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Category: Christians Coming Out

Out Of The Closet … In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch : NPR

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 15 November 2010 19:02
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LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW AT:

Out Of The Closet … In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch : NPR.

A few weeks ago, Bishop Jim Swilley sat down in front of his congregation at Church in the Now near Atlanta to get a few things off his chest.

“There are two things in my life that are an absolute,” the megachurch pastor told his flock. “I did not ask for either one of them, both of them were imposed upon me, I had no control over either of them.  One was the call of God on my life… and the other thing … was my sexual orientation.”

Jim Swilley — a twice-married father of four, a man who comes from a long line of evangelical preachers — revealed a secret he’d been holding onto most of his life:

He’s gay.

Not A Conventional Marriage

Swilley tells NPR’s Guy Raz that it was his ex-wife Debye who encouraged him to come clean. Though they’re recently divorced after 21 years of marriage, she still works and preaches alongside Swilley at Church in the Now.

The pastor says he told her he was gay before they married, thinking it would be the end of their relationship. “But she said no, let’s get married, we’ll work it out.  And to a degree, we did.”

But a couple of years ago, Swilley says, Debye came to him and told him it was time to get real.

“She said, look, I love you and I’m never going to hurt you with this, I’ve always got your back, but you and I both know we don’t have a conventional marriage… You tell everybody else to be real … but you don’t allow yourself the same grace that you give everyone else… I think you need to tell everybody what the truth is and let the chips fall where they will.”

Teen Suicides

Swilley says he never wanted to go public about his sexual orientation, even after his wife confronted him. He told his children, and they were supportive, and that was as far as he went.

But then, the recent wave of gay teen suicides hit the news. Swilley says he was particularly moved by the case of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who jumped off the George Washingon Bridge after his roommates filmed him having sex.

“I would hear people nearly imply that he deserved it, you know, people would say he shouldn’t have been in an act of perversion.” Swilley says.  “And when I started hearing that, especially from people who professed to be Christ-like, I don’t know. Something changed.”

Swilley had never preached against homosexuality or the gay community, but he knew he had to go further. “I felt like, with me not saying at least my little part of it, I end up being part of the problem.”

So one recent Wednesday evening, he sat down in front of his congregation and told them his story.  Many walked out during his sermon, but many others stayed.

“I’ve had people in my church come to me and say, if this had been anybody but you, I would have just had a knee-jerk reaction and not even considered hearing them out,” Swilley says. “But you’ve been my pastor for a quarter of a century.  I know you… so if you say that you are, and you know you were born this way, then that changes everything.”

 

Denver Evangelical Church Welcomes Gays

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 08 November 2010 18:17
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As more states consider whether or not to legalize gay marriage, church leaders have been forced to examine their theological position on homosexuality. They find themselves asking the question about gays and lesbians: What would Jesus do?

And they are coming to very different conclusions.

Some churches have decided to take the “hate the sin, love the sinner” approach by actively lobbying against gay marriage. Catholic leaders in Minnesota have turned to mass mailings as part of a media blitz to try to keep marriage between a man and a woman.

In Denver, an evangelical Christian pastor has split with his former church and started his own evangelical church that fully welcomes gays as worshipers and leaders.

The Rev. Mark Tidd says he does not see a discrepancy between the Bible and accepting members of the homosexual community.

“There’s times when we change how we approach scripture because we observe how God is making God’s self known in creation,” he said. “We don’t consider it a sin to be gay and we don’t consider it a sin if you are gay and seek a relationship which is the only natural one you can have which would be someone of the same gender.”

Video: Colorado candidates debate same-sex marriage issue

Lisa Crane and her husband Ryan left their more traditional evangelical church for Tidd’s church, and have no plans to go back.

“Do we ever worry like, ‘Oh God am I wrong about this?’ and ‘Am I going to get to heaven and God is going to be like – No, you weren’t supposed to let the gays serve communion!’” Lisa said.

“You know, I don’t think so. That doesn’t jibe with the Jesus that we learned about from the Bible”

About 1,000 miles away, Gretchen Thibault hears a much different answer.

“What would Jesus do?” she wondered. “Jesus loves us, but the activity would not be appropriate. Jesus loves the sinner not the sin.”

Thibault is a Roman Catholic living in Minneapolis, where the archdiocese has distributed 400,000 DVDs encouraging its members to support the idea that individuals and not judges should vote on an amendment that would define marriage between a man and woman.

 

James Swilley Announces He is Gay

Written by ECWR Web
Wednesday, 03 November 2010 01:39
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A Georgia megachurch pastor has come out of the closet, announcing that he is gay–and that he’s know he was gay since childhood.

“I know a lot of straight people think that [sexual] orientation is a choice,” James Swilley, a twice-married father of four, told the media. “I want to tell you it is not.”

Swilley said that he had been up-front from the start with his wife of 21 years, Debye. After the two divorced, Debye encouraged Swilley to tell the truth, the pastor said.

Debye stood with Swilley not only as his wife, but also as the associate pastor of Church in the Now, which Swilley established a quarter-century ago, The Advocate reported on Oct. 29.

The recent rash of suicides by gay youths who were tormented at school for their sexuality provided the impetus for Swilley’s public disclosure, the pastor told Atlanta news station WSB-TV. As a father…” Swilley began, sounding choked up, before starting again. “Think about your 16, 17-year-old killing themselves. I thought somebody needed to say something.”

WSB-TV noted that anti-gay Christian websites had begun attacking Swilley, with one site calling him “unclean” and “an instrument of the Devil.” Swilley acknowledged that if there is a major loss of attendees to his church, he will have to start over again–but he said that it was worth the risk. “I know all the hateful stuff that’s being written about me online, whatever,” Swilley told WSB-TV. “To think about saving a teenager, yeah, I’ll risk my reputation for that.” Swilley also told the media that his congregation has been largely supportive of his coming out.

The revelation comes less than two months after allegations against Atlanta-based megachurch pastorEddie Long made headlines. Four young men filed suit against Long alleging that the pastor had used his position of spiritual authority, along with passages from Scripture, to coerce them into sexual encounters. The men were all of the age of consent at the time of the alleged encounters, and no criminal charges were filed.

Long has spoken out against GLBT equality and family parity, even leading a march through Atlanta to the grave of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 2004, in support of an anti-gay amendment to the Georgia Constitution. Long has denied the allegations, comparing himself to David facing down Goliath.

 

Mom, I’m Gay

Written by ECWR Web
Friday, 08 October 2010 00:09
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Revelation 3:14-16 To the Church in Laodicea 14″To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Until 3 years ago, I was very lukewarm in my attitude towards gay Christians. I didn’t want to see anyone persecuted, but I hadn’t thought much about what the church’s position should be. It was 3 years ago that I was jolted out of my lukewarm complacency about gay Christians by a single statement, “Mom, I’m gay.” My daughter, Sophie, was 16 years old. It took about 2 seconds for me to recognize all the fear in her eyes about what my response might be and how much courage it had taken her to tell me. God gave me the right things to say as I looked into her eyes, “Sophie, God made you exactly the way He wants you to be,” I emphatically told her. “God has a better plan for you than you or I could ever come up with. I love you exactly the way you are.” We hugged and both of us cried as we talked about why it had taken her so long to tell me.

Her father was just as supportive. We had no idea of what she knew at the time. That 26% of homosexual kids are kicked out of their homes when they come out to their parents.

My name is Nancy Mark. I am 51 years old. I’m a physician, an anesthesiologist. I’ve been married for 26 years to a wonderful husband, David. David and I have 3 children. We have been members at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for 19 years. All of our children were baptized there and grew up in the church. Chloe is 22 and a college graduate, Sophie is 19 and is a sophomore in college. Jack is a sophomore in high school. Sophie is a wonderful person. No one has a bigger heart than she does. She’s an encourager, like Barnabas in scripture. If someone is feeling down, she can lift their spirits faster than anyone I know. She’s a devout Christian. The morning after Sophie told me she was gay, I prayed to God to show me the truth about how He feels about homosexuality. After I prayed, I quietly waited for God to answer. As I waited, my mind was very clear. But then I had to get the kids up for school, and I had a lot of chores and errands to do, so I wasn’t consciously thinking about my prayer during the day. But over the course of the day thoughts intruded into my consciousness that had to do with my prayer. The thoughts that came to me were clear and precise. Each hovered in my mind for a few moments, until each registered fully in my consciousness.

The first thought that came to me was this. God is an intentional creator. God does not make mistakes. This was the second thought that came to me in the same clear, precise manner, about an hour later as I was doing housework. Scripture has been used in the past to justify terrible things. The next 3 thoughts were these. All scripture must be interpreted in the light of other scripture. Some scripture writers were writing to a local situation. All scripture must be interpreted in light of the context in which it was written. All scripture must be interpreted in the light of our ultimate authority, Jesus Christ. This was my next thought. God never asks believers to check their intelligence and reason at the door. My next thought was: What does the Bible say about homosexuality? What does Jesus say about homosexuality?

The final thought that came to me was my original prayer in another form. I realized that God was not going to give me a quick answer to my prayer. God wanted me to study His word on all of these statements and questions to come to an understanding. I recognized that three of them were rules for interpreting scripture that I had learned from my evangelical teachers. I approached this task with some trepidation.

It seemed that God wanted me to build a case for or against homosexuality. I just didn’t know which side I was building the case for. I really was afraid that I was going to end up finding an answer that I wouldn’t like. Wasn’t James Dobson right, wasn’t Dennis Rainey, wasn’t Hank Hanegraaff? These evangelical leaders had spent years studying God’s word. Nonetheless I began.

It was slow going. Sometimes I got discouraged by the size of the task before me. Even though I worked only part time, I still had two children at home and didn’t have a lot of free time. But I did have a strong feeling that this was something I needed to do.

After several months, another question came to me. Do Evangelicals interpret scriptures that deal with the issue of homosexuality the way they claim scripture should be interpreted? In the pages ahead, I address all of the truths and questions that came to me in the order God gave them to me. For almost two years, I studied scripture. I did not want to be influenced by what others had written, but simply wanted to learn what the Bible had to say. I first started seriously studying scripture seriously about 12 years ago when I enrolled in the 2 year Bethel Bible course through my church. Over the past 30 years I have read many books in addition to the Bible, including St. Augustine, St. Francis, Brother Lawrence, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa, St. Therese of Liseux, Martin Luther, The Way of a Pilgrim, G.K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, A. W. Tozer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Plantinga, Lee Strobel, Dallas Willard, and John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility. I also studied Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s Thru the Bible course, which covers every word in scripture. It took three years for me to complete this course. Equipped with this knowledge base as a starting point, I tackled the question of homosexuality, from a scriptural point of view.

I’m a very logical person. I’m a graduate of MIT and a physician, and tried to pursue the answer with an open mind. I wanted to see what the scriptures revealed. Before I proceed, I need to clarify something I wrote about at the beginning. When I said to Sophie, “Sophie, God made you exactly the way he wants you to be, God has a better plan for you than you or I could ever come up with.” I did say that I was aided by God. But for almost two years I took a lot of credit for having said those words. The very night after I said them, I kiddingly asked Sophie “As a mother, don’t I deserve a gold star for saying that to you?” Sophie laughed and agreed. But recently, I thought, if I had had any notice that Sophie was going to come out to me, one day’s notice or even one hour, would I have said those words? I had to admit to myself that I would not have. I would have told her how her father and I love her, and that we would always support her, and that we would always stand by her. I’m not sure I would have mentioned God at all. In that moment, God helped me, because what I said to Sophie when she was so vulnerable would impact our relationship for the rest of our lives. Which explains why God did not give me any notice, and simply spoke for me.

Synopsis
1. God is an intentional creator.
2. Scripture has been used in the past to justify terrible things.
3. All scripture must be interpreted in the light of other scripture.
4. Some scripture writers were writing to a local situation. All scripture must be interpreted in light of the context in which it was written. 5. All scripture must be interpreted in the light of our ultimate authority, Jesus Christ.
6. God never asks believers to check their intelligence and reason at the door.
7. What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
8. What does Jesus say about homosexuality?
9. Do Evangelicals interpret scriptures that deal with the issue of homosexuality the way they claim scripture should be interpreted?
10. Conclusions
11. Addenda I’ve written about each of the points above, pointing out what God’s word says. If you’re interested I would like to share it with you. I’ve met with several pastors at our church and some of the elders hoping to have this issue brought into a wider discussion, but many church leaders feel that this would tear the church apart. I think they are wrong, and that Christ does not call us to avoid conflict when people are being hurt. The fruits of the wrong biblical teaching about homosexuality are awful: families are being torn apart, people are turning away from God, and children are being told by those who supposedly love them, at home and in the church, that they are an abomination in the eyes of God. I want to tell all in the LGBT community: God made you exactly the way he wants to be.

Thank you, Nancy Mark