were listening far too much to less inspired types from the US and South Africa who were egging them on in less scriptural practices and thinking “these churches were successful so clearly we should follow that”. I also don’t blame God. And I’m able to accept my own share of responsibility for not asking more questions about what I was learning and in particular interrogating it against the Bible and the Gospels.

Childhood

I was 5 when I was first “saved”. Shortly thereafter we moved across the world and settled here. Within 6 months we had found a church (Rhema Family Church, now known as Riverview), which eventually reached 3500-4000 people per week. I went to the children’s church, my parents went to the main church. We got heavily involved – I went to the church’s school, went to church every week without fail, everyone we knew was in the church, you name it. I experienced the “gifts of the spirit” and I saw God clearly at work.

However, my childhood was very isolated – we were taught that people from just about any other faith and even “mainline churches” would contaminate us if we mixed with them. There was some confusion between the church’s message of “faith not works” in terms of salvation, and its crazily long list of “worldly” things one had to avoid doing, seeing, listening to or even wearing, and the requirements on people to do “godly” things including going to endless seminars, retreats and whatever else.

Early adolescence

Around 11 a range of things happened. 1. Ps Brian Baker unexpectedly left the church. Secondly, I was an ‘early developer’ and I started flirting with guys my own age during sleepovers and even at school behind the shed at lunch times. One other boy and I got in trouble and some leaders from the church came in and I think they thought it was their job to ensure we didn’t follow in “that” path. I was taught from then on – quite forcefully – about the alleged evils of gay people, none of whom were normal and every last one of whom was a would-be transexual child abuser with a certain death from AIDS ahead. There was another major event too, but I’d really rather not discuss that – it didnt involve the church.

By 14-15 my self esteem had hit rock bottom, I felt numb and I was doing drugs to try and make myself just feel like a person. I felt ashamed of who I was. I didn’t have a reason for this – more just a general feeling that I was a bad person and God would see me as worse than other people around me.

Moving forward (a little)

I ultimately admitted to my friends I needed help, and three of them really helped me, especially with getting off drugs. (Others simply judged me and stopped being friends, but I was past caring.) Trouble was I fell hopelessly in love with one of them. I’m pretty sure he was bi and that it was not one-way (many things pointed to this) although I’ll never know, we never did anything and by the end of the year we had completely fallen out as friends. I think the whole experience hardened me to the gay side of my feelings and for the next two years (at a different school) I became intensely homophobic. I had an emotional, non-physical relationship with a girl (outside the church but Christian) who was my friend and confidante, and I really had it in my head that we would get married and the reason for my lack of sexual feeling for her was my moral values.

At church, I’d joined the youth group, but it span rapidly out of control, became autonomous and adopted definite cult-like elements. I only stuck with it out of fear of what my parents would think, and the desire to see my friends who also went. In the end, the reason for my severance was that I’d taken 6 weeks off to study for my TEE (read: VCE, HSC etc) exams and the youth leaders felt that this meant I was putting worldly things above godly things. They called my mother and then repeated her words off the phone call, word for word, from the stage as part of the sermon. Entire groups of people (esp the younger ones) had been conspicuously, even fearfully, avoiding me that night. I was so angry and so hurt that I stopped attending that week, and have never been back. I lost friendships as I was now “of the world” in their eyes, I wasn’t part of this chosen few who were going to lead the revival (It never happened, by the way.). I heard that some months later they fired the entire youth team (none of whom by the way were under 25), and about 12 months later the church failed over a naming dispute (with some former pastors taking the name to the Gold Coast) and that was how it, after it restarted, came to be “Riverview”.

Post-church – the healing begins?

Soon after this, my gf died in a car accident. I felt hollow inside. I spent that whole holiday trying to keep as busy as possible and avoided thinking about anything personal. I pulled off three HDs in my first semester. I also realised that I had left the church but not left its mindset behind – I was an angry, hateful, judgemental person who scorned the unfamiliar and looked for fault and “sin” in everyone I met, and I did everything in my power to turn that on its head. I used to make it my mission to talk to a new person every day on the bus – it was my way of forcing myself to understand and accept the world as it was. Nowadays my values and political ideology is probably best summed up as left-wing libertarian. It was a long path getting there, though and the many people who were patient with me and shared their life views, even when (perhaps especially when!) they radically disagreed with my own, were instrumental in that process.

The coming out thing

Although I’d had feelings for guys, I had never thought of myself as being gay. Gay, you see, to me, was all those things I was told about from a young age – it wasn’t me. I remember the moment I realised that I must be … (whatever word I’d come up with for myself). I was in a lecture theatre during a 2 hour lecture, and was in a very bad place. I remember feeling that there was a line and if I crossed it I would be forever condemned in the eyes of God – yet I knew the time was fast coming where that would happen. I nearly became a statistic and the social pressure of sitting in the middle of a lecture theatre was the only thing that saved me – by the end I was still jittery but more able to cope. I started trying to get counselling. Soon after this I discovered the then-embryonic online world and started finding guys who openly identified as gay but were just like me in many ways (my age, dedicated to studies, interested in music, not camp, etc). That was by far the best thing that happened to that point. I had a very, very rocky road over the first 2 or so years I was out, but I learned slowly to live with myself as I really was, not as I dreamed myself to be.

My parents handled the news VERY badly, for about 9 months any trust in our relationship went out the window, and I even got made to listen to Sy Rogers’ tapes and attend one of his sermons at Rhema. As with anything I was willing to listen to what he had to say but I was not convinced. Eventually my parents (who had stopped fellowshipping but still held to the views of the church in general) did accept it – they met various partners over the years and I think came to see the church might have got it wrong about gay people. However it is not discussed openly at home.

At around 20, I read the Bible from cover to cover for the first time in my life. I had never really stopped believing in God, but I remember reading parts – especially those parts the church had emphasised so strongly – and realising that in context they meant way different things to what we had learnt. I think this was a big step for me as I was able to separate “God” and “the church” in my mind – I realised that God was real and that he spoke through his word, but that the word I had received was that of men – well-meaning, faithful men, but men nonetheless.

The future

And now? Just about to embark on a new – maybe scary – part of my work life which will see me develop a lot as a person and understand the world around me a lot better. My life has felt “in limbo” for a few years as changing careers can, but I am actually hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Concluding note

Thank you for reading this far. I’d love to hear others’ input, especially if you’ve come from a similar place or know others who have. I may not be able to answer all questions, as I’ve been meticulous in protecting my privacy in my above disclosures – I don’t doubt almost anyone active in the church at that time would remember me and I think it could be a shock to them that I am where I am today. But I’ll do my best.

Hi pingtimeout

I like the way you’ve told your story with the headings – made it v easy to read.

I too don’t attend a church and haven’t for years. And if anything, my faith in God has matured and deepened because of that. (I know that would be shocking and difficult for most pente’s to believe).The difficult events of my life have made me much more open-minded and compassionate. And I am glad to be the person I am now.

I think you’ve done really well to have processed everything so maturely and it’s great that your parents are at least partly accepting of your sexuality.

I hope you feel welcome and safe at this site. It’s a good place to be and there’s lots of support available.

Blessings,

Ann Maree

Hi Rabid

For many years I would have loved to be part of a faith community (i.e. local church) but couldn’t find one that suited, was local enough or that would accept me as gay. On top of that I have trust issues and have become overly self reliant. I’ve realised there’s still a lot of pain within about this issue. I do definitely feel that my spiritual walk would be strengthened by being part of a like minded community – I’m just not sure it would be helped by exposure to a pentecostal environment. I miss the music but not the manipulations I experienced in the latter.

You are welcome pingtimeout.

I recall avb talking about the polarisation that can happen within the gay community as well as outside of it. I seem to think it’s amplified for those of us from pente/evangelical backgrounds. We come from being used to these very experiential spiritual highs and lows and nothing matches up to those anywhere else. In my opinion there were a lot of extremes and surreal occurrences that were difficult to reconcile with the more mundane pace of everyday life. So it was hard to adjust after being kicked out of the church.

It was not easy for me to take on self study and took many years to adjust. Maybe I made it sound like it was easy? You said you wish you could engage your heart in that and don’t know how to. Do you mean that it’s hard after being guided, encouraged, supported and spoon fed within the church? I found that pentecostalism cossetted me from the real world and suddenly when I was out, it was frightening. I look back on that experience as being like a prisoner who once out of jail, was completely lost, not knowing how to survive on her own. In terms of beliefs, the sky was the limit and I was unused to being surrounded by so much free thought. It was daunting no longer being told what to believe.

I too have gay friends who are anti church, religion/spirituality because of gay bashing they’ve endured and they make a cross sign and hiss like cats if I even accidentally mention anything that might sound God-like! It’s a shame because I love God and know that the creator is not responsible for the behaviours of humans. And in the past I’ve gone to lesbian groups and couldn’t relate to the women there at all. We didn’t seem to have anything in common. It was a strange place to be – like a limbo land of not belonging anywhere.

I must say that this site has given me some hope, to know that I can talk about both faith and sexuality issues is really great. At the same time I worry that I might offend others with some of my views and hope this is not the case.

Thank you. I think the disorienting experience of finding ourselves out of our comfort zones is a necessary part of maturity. Those circumstances are a way of breaking us out of the limiting moulds we have set for ourselves to find greater, higher truths. And although difficult, we also discover strengths and abilities we never knew we had, and so the world opens up. New opportunities present themselves and we grow and develop.

Feeling alone in a group, especially when we have high hopes and expectations of that group fulfilling a vital need for belonging, can be particularly devastating. In the early stages of coming to terms with my sexuality, I focused a lot of time and energy on this area, as many do. Part of my seeking supports, as already mentioned, included attending lesbian discussion and social groups. What I discovered there was the most varied groups of women you could find from all walks of life, and I found that the topic of sexuality was just as varied. It seemed that a lot of the women had very different ideas of what it was to be lesbian and many were threatened by any alternative suggestions. (And this kind of threw a spanner in the works for the purposes of discussion. Their minds were set, they didn’t want to consider anything new and the atmosphere became very uncomfortable if anything challenged their beliefs, so discussions quickly came to a close). I remember thinking: ‘If we can’t even agree on definitions of sexuality or comfortably agree to have differences with respect, what hope is there for other topics? And what is the purpose of this group, if not for discussion? And if they respond so defensively to someone who’s not against them, then how do they respond to those who are, and how badly does that reflect on our community?’ It was the strangest thing pondering these matters, feeling even less certain about lesbians and whether I wanted to identify with them when some of the most dominating members were hardly great role models. It was strange because I thought I’d find support whereas what I discovered was some nice women (a couple I’m still friends with) amongst a majority of lesbians with lots of complex problems. I hope that doesn’t sound harsh and maybe I just had bad luck in the 2 groups I went to. I’d be interested in others’ experiences of lesbian groups as a comparison. And maybe my expectations were just way too high.

Thanks Meg. I couldn’t agree more.

I personally found my counselling studies to be more God-like than the church, facilitating me to truly apply loving principles which the church had been trying to beat into me for years. Within the counselling school there was true acceptance and realness and I saw myself as God sees me, learning to embrace my limitations and make them work for me. I was inspired from that position of enlightened weakness to naturally become a better person rather than being guilted into it. I guess you could say my weaknesses became my strengths.

Rabid womble, I loved the church more than I loved myself. They were closer to me than my own family. And they loved me while I was doing things their way and then cast me aside when I stood up to them, like they did with so many others. I mourned for them for years and searched high and low to find a suitable place of worship and couldn’t find one. And then I discovered f2b. Coming to this site has facilitated healing, community, like-mindedness and acceptance; basically all the things the church has not been interested in providing.

I’m quite comfortable with the fact that the church does not have a monopoly on healing or God. And the sacred is everywhere. Thank God for that or else I might have given up long ago like the church did.

Hi Ant

Great to see you here again. Your input is greatly appreciated and the above is an excellent comment.

Yes, wandering in the desert will certainly test and develop an ability to listen more to one’s spirit. That’s what I’ve experienced anyway. Would I have chosen it? No – of course not! Who wants to suffer? And yet I am glad for my heart being broken open so I can relate to those the church has turned it’s back on or forgotten. If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have the compassion or acceptance of various disenfranchised others that I have now. That’s what Jesus was about, ministering to the broken, the forgotten, the down trodden, and outcasts. And that’s where my focus is drawn so I think that’s the most important one.

I hope this is OK, pingtimeout, continuing from your initial post with this?

I too heard a lot of misinformation about other faiths and practices from the pulpit and it was based on fear not love. And the ‘us and them’ you mentioned I found to be anything but subtle. I agree it is not Christian or in fact truly spiritual to hold an ‘us and them’ attitude. It comes from primitive times of needing to fight and defend against anything that might threaten survival. However, I believe we now live in a more secure and aware age and are able to discern things in more complex ways. And if we are really secure in ourselves, we don’t need to speak in an ignorant or defamatory way about those who have different beliefs. We are afterall all connected and, I believe, all cherished by the creator.

Yes, Jesus moved outside of the current church and culture of his day. He was a rebel but never arrogant. He wasn’t taking orders from the synagogue or any man and seemed to regularly upset church authorities. The things he did were contraversial but always deeply loving. That’s the person I want to be, motivated by love and courage. And I think that is more likely to occur outside of church than in it. I hope you’re right, Ant. It would be nice to think that the church is changing for the better, also being broken open to include all kinds of people who were excluded before. I’m just not so sure that it’s the right place for me anymore, that’s all.

I think we can safely judge a person, ministry, practice or environment by the fruit that grows. And so if people thrive and produce good fruit wherever they are, then something really good must be happening in their lives, even if it’s different to popular opinion or what we think they should be doing.

Blessings to all,

Ann Maree

a belated hi from me pingtimeout

great that you found us and thanks for sharing your story.

it seems like you are a regulary internet user….is this correct.

Hi everyone,

I’ve only been here a few days but I have to say this is a very supportive and friendly space. Having worked in moderating or administrating online spaces for about 14 years I appreciate the hard work, both from the founders/admins and also the regulars here to build that. This is a composite reply.

deafant (and Ann Maree) – The “us vs them” at the church I was in was very, very apparent. In retrospect it seems ridiculous that they were presumptuous enough to believe they were the only church through which God was working. I liked this quote particularly, it reflects my own “unlearning” too:

People are people regardless of what we believe and we all deserve to be treated with love, kindness and dignity and we all have the right to occupy time and space and believe what we want to and how we want to practice it. When we get away from these basic understandings we move away from the teachings of Christ which focused in these basic things.

Ann Maree – that’s no problem. I think it’s a natural tendency of forum posts to randomly dip in and out of different topics, it’s all about building community. I pretty much agreed with your entire post (10:57am). Re: other faiths… we were taught songs in Children’s Church which actively mocked other faiths. Pretty sad that they considered that necessary, really.

mobileguy – Yes, the control thing is a huge problem where it exists. I do know there are churches where that really isn’t a problem – the whole idea of telling people what to think rather than letting them be guided by the Spirit in their own path doesn’t allow people to mature or develop for themselves, and I think a truly mature church can only be strengthened by this process – it’s sad that some of their leaders don’t recognise this. I agree with your point on trust – applies to my situation too.

Anthony: Hi and thanks Yeah I’ve been on the internet since 1995 (and other online networks for even longer). The nickname is unique for here, I thought it best to keep the various parts of my life separate for now – I hope that is not interpreted as a lack of trust, but more just I’m aware that people from my old church, my work or even my other internet pursuits could be reading.

Ann Maree: What happened at my church was interesting and from what I’ve heard typical of “megachurches” in that the main church hierarchy had lost control of the edges and a level of “middle management” had arisen which had very much their own aims to pursue. The youth group was operating within any regular definition of a cult, and the church pretty much had no idea how far gone it was until the end.

deafant (and Ann Maree) – The “us vs them” at the church I was in was very, very apparent. In retrospect it seems ridiculous that they were presumptuous enough to believe they were the only church through which God was working. I liked this quote particularly, it reflects my own “unlearning” too:

Thanks for your reply pingtimeout, I had read your story with empathy and identified with the elements that were present in my own experience. It was a confusing time for me when I left the church not knowing what to believe or or what to think. I had to begin a slow process of unlearning which I am still doing – I still get caught in fundamentalistic thought patterns even 10 years down the track, I still remember choruses that run through my mind as if yesterday and the problem is that these choruses often no longer represent what I believe. I have substituted my own words at times but that has been limited in its success.

I am struck by Jesus’ itinerant ministry he had no regular church and there is not a lot of record of him attending the synagogue – of course this could be assumed knowledge of the time so I cant say that he didnt attend the synagogue regularly but that does not seem to be the the focus of the gospels. It seems to me that the focus was that of Jesus and people regardless of who they were and he didnt discriminate between believers and non believers. The focus is on individual spirituality, not collective worship. As afar as I am aware Jesus does not give any instruction to regularly attend a church or synagogue.

I dont mean to say its not right to attend church but I do think its a sign of spiritual maturity when we arent co-dependent on a church – just as its good not to be co-dependent in relationships. If our faith is dependent on being around like minded people then we are missing the point in my opinion. Like our faith shouldnt fall apart if we cant make it to church in Sunday. That said the company of like minded people does strengthen us, there is no doubt about that.

Pingtimeout I really admire your determination to speak to new people on a regular basis its not something that many of us are comfortable with in this day and age of suspicion of strangers and lack of local communities. I appreciate you taking the time to tell your story