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One warm summer day in 1997, a young Southern Baptist man and woman were out visiting people in the community and inviting them to church. Near the end of the evening, they walked up to an old duplex and knocked on the door. A moment later a black woman appeared. The young man introduces himself and his friend and quickly explains that they are going around the neighborhood inviting people to their church. The lady behind the door nods and appears to be contemplating something. Instead of just taking the brochure and saying thanks, she turns and lets out a deep sigh. "I'll never go back to church," she says with a mixture of pain, sadness, and anger.

The young man appears startled. "Why?" he asks. The silence lasts a bit too long. Finally she tells the two Southern Baptists that she is a lesbian. And over the years she has been made well aware that the church is not welcoming of people like her.

The conversation turns to sin and the need for repentance. The young man defends his denomination and their stand on moral absolutes. The conversation ends and the young man pulls out a visitation card to fill out. He writes the following:

This was a tough visit. Lisa talked with us very openly. She said she would never go to church again. She went when she was a child, but now rejects Jesus and the Bible. Lisa told us that she was a lesbian and she lives with another woman whom we didn't get to talk with much. She was friendly, but homosexuality is the stumbling block that is keeping her from knowing Jesus.

Later that night, when all the days' work was done and it was time for sleep, the young man lies down and rests his head on the pillow and breathes. The tears begin to stream down his face and his prayer in between sobs is simple - "God, help me."

The young Southern Baptist is terrified because of the growing realization that he is one of "those" people who he saw today. One of those evil, ungodly, unnatural, rebellious, sinful, family-destroying homosexuals.

Five years have passed and I'm here to say today that God has worked to answer my simple prayer said in desperation and repeated over and over as I struggled to reconcile my homosexual orientation with my Christian faith. God helped me and healed me - just not in the way my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters thought I should have been healed. They believed, and continue to believe, that I need to somehow be changed into a heterosexual before my life can be pleasing to God. And for several years I believed that too, though I really tried not to thing about it. I poured myself into my work and into Christian service.

I worked as a part-time youth minister for a small Southern Baptist church in eastern Kentucky. I was simultaneously working as the college outreach leader for my home church in Lexington. In my spare time I worked as an electrical engineer for an income. I loved serving the church, working with youth and encouraging them in their faith. And so for three years I did this.

However, during this time period I was also trying everything I could to repress something that I had known for a long time - something that I, from early on, had been taught was so bad that I could not even bring myself to say the words, "I am gay."

It was not out of deceit that I did not tell anyone. I honestly believed the teachings of my denomination about homosexuals.

It is a terrible place to be - in that valley of confusion and despair that comes from being given two core truths and then being told by everything that surrounds you that those two things are polar opposites.

The first truth was that I wanted to live a life that was centered on what Jesus said was most important - loving the LORD with all your heart, soul, and mind and loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

The second truth was that whenever I am attracted to someone, whenever I want to be near someone, whenever I want to touch noses with someone and kiss someone - that someone is always a guy.

And so, when presented with this dichotomy of my soul, I could only come up with one word that described my walk with God and I wrote it in a journal. "Betrayed."

Oh the restraint that God must muster in order to allow the suffering that comes from misinformation. Perhaps the reason that a burning bush did not appear before me and proclaim that God loves me just as I am as a gay man is... that I would not have believed God.

I was not strong enough to understand the grace and acceptance of God, so I confused it with the acceptance of other Christians - in this case Southern Baptists. Thus when a pastor speaking at my home church proclaimed from the pulpit, "I don't know what kind of depraved mind it takes to choose that ungodly lifestyle," I felt that level of rejection carried the full weight of God behind it.

"Spiritual Violence" is exactly the right phrase to describe the harm done to me and the harm that I did to other gay people because of misinformation. When I sat in my church and regularly heard the anti-gay teaching and policies I hurt.

And I knew the precise place where I hurt just as much as if I had broken my arm, or cut my leg, or been punched in the stomach. I hurt in my soul. My spirit wilted like a flower that was being nourished with water mixed with poison.

To their credit, my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters instilled in me a love for holy scripture and a call to ever study the word of God.

It was through the scriptures that I found great evidence of the inclusive Spirit. The same inclusive Spirit that was going against the established religious order of the day as recorded in the book of Acts is the same Spirit that fought against the socially accepted institution of slavery. It is the same Spirit that worked for the end of segregation and it is the same Spirit that proclaimed the call of women to ministry. It is the same Spirit that is working towards full inclusion of gay people today. I believe with all my heart that it is the Spirit of God - the Spirit of the radical Christ.

And so, God answered my prayer from five years ago. Though it did not come as a voice from a burning bush or a thunderous announcement from the sky above... still it came. God whispered into my spirit and wrote on my heart this:

My precious child. You are beautifully and wonderfully made in my image. I love and delight in you. I crowned you with the glory and honor that comes with simply being created human. I made you just as you are for a reason. Walk with me, your God who loves you. And on the journey, if you find a soulmate... hold his hand as you both walk with me.