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Love, Truth and Crisis
My spiritual crisis began about a year and a half ago, when I fell in love.
That in itself is not a crisis, but the person with whom I fell in love, more
specifically the gender of the person was the cause of the crisis. I guess
I should start by giving a little background information about myself. I was
a Southern Baptist Minister serving the inner city of San Francisco for nine
years. I lived and worked in an area called the Tenderloin District working
primarily with children of refugee parents, teaching Bible Studies, organizing
activities, tutoring, counseling, and integrating them into church.
After having lived in the Tenderloin for more than seven years, I moved out to
a quieter neighborhood for a time of sabbatical. I had also just taken a job
as a teacher at a Christian school. This is when the time of crisis began. I
let my guard down. I had always "struggled" with having an attraction to men
and thought it my "thorn" ala Paul. I denied that I was gay, because it did
not fit my theology, and besides, I had never fallen in love with a man, which
was my indicator of gayness, so I "knew" that I could not be gay, end of
story. But one evening after choir practice while waiting for a streetcar to
go home, I happened to catch the eye of this gentleman. He was on a streetcar
going to another part of the City. We stared at each other and then his train
pulled away. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders as he disappeared
from view. The next week I was reading the free weekly newspapers, and being
a romantic at heart, I always turn to the "Missed Connections" of the
personals and wonder if those people ever connect. I was reading along and
came to an ad that described me. I was astounded and flattered. I answered,
we met and I fell in love. And I had to face an important fact about myself:
I was gay.
These facts turned my world upside down. I could no longer be who I was. I
could no longer do what I was doing. I had a problem. I could no longer be a
minister. I could no longer be a teacher at a Christian school. I could no
longer be on the Board of Directors of my ministry. I was not sure that I
could even continue being a Christian, everything I had been taught had told
me otherwise.
Growing up in Oklahoma taught me many things and being part of the Southern
Baptist community taught me many others. A major thing I learned was that gay
people are not normal and are not something that anyone would want to be. My
father would often comment about the "pretty boys" and "tra-la-la's" and these
comments were no where near flattering. I became a Christian when I was 10
years old in a revival at a small Southern Baptist Church. I attended church
very sporadically for the next 15 years until I hit a crisis period in my life
when I was 25. It was then that I started attending a Southern Baptist Church
in Wyoming. God just drew me into the fellowship of believers and love was
showered upon me and I could not get enough of God's presence and also wanted
to share the love of God with everyone I met. I turned my life over to God
and moved to California to study at a Seminary. It was at seminary that I
first started studying the issue of gays and Christianity. I started reading
all the books I could find. I studied all the theories about what "caused"
homosexuality and "how to cure" it. I even was prepared to answer the
question, "Why are you reading so many books dealing with homosexuality?" -
"My cousin is gay and I want to know how to help him," was going to be my
response. I became convinced that I was not gay, and therefore all the
statements about being an abomination and going to hell did not apply to me
(even though there was a near constant desire to be near men at a deep level,
beyond the superficial or friendship level.)
I watched as a friend of mine who fell in love with another man was kicked out
of seminary four semester hours short of a degree. He was then kicked out of
his church. I also watched another acquaintance that asked to be ordained, be
essentially kicked out of a church of which I was a member, because she
revealed she was a lesbian. I watched as the local Association of Southern
Baptist Churches barred a church from fellowshipping with them. I watched the
State Office of Southern Baptists return missions offering money given by that
same church because it was tainted. All this confirmed for me that I was not
and could not be gay.
It was also at Seminary where I first shared with someone that I had some
"struggles" in the area of homosexuality. I quickly learned that was not a
subject open to discussion. I told one person, but somehow three other
people knew and were asking me about it and wanting to pray with me to help me
overcome the problem. I was desperate, I did not want to be gay, so I prayed
with them, allowed them to pray for me, even to the point that they were going
to "cast the evil demon of homosexuality" out of me. I memorized scripture,
one important one was I Corinthians 6:9-11. "Do you not know that the
unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, no sodomites, nor
. . . will inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE (my friends' emphasis)
some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." I was
so desperate that I even visualized my sins, put them in a helium balloon, and
took it out one night and released it and watched them float off to heaven,
gone forever. I was cured! I was not gay! I was normal! Now I could
proceed with life and ministry.
And that is exactly what I did for the next eight years. I became an intern
in an inner-city ministry and started working with Senior Citizens who lived
in a residence hotel in the Tenderloin. I worked tutoring children and
attending activities. A year later, I became the Director of the Ministry
with which I was working. I moved into the Tenderloin when I graduated with
my Master of Divinity with emphasis in Urban Missions. I was holding a
worship service for the seniors, which included leading music and preaching.
I was teaching Bible Studies for children and youth in my apartment, and at
the study center, I was tutoring them with homework. I took many children and
youth to summer camp and just became their friend. One child told me that I
was the first white man that had ever been nice to him. As a result of the
ministry, I was able to reach out and touch the lives of over 300 children,
many who are strong Christians today; even a few are now in ministry.
"All was going well" . . .Excuses; I learned to make them quite readily. When
people would ask me why I was not married, I would answer I have not found the
right woman who would be willing to minister with me in the Tenderloin. This
would quickly change the subject because they knew that it would be extremely
difficult to find such a person (while I knew full well that I had no desire
to get married - to a woman, and knew that I could not marry a man - besides I
was not gay!)
I began having doubts about my belief that I was not gay. Increasingly the
desire to be loved by a man began to haunt me. Men would follow me down the
street and make passes at me and in rare moments of weakness I would respond.
I grew up in a family and never heard the words "I love you" spoken to me and
had felt unloved and unwanted. Even though these men were really interested
only in physical affection, I figured they wanted "at least part of me" even
if it was for a very short period of time. This is how I later had
rationalized and dismissed my sexual activity with men.
The ministry that I was involved in evolved and grew. I became Co-Director
and Vice-President of the newly formed non-profit. Our ministry team had
weekly Bible Studies and we studied books on breaking the bondage. One of the
members of the team and I became prayer partners and we found out that both of
us struggled with being in "bondage to homosexuality." Again as part of the
exercise of the book, we spent much time in prayer to break the bondage. I
just hoped and prayed that it would work. During this period of time a gay
man wanted to volunteer to help tutor the children, and the members of the
team flatly refused and denied that possibility. (One of the reasons given
was that "All gay men are pedophiles".) I shriveled inside and thought if
they only knew that their Vice-President was probably gay.
It was during this period of time that I began to seriously doubt that God
loved me. I could without a doubt, go and proclaim that God loved the people
I was preaching to and knew that God's love would cover them. I, however,
knew that it did not work for me because I had a problem, a dirty little
secret, I had homosexual desires. And I was listening to the voices of the
past telling me that gay people cannot be Christian, or that they were back-
slidden, or unrepentant sinners, I did not think that I was one of those, but
I became increasingly unsure. I continued to throw myself into my ministry
and for the most part successfully ignored the homosexual aspect of my life.
I lived a miserable existence. I even started gaining weight because I was
medicating myself with food. Subconsciously I believe this was partly because
I wanted to look unattractive to men, unaware there was a subculture in the
gay community that really goes for "big" men. I achieved a weight of 300+
pounds, and would probably have grown bigger had I not pinched my sciatic
nerve and had my legs go numb. At this point I realized that I had slowly
been eating myself to death, and actually was beginning to see the "fruits" of
my labor. I decided at that point, that something had to give, I was not
ready to die. Several members of the ministry team and I figured that I
needed a break from the inner city, so I set about looking for a way to move
out.
Little did I know that this was the beginning of my move "out." I found an
apartment by the beach after about five months of searching. I lived there
for about two months when I met Alex, and thus was the final detail that
turned my life upside down. It was the happiest time in my life, I had
actually found love but it was also the worst time of my life, I had to
acknowledge that I was gay and with that acknowledgement came some very
difficult decisions.
At this time I went to visit my parents for Thanksgiving and found out just
how ill my father had become. I was shocked when I saw him sitting in the car
at the airport. It was a difficult week. On the flight back to California, I
told my sister that I had fallen in love, and had used the pronoun "they" when
referring to something that he had done. She had misunderstood and asked me,
"Did you say HE?" I responded that I had not said he, but the answer was yes.
Her first question was "How is the church going to take this information?" I
told her I did not know, but that the church would not allow it to be, if they
knew.
When I returned from my trip, I also began to slowly realize that Alex had not
fallen in love and was pulling away because he could not deal with my being a
minister. I was becoming increasingly depressed, and was having problems with
my integrity. I was singing in the choir at church, doing puppet shows for
the children in children's church pretending like nothing was wrong at all,
and would run home to the arms of Alex. When I was home I was crying all the
time. And when I was with Alex I was also crying most of the time, which
compounded the problem. I pulled him close to me in one breath, then
realized what I was doing and pushed him away in the next. I was dying
inside. To make matters worse, I had taken a job teaching at a Christian
School. I knew that some of the teachers had signed contracts with the school
denouncing homosexuality and stating that they had no homosexual desires or
persuasions. I somehow did not have to do this, but almost every day that I
was at school, I felt like a hypocrite knowing what the school believed and
what I was. If the school had known, I would have been fired instantly.
At one of the team Bible Studies, I announced to the ministry team that I
needed a break and that was the reason I had moved out of the inner city. I
told them I did not know how long a break I needed but that since I had
started the new job, my break was going to be effective immediately. I had
figured that it was going to be temporary. I needed some time to sift through
all that had happened emotionally.
Alex was pretty much gone, but the "damage" had been done. I was an emotional
wreck. I would get up and go to work and then come home and go to bed when I
walked through the door, often before 5:00 PM. I slept as much as I could, to
try to avoid the problem, hoping it would go away. I cried. I screamed at
God and cried some more. I finally got up the nerve to talk with a couple of
friends and told them what was going on and they were dumbfounded, and had no
advice to offer. One even told me that he "felt sorry for me." At one point
one of my friends became so concerned because I had called her that she came
over to my apartment because she feared that I was going to take my life.
(She told me afterwards, she was so sleepy that she could not stay awake but
was afraid to leave, and would run into the restroom and splash her face with
water - I thought that she just had had too much soda!) Another friend told
me to get my life right with God and things would be ok, and the homosexuality
would go away. I even got up enough courage to go speak to a pastor of a gay
affirming church, he sat and listened to my dilemma and agreed, "I had a
problem." He was very supportive, but really could offer no solution.
I was desperate; I did not know which way to turn. One of my dearest friends
called me one night with the name of a man who was going to school with her;
they had been partners in an exercise during a seminar. She had found out
that he was gay and that he worked with ministers and other Christians who
were struggling with the issue of being gay and Christian and hoped he would
be able to "help" me. I was leery because of an earlier try at counseling
while in Seminary, but decided that I had to do something, because I could not
continue as I was. I finally got up enough courage to call him. We chatted
for about an hour on the phone and he told me of a worship service that a
group he was volunteering with was holding the next Saturday afternoon. He
told me what he looked like and that if I came, to make sure that I sought him
out. I went to the service and was not sure I could deal with what was being
said, it sounded "way too gay" to be Christian, but I listened. We met and
we scheduled a time when I could meet with him during the next week for
"spiritual direction." From the moment I met John, he was very affirming and
supportive. He listened to me as I told him my concerns, we prayed together,
he asked me probing questions, and he gently guided me in the direction of
loving myself and allowing God to love me for who I was. He encouraged me to
continue my relationship with Jesus Christ, and not to turn my back on God, to
look and move forward.
During the time I was spending with him, he began to encourage me to seek out
people of the Christian faith who were gay and that were living their faith.
I did not know that anyone like that existed. I had only been aware of some
groups whose theology was very weak at best. He gave me the names of a couple
of groups. I also had gotten a computer and had started spending time online.
On the eve of Easter, I ran into a chat room named "Gay Christians." I was
intrigued; I went in and read the conversation, trying not to be noticed. One
night I was involved in conversations with three different members of the same
church, of which I am now a member. As a result of the conversations, I got
up enough courage to go to meet with one of the men, an elder in the church.
I asked him questions about Theology and he answered them. And after chatting
with him for a while, I realized that my problem or inability to reconcile my
Christianity with my gayness was not scripturally based, but based upon the
fears of what my fellow believers would think. I stayed for the service that
evening and after about three minutes into it, I had absolutely no doubts that
there were gay Christians who loved, worshipped and served God, and I was one
of them.
That was a year ago and it has been one of the best (if not the best) years of
my life, but also one of the worst in terms of all the losses I have faced. I
have voluntarily given up my seat on the Board of Directors, my position in
the ministry that I co-founded, working with children, and pretty much walked
away from the life that I had been living for the last 12 years. I finished
the school term and have for now given up teaching. I left because I did not
want to cause a division in God's work. I am often very heart-broken having
given up the desires of my heart because of who I am, but I feel that for now,
it is the best thing. I know that if the people of my past were to learn of
my orientation, my many years of work, which were praised, would become
tarnished by the one little word - "gay". I do not want that, nor do I want
to hurt all the many children and others to whom I have ministered, by causing
a controversy. To this day they do not know, (except now they may read this),
because I have not had the courage to tell them. On and on the trials come;
in what has seemed like rapid succession, one after another. My father passed
away in November. I have not been able to find a permanent job since the end
of the teaching job in June, but because of being unemployed I was given the
chance to spend some extended time with my parents and other family members
before my father passed away. And time with my mother and family after my
father was gone. I am not really sure what the future holds for me. I am
bogged down in bureaucratic red tape, waiting, three months so far, to the
final application process to teach in a local school district. This month I
was also chosen to serve as juror number 10 on a burglary/rape trial, causing
me to lose the temporary job that I had found.
Through the process I have gained an awareness of who I am. I have also
stopped pretending to be something I am not. I no longer have the need to lie
to myself about who I am. With God's guidance I am learning to love myself, I
can now look in the mirror and not see the most hideous creature on the planet
looking back. I have begun the process of being able to accept God's love
and acceptance of me. I have found a body of believers who loves, supports,
and encourages the "real" me. I have found acceptance and love that I did not
know existed among friends and family.
I am reminded of what is truly important in life. It does not make any
difference if I am gay or not. God would love me either way. The most
important aspect of my life is the relationship that I have with Jesus Christ,
that alone will sustain me. I know that God is enough, all that I need. Even
though at times Satan still throws the doubts in my mind, it serves to remind
me that he is not pleased with my new found courage to be who I am and not be
ashamed. I often grow weary and occasionally fearful of what the future
holds, but on Easter this year at church I was reminded of my new found hope
by the singing of the chorus of one my favorite hymns:
"Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because He lives."
Warren McCarthey received his Master of Divinity with emphasis in Urban Missions from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Mill Valley, CA in 1989
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