By Clarence Singam

2 August 2002

I was asked to write an account of my journey coming to reconcile my Christian faith and my sexuality as a gay person. Two years ago I would have relished at the idea. But now it seems such a chore. I suppose it is because it has now become for me a non-issue not to mention I find writing really hard work.

Thankfully though, recently I had to clean up my hard disk and came across three letters I had written that map out my journey over these last four years.

The first was to Christian an Indonesian Christian, who was one of the members in the group I led at Choices (an ex-gay organization). He was one of the first people I shared with that I was re-evaluating my theological position on being gay and Christian — up until that point I had believed that being Christian while living as a gay person was incompatible. Christian, at that time was at crossroads. He was considering resigning from his secular job to join Choices full time and had consulted me on the way forward.

The second letter is a collective letter to my three girlfriends — Nora, Maria and Lehlim. These three women — Mexican, Malay and Chinese — are my three of my closest women friends and they are all straight. Nora herself was a missionary with a Pentecostal church, while Maria is Catholic and Lehlim a non-Christian. Their openness and acceptance of me enabled me to be vulnerable and open to them as I reworked my own theological and life position. They allowed me to be confused, angry and eventually reconciled in their presence.

The final letter was to Karen — my partner's sister. It was in response to a rejection of sorts. On Chinese New Year's day she gave me a Hong Bao with a short note in it saying that while she saw me as a good person, my relationship with her brother was one we created out of sexual lust. I was saddened by her well meaning note. The letter I wrote in response was a painful letter but it was also a letter of faith because I am still praying and hoping that one day the Lord will bring us together as a brother and sister in Christ in true fellowship and security — when we realize that we need not always agree to be friends, to respect and to honor.

All three were real letters written to real people and not just real but people who are precious to me. They are reproduced below with very minor editing.

Dearest Christian

Hi thanks for your letter again. Got it today and thought I better write a reply though I can't promise that I will reply every time I get something from you. I am one of those hangat hangat tahi ayam types (do you know what that means?).

Also I thought I'd type you rather than write to save you from going blind trying to decipher my writing or scribblings.

Yes I am an open person and thanks for saying I trusted you. I made a decision many years ago to be as transparent as I possibly can but also to be as wise as I can in sharing. Many people equate openness with trust. Not me. To be open is one thing. I have come to a point in my life where openness is a lifestyle and spiritual choice for me generally. So I am more open than most.

Trust is a different thing. I used to be able to entrust myself to Christians. To put myself in a position where I was vulnerable to them. But I am afraid I don't do that so easily anymore. In the Gospel of John it is said that Jesus would not entrust himself to the crowd because he knew what is in their heart. I can't say I know what is in people's heart but I can say that entrusting myself to Christians especially fundamentalist Christians is going to take a long time before something like that happens. I have simply come to learn that people who place ideology above personhood should not be trusted. So did I trust you? You judge.

Ideology vs. personhood. To be committed to one's personhood means to work towards respecting loving and honoring the person (including his/her views) even when his/her views are diametrically opposed to ours. Many fundamentalists can say that they "love" the sinner or the liberal but I realize that that is bullshit and is not the issue. Jesus not only "loved" the sinner, he honored them as people and he respected them. The only people he did not give this treatment to actually were the fundamentalists of his day — the Pharisees.

For instance the woman in Luke 7 who took off her hair and wiped his feet with perfume. She was a prostitute and the fact is that in Middle Eastern culture her act was VERY sexual. But Jesus respected her and honored her and allowed her to continue what was a very sexually charged act because he respected her personhood. I wonder Christian how you would react if one day while you were preaching, an openly promiscuous male prostitute encountered God through your sermon and rushed up to you and kissed your face profusely as an act of gratitude to God. What would you do my friend -it would be after all the equivalent of what this woman did.

I suppose what I was lamenting when we spoke is that many of my fundamentalist friends and partners in ministry will not see that my search (regarding the relationship of my gayness to my faith) has been one that has been based on integrity and a deep love for God. Instead they will see only that I no longer believe the (or rather "their") "fundamentals" of the Word and therefore I am no longer acceptable. Yes they will "love" me and pray for me to come out of my deception etc etc — but that kind of love I don't need.

Also another interesting point in your letter. When you speak of pro-gay vs. ex-gay. You speak as if the ex-gay is chosen by God but the pro-gay are not. The fact is Christian, I have met pro-gays who I believe have also been chosen by God and whose lives reflect more of Christ than some of my ex-gay friends. So what makes us so sure that they have not been chosen? What makes you so sure that our reading of the Bible is more correct than theirs? In any event Christian, how many pro-gay Christians do you know and whose lives you have seen? Are you judging too fast?

Just some thoughts. Hope you didn't find all this a little too aggressive. Going on to your life. On the one hand I am quite excited about you being at the threshold of joining a ministry full time even if that is an ex-gay ministry that would treat me as unacceptable. But I appreciate also that it is difficult and scary even to move from the seeming security of a secular job to fulltime ministry.

I think it is better to look at the decision in small bites. Ask yourself what is the worse case scenario — looks to me that the worse case scenario is that you totally bomb out. Is that so bad? Fine you eat some humble pie and then you pick up the pieces, maybe go back to a secular job then move on. Not too bad right. Maybe you give yourself a one to two year trial period to see if this is good for you. It is okay to fail Christian. No shame in that. The only real failure is the failure to try.

I think Bible College is good. Although the thought of doing assignments etc is not appealing the fact is that without Bible College when you go back to Indonesia you may lack credibility. So go for it. Personally I would prefer a Master of Divinity degree. You would qualify for entrance since you already have a degree and secondly not only do I prefer a M.Div but also I would personally prefer Trinity Theological College. I think TTC lets you think a bit more.

But you must do what interests you. A M.Div might be too heavy since it is three years and involves heavy theology. What about the two year Masters at Singapore Bible College? Think about this carefully. It will affect the doors that are open to you in the future. A Masters will give you significantly more credibility. You could also consider a Master in Pastoral Counseling by the school that is run by Campus Crusade.

Finally in making this decision approach it wisely. Finally also thanks for the chapter. I enjoyed it. Was it Max Lucado?

Take care,

Dearest Nora, Maria and Lehlim,

I would have preferred to have written but my atrocious scribblings would not have been readable by you. Also this is a letter I am writing to three different people — Nora, Maria and Leh Lim. Though the words are the same, I hope you will not take this as an impersonal note. It is one that is written from a very personal crucible with a sense of profound thankfulness to providence who should make my path cross with yours. Also I suppose it is my small way of introducing you to each other though you may never meet in this lifetime.

Firstly thank you for what you have been to me in these last few months. The ability to call you up and be able to be myself to you has been one of tremendous sustenance. A sustenance that perhaps only heaven can reveal to you one day (assuming all of you get there! I will definitely be there).

I have been through many difficult moments in my life but I don't think any in recent history has been as extended or as intense as this. I sometimes ask myself if I am doomed to forever walk these portals of pain and somehow the answer is, "No". In some ways I believe that where I now walk I myself have chosen. Many years ago as a bright eyed university student, I recall praying to God asking him that may the things that break his heart break mine too. Now a man of 35, I balk at that prayer and want to take it back.

A friend shared with me a verse from the Bible (Ecc 1:18) recently: "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; and the more knowledge, the more grief". As I read that I recalled too how again as a bright eyed with a full head of hair university student I asked the Lord that if he gives me nothing else that he will give me wisdom and understanding. Once again I now balk and wish to take that prayer back.

I look at my flatmate with whom I have lived and loved for 15 years and I wish I could be like him — to be simple and not to have so much pathos. There is a value in leading a sedate life don't you think? But what can I say. We are each given our lot in life and it is what we make of it that really matters.

Looking at all this I suppose my prayer now even as I grow older is only two — (i) that I will be happy and healthy and (ii) that lives will be affected for better through my small life in this brief moment in time. If I have this then I will be able to die a satisfied man when the time comes.

Anyway I am rambling. Sorry. The main reason of this letter is to thank you. And maybe to update you a little on where I see my life is heading.

I have decided that my life shall be devoted totally entirely and purely to the pursuit of ultimate hedonism! — just kidding.

I am not sure where life is going. I only know these few things:

i. I must trust my instincts and the Lord who I believe inhabits those instincts.

ii. My domains where I am able to exert influence are changing but hopefully expanding. I realize that I have been happiest when I am impacting lives in a significant way. Only problem was in the past there has not been balance.

Up until recently my primary domain has been the church. To some extent I have lost that domain, perhaps temporarily but the feeling is acute. The institutional church has been a defining phenomenon for most of my life.

I am asking the Lord to open up new domains for me and hopefully that will somehow reintegrate back to the church as well but I know that my relationship with established Christianity can never be the same again. Instead I see a more enriched relationship even if it might at times be tenous.

A part of me feels that there is so much I want to contribute to make this world in a small way a better place for some people but it will mean that I must win this battle to transcend myself. That I believe will come with time provided I do not give up.

So if you are praying for me…Nora when you speak to baby Jesus or Maria when you have your little discussions with Mother Mary or Leh Lim when you…err…who is it you speak to anyway…Mother Nature?, do pray that a new domain will be opened for me where I can make a useful and significant contribution and do that happily.

iii. All my life I have grown up wanting to belong to something. I thought I had found it in the church and the ideal of a kingdom family but since 1995 that illusion has been systematically demolished.

There was a time when I felt I had come to this alien land and belonged to something. Now I once again feel rootless almost like I am swimming in this huge boundaryless ocean and I am losing strength. It is a terrifying experience. But then a part of me also feels that the Lord maybe saying to me that at the end of the day I belong to him. To the Him who lives in me.

Dear Karen,

Thanks for your Hong Boa. Sorry if I seemed somewhat unfriendly today — there were many emotions running through me.

Your brother did not tell me anything about your conversation with him except that the reunion dinner was to be a family event and I was not family. I was home when you called but I spent most of the time during your conversation with him in the room while he was in the lounge so that he could have some private space with you.

This will probably be a long letter. Even as I write now a part of me does not want to. A part of me is screaming inside of me — "What is the point? She is so convinced that she is right that she would not even consider if the way she is thinking might be different from the way the Lord Jesus thinks."

Reading your note, I realized how suddenly it must have been for you for someone like me to just drop into your life. As I reflected I realized that I have not given you the opportunity to know me, to know where I have come from, where I am and where I am going in my life journey. I struggle to write. I ask "Why should I write? Why should I write to someone who has never even taken the time to sit with me and ask me how my life has been like? Who has never taken the time to step for a moment into my shoes, the way Jesus stepped into our shoes to identify with us? Why should I write?"

But I am writing. Why?

1. Because I love your brother. It is not a question of sex. It is a question of love.
2. Because you are probably the closest thing I have as a sister — though I have half sisters, I am not really close to them.
3. Because I see in you a desire to serve the Lord. If I did not detect this in you, I would not bother to respond.
4. Most importantly, because I love Jesus and to love him means to love those who claim to be his.

Jesus and Me

In your note you say you are a representative of God writing to me. Karen — so am I. Let me share with you a bit of my journey with Jesus.

I would not be here today writing to you if not for the Lord. Before my dad even married, he became so sick, that the doctors said he would die and there was no hope. But an OMF missionary came and prayed for him and he was miraculously healed. He lived and married my mother.

When I was born he committed me to the Lord. When I was six years old, my mother who was a non-Christian at that time, thought me to pray to Jesus and there has never been a time in my life when I have not sensed the presence of the Lord in my life.

When I was 15 years old I came down with a fever so severe that I was delirious for days. My mother was worried sick. But a very old lady who hobbled badly (because her heel had been sliced off by a shrapnel during World War II) who was our neighbour came daily to pray over me. I am not sure if I would have recovered without her.

In 1993 I was in Nepal with a friend. I was close to burn out from work and had been very down, struggling over my sexual orientation. When we landed he came down with dengue, which is not common there and we were alone and I had to nurse him for 9 days while he lay there very sick. By the end of the 9 days I was exhausted. My friend had decided to go back to Singapore. I was really down but did not have the energy to stay on. I cried out to the Lord telling him that I was exhausted but I could not bear to remain alone in this strange country.

The next day after my prayer — the day we were supposed to leave, while we were having breakfast, a lady came up to speak to us. Something in me said she was a Christian. I had been in this country for 10 days and I had not met a single Christian. I asked her if she was Christian she said yes and invited me to stay on. As a result of that I had another great 8 days in Nepal where I even got to go to a church camp.

When I was a teenager, I was the drum major in the school military band. I remember before every performance I would pray and you know, I never once dropped the mace in a performance eventhough I executed very high throws.

I could go on and on and on. The bottom line is the Lord has walked with me all these years, he is precious to me. I love him. I serve him. I am no less a representative of the Lord Jesus than you are.

I have served the Lord for many years even to the point of being threatened with physical harm because I led some non-Christians to Christ. I don't want to boast about my ministry experiences, you can ask your brother about them one of these days.

As I live my life, nothing matters more to me than for me to reflect the Lord Jesus in my life. You say that you see me as a generous and friendly person. If there is any good in me, it is purely by the grace of God. At each step of the way I try to ask myself, "How would the Lord Jesus behave in this situation?"

I ask that in my relationship with you, your parents, grandma, Mark and Luke and indeed your brother too. I want that with each person that I interact with, they get a glimpse of what it would have been like interacting with Jesus when he was on this earth.

This is not to say that I have achieved it but life is about one step at a time.

This is the reason why I was hurt. I was hurt because I asked myself the question, "If Jesus was in your shoes, would he have mind me coming to your grandma's place for the reunion dinner? Would he have said, "He is not family?" I don't think so.

Karen, all our theology, all our beliefs about what is right and wrong, all our worship services, all our sacrifices will in the end matter nothing to God. He is only interested in one thing — that is do we reflect the life of Jesus when he was on earth. So that is the question you have to ask, that when you made that phone call, was it Christlikeness you were reflecting?

If you say it was, then the Christ you worship and the Christ I see in the gospels are a very different Christs. If you say that the phone call was not made in a Christ like spirit, then I say, "It is okay. We are all learning. No hard feelings."

My point is "Karen, I love Jesus no less than you."

My Homosexuality and the Bible

I don't take the Word of God lightly. I treasure it. When I was studying in Australia, I used to have an armchair in my room. It was an old torn armchair that I bought for $20 at a Salvation Army store in Melbourne. I gave the chair a name. I called it Peniel. Do you know where that name comes from?

It comes from Genesis. It is the name of the place where Jacob wrestled with God all night and God blessed him. Peniel means "face to face with God". I called the chair Peniel because it is the place where I spent hours studying, meditating and reading the Word of God. I am not ashamed to say it, "I treasure the Word of God." I do not take the Word of God lightly.

I don't want to go into intellectual discussions in a letter like this. But Karen, there are many gay people who are deeply committed Christians and do genuinely believe that they are able to live gay lives within the bounds of Scripture. I am now one of them. If you have not read what they have written to try and see their perspective, you have no right to comment.

But beyond that we must all be careful of spiritual arrogance. I believe that my understanding of the Bible is correct. With regards to homosexuality, I did not arrive at the belief overnight — it was a fourteen-year journey. BUT may the day never come when I become so convinced that my understanding of the Bible is correct and anyone else who disagrees is definitely wrong. May the day never come when you are so convinced that your interpretation of the Bible is so correct that anything else that disagrees with your understanding is definitely not of the Lord. Those are the kinds of things that lead to spiritual deception.

The worse spiritual deception to get into is to come to a point where you believe that what you believe can never be wrong. Once you get to that point, you open yourself up to deception. It was in this spirit that the Crusades were fought. It was in this spirit that thousands were tortured by the Inquisition. It is in this spirit that the church said the earth could never rotate the sun. It in this spirit that people justified slavery using the Bible. It is in this spirit that people did not allow women to vote, enter into contracts and treated them as less than men. And it is in this spirit that Christians unjustly condemn gay Christians.

You might say that that would never happen to you. But that is exactly what the people mentioned above said. For me I choose to walk with fear and trembling before the Lord, studying and living his Word to the best of my ability and not dismissing the views of those who may disagree with me.

My Homosexuality

I was somewhat taken aback by your note when you said that at the end of the day homosexuality is merely something people created so satisfy their sexual gratification. Basically you suggested or at least implied that my relationship with your brother is lust based. I am not sure if you realized the implications of what you are saying.

Karen when you look at the two of us relate — your brother and I. Do you see two men who are so overcome with lust going after one another's bodies or do you see two human beings who love one another deeply? If for one moment you ignored our gender, how is our relationship different from that of a man and a woman who love one another?

Have you ever sat down with gay men or a gay women and asked them what it is like being gay? Have you asked them what is their joy, their pain, their fears, their sorrows, their treasures? Have you ever asked them what it feels like growing up a gay person feeling that somehow you never fitted in? Have you ever asked them what it feels like to have your friends think you are weird and reject you? Do you know what it feels like to be in the shoes of a 37 year old man who loves his parents dearly and who knows he will never be able to give his parents the grandchildren they so long?

Have you ever sat down and asked me how it feels like to love your brother? To come home each night knowing that someone who cares for me with his life awaits me? To be able to hold him and sense that I am of one spirit with him? To be able to share and laugh and connect at a level emotionally in a way that you would hope to connect to another man one day? Do you even know what a joy it is for me though lousy cook that I am to rush to the supermarket during lunch and rush home after work to cook for him? Do you know what it feels like to have someone I can pray with not just for others but for us? Does all this seem like lust to you?

Looking back I first realized I was attracted to men probably when I was not even 11 years old. It was not sexual. Sex is the culmination of an intimate relationship not the beginning of one. But while my peers reached puberty and started becoming attracted to girls, I found that I kept falling in love with boys.

Put yourself in the shoes of a precocious 14year old kid who is deeply religious and who is attracted to boys instead of girls. Try to put yourself in his shoes to sense the torment he must have gone through thinking that he was ugly, sinful and an abomination. Fearful if anyone should find out. Constantly crying out to God for mercy asking for God to change him. Can you imagine the anguish? If you can then you have caught a glimpse of the psychological agony gay teenagers go through and yes both your brother and I have been through it. We did not choose to be gay we just were.

My first real relationship happened when I was in Uni at about 21 years of age. It was a relationship that lasted more than 7 years and now he is one of my closest friends. It was a very difficult relationship. We were both leaders in our Christian student groups and felt that we were in a very sinful situation — always afraid that the Lord would one day punish us for being in this "immoral" relationship or fearing that our churches and fellowships would find out and disgrace us. All this just made the relationship very unstable and unsustainable and affected our studies.

I remember in my first year in Uni, I was so tormented by my gayness that I decided to kill myself. I found a wire and went to a room that was not occupied. I sat in that room for a long time wavering as I stared at myself in the mirror. But in the end I stopped. I stopped for only one reason — not because I suddenly found God or saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I stopped only because I could not bear to think what my mother would have to go through if I had taken my own life.

Twice I applied to Bible College to do a Master in Divinity and both times I was accepted. Once even with a scholarship; but I pulled out in the last minute partly for fear that if I did not get my homosexual "tendencies" under control, I would be in deep trouble if I entered the Chrisitian ministry.

In 1993, I joined Choices, a ministry to help people change from homosexualty. I thought it was something that God had sent to me. Choices believes that the homosexual life is not acceptable to God. In fact they teach that homosexuality is a psychological illness. In Choices I learnt that it was my neglected/abusive relationship with my father that had a significant role to play in my becoming homosexual. That I needed to forgive my dad, develop healthy non-sexual relationships with men etc.

I did all of this. I have forgiven my dad and reconciled with him. My relationship with my parents are good. I have developed healthy non-sexual realtionships with men. I fasted and prayed to the Lord. You know I have even done a 30 day fast where during the day I take no food or water. I went for deliverance sessions so that the "bondage" of homosexuality could be broken. I renounced my homosexuality. I commited every part of my body to God.

The leaders in Choices started encouraging me to explore relationships with women and I got into a number of relationships with women. The last one lasted one and a half years. Her name is Jean. If you come to our (your brother and my) home you will see her photo in the study. She was a great woman. A woman who loved God dearly and who knew I was gay. And in a way I loved her too. But after one and a half years, I came to realize that I could not bond with her emotionally and romantically as I could bond with another man and this regardless of how much I worked at the relationship or how much I prayed and believed that God could teach me to love a woman in the way I could love a man.

In retrospect, I sometimes feel I may have been tremendously unfair to Jean. I should have known better. She derserved a man who could love her as his spouse. Instead a precious year and a half of her life was wasted because we were both misguided about God's plan for our lives.

After one and a half years with Jean who had waited patiently (she knew about my sexual orientation) and was tremendously patient with my inability to bond with her, I decided that it was time to stop kidding myself. I broke the relationship. It was an awful feeling — she and I both spent quite a few weeks in tears and I came to realize how much she truly loved me and indeed how much I truly loved her — but it was a love between a brother and a sister — I had hurt someone who was precious. But to live a lie would not have been a solution.

I am thankful to God that he stopped Jean and I from going further. I know gay men who have married and so-called "repented" of their homosexuality who lead tortured lives. The Lord was gracious to us.

You know Karen, I am different from your brother in some ways. While he generally accepted his sexuality. I did not. Not only that, in Choices I became a leader and in fact for a number of years they kept asking me to join them full time. So I was once in the position that you are now in with regards to your beliefs about homosexuality.

But you know what led me to change positions:

1. After all the "deliverance" and other things I found that I could only bond emotionally at a deep level with another man. Some will say that I did not try hard enough or did not trust Jesus enough but I don't think so.
2. I began to realize that being homosexual was not a psychological illness but quite possibly just a variation of human sexuality.
3. I began to meet other gay men who weren't just interested in sex but were mature and spiritual individuals who contributed to society.

Most importantly I began to see that the basis on which most Christians interpret the Bible to condemn all homosexual behavior is flawed. It was at this point that my view of the Bible began to move.

As I look back, I think back about the days when I too would insist that homosexuals had to change and I kind of regret it. Do you know how many gay men each year leave the church and give up on God because no matter how hard they try they can't change and so they think that they can never enter the kingdom of God. I ask myself how the heart of Jesus must be broken over this loss.

I think of all the people who try to change and who can't no matter how much they pray and believe and I think of the emotional damage they face. I have a friend, a Christian, a gay man. He was told for so many years how sinful it was to be gay. He tried his best to keep away from a gay relationship but in the end his rejection of a core part of his identity only led to him mutilating himself because of the deep self hatred within. This friend of mine is scarred for life. I ask myself how the heart of God must be shattered over these lives.

Karen, I leave you with these thoughts. We might never agree but let us learn to respect one another and recognize the love of Jesus that weaves itself into our lives. I would very much like to be your friend if you would have me as one.

In His grace,

Clarence