By David Chew

10 October 2003

[An edited version of this article first appeared in Fridae.com.]

My boyfriend serves in church, very actively, in a high profile ministry as a pianist playing for worship services. He has been a member of a very large, charismatic church for the past 6 years.

It certainly is no moderate church, one where each and every member is brought up well rooted in the family of God, and one's belonging to that family of God is very strong, as much as the desire to serve God, which is inculcated in everyone.

As a rule, this 'corporate-ness' of charismatic churches exists for everyone to flow together. There are differing views on this, and I myself, while belonging to a charismatic church myself, have certain doubts about fully immersing oneself in this culture.

Concern for one another, as a friend and as a fellow Christian, my boyfriend's colleague and friend in the same church, knew about his orientation, and wanted to find out the church's stand on it. In doing so, when asked at point blank by his pastor who this was about, unintentionally 'outed' him to his church.

From where I stand, again, I think this could have been delayed or avoided as this friend, concerned as he was, didn't have to 'out' someone without his permission. Coming of the closet is a very personal move one does when one is ready. My boyfriend wasn't quite there yet.

And the thing everyone wants to know is his church's stand on this. His pastor came back to him saying that the church accepted him as he was, and that he could still serve then. And thus up till two months ago, everything was fine.

Then he met me and we fell in love.

This posed as a problem there and then, for while his church's stand was that it was ok for him to serve in church and be gay, they have problems with him serving if he was in a long term same-sex relationship. This began the process of him coming out spiritually, to himself, to the people around him. This spiritual coming out is vastly different from merely coming out to one's church, it is coming to terms with one's sexuality within the boundaries of your religion and finding rest in a certain place.

Before you categorically accuse his church of hypocrisy, as I did, like thinking the church's stand was a cop out, to say they accepted him, yet did not want him to be in a gay relationship, I must pause here to add that to their credit, the pastoral team did listen to both sides of the argument, researching both pro-gay and anti-gay perspectives. They also arranged for a 'getting to know you' session with Safehaven, a local Christian gay organization. However, there is still much deliberation and indecision up to now. Up to this point, they as well as my boyfriend and me, feel that it still is a very gray area which requires more exploration and definition.

Simply put, no one knows where God stands on the issue of homosexuality. Religious right groups and leaders who are devoutly anti-gay, are, I feel, miseducated and ignorant about certain things and issues, for example, the context of words said in the Bible. And that said, the pro gay side, which is just as devoutly passionate about its cause, sometimes 'fits' the Bible to suit their purposes. Both sides of which, my boyfriend and me are not comfortable with.

We were faced with a heavy decision, or at least my boyfriend was. As part of their pastoral duty and responsibility, and in order to prevent others from stumbling and to avert a huge uproar in the community should they take the pro-gay stand, his church leaders had to advise him against being in a long-term same-sex relationship while serving on the ministry team. He is required to make a choice – me or his ministry.

As if this wasn't bad enough, one fine day, after a great date with me, he went back home only to find his mother asking him if he was gay.

From that point on, things just degenerated.

Everyday for the past month, my boyfriend faces immense pressure from his family and his church.

I know all of them show their concern and love by advising him the only way they know how, and what they think is best for him, and you really can't blame them for their miseducated views on the entire issue. It is the product of years of indoctrinating themselves on the only information available to them, and deferring authority to religious rights leaders simply because they were the only authority on the issue then.

However, I'd wish they didn't pressure him the way they are now. His mother, who has never even met me (and has since banned me from their household asking her son why he “puts himself in the way of temptation”!), lectures him everyday about it, says she is praying and interceding for him; his brother, who is gay friendly and whose best friend is gay, cannot accept his brother for who he is because as his sibling, he is 'concerned'.

His church leaders do not pressure him directly, but everything they say and do, their encouragement, their concerned 'talks' do just that. Even I myself have been guilty of pressurizing him. My constant insecurity of losing him as he struggled with deciding to be with me or not, put additional stress on our relationship.

We even tried the 'break up' option for four days, for he rashly thought that it would be best to hurt me once and for all, and not drag me into this. It proved to be the worst four days of our lives and I think our love for each other grew even stronger after that.

So slowly, piece by piece, we are mending back our relationship, nursing our broken hearts, trying to recapture the joy and the honeymoon period 'normal' couples go through.

Normalcy is a word I miss these days.

***

I wish many things were different.

I wish his mum would get to know me as a person, to give me a chance.

I wish people around him would see the hurt they are causing him through their 'concern' for him.

I wish my boyfriend wouldn't complicate things for himself, and cast his gaze so far away for that iota of truth that he may be missing all which is right under his nose.

I used to wish I never had met him, pulling my life out of orbit into his perilous one.

But I now accept all of this, and have come to realize what's important…

I'm lucky to have someone who loves me, practically to the point of unconditionality. I'm lucky to have someone care for me so deeply that even if we are not meant to be, I know he will always love me in a way he will never love another.

***

Current social norms and culture have made it such that we go through 3 phases of 'coming out', and in a gay Christian's life, this is especially magnified.

First we deny our orientation and create huge closets for ourselves. Huge pressure from religious right churches and leaders add tremendous pressure to ourselves to stay hidden in that closet out of fear, derived from what I would call Sodom and Gomorrah preaching.

However, we soon realize that there are like people out there and we then seek them out. And as we get exposed to the community, we soon realize that it is important to come out and have people accept us as who we are, and usually closeted, repressed gay Christians come 'flaming' out the closet as such, this gay pride mode normally fueled by the gay community.

As we begin to accept ourselves and come out, and the people around us begin to accept our orientation, nonchalance takes over as one's orientation is as given as much as his hair colour. This happens as we move on to realize that there is nothing to be really proud about, because you know what, we are no different from anyone else. The only difference between me and a straight guy, for example, is that I pursue guys in short shorts, he goes after girls in short skirts. Other than that, we're pretty much the same.

The only thing we want to do now, is to satisfy a deep set need in our being to be able to express and receive love. How do we do this within the context of the Bible and church norms and denominational lines is something we then go on a journey to discover, or as others might see it, go on a struggle to reconcile.

*** And so, this is where we are now. My boyfriend and me. Struggling to find that ground on which we can firmly stand to express our love for each other, within the boundaries of the Bible and the church.

One must understand that this isn't so much about the church at large, much less a 'David versus his boyfriend's church' issue. While I have addressed the painful process of coming out to one's ministry, and accountability to God's family as another aspect, this odyssey remains a very personal one. The road ahead of us is perilous. We have no idea if any resolution will ever be attained, or whether the struggle will consume 'us' along the way.

I'm just glad we've got each other as we go on this together.