BJUnity

James Bow

The first time I knew I was gay was when I was 6 or 7 years old.  My mother stopped by the pharmacy on the way home from swim practice.  I found my older sisters standing in the magazine aisle giggling over some magazine.  I walked up to see what was so funny.  It was a Playgirl magazine.  To them it was all elementary school girl giggles.  To me, it was the moment that I knew something was different about me.  Why was I drawn to those images?  I couldn’t understand what it was, but I instantly knew that it was something that I could never tell another soul.

Every gay man that grows up in fundamentalism deals with the constant demonization of homosexuality in his own unique way.  Most stories I’ve heard from my friends and fellow BJU graduates are so very heart-breaking.  They fight a daily struggle to show an outward appearance of a straight-acting, happy Christian while inside they are suicidal and in utter misery.  That is not my story.  The simplest way to describe my experience was that I turned into a robot.  My psyche found a way to box away my sexuality into the furthest realms of my mind.  It was a protective mechanism.  I was in plenty of misery and pain; but most of the time I managed to find a way to lock it away.    The only way I could keep my self esteem intact was to shut away this insanely “horrible” reality about myself.  It protected me on so many levels, yet shut me away from those who loved me.

Unlike many of my fellow BJU graduates, I was the first member of my family to ever attend the school.  Even though we went to fundamentalist churches, my parents were not hardcore fundamentalists.  There were so very many ways my parents were showing me that they were different, but the constant barrage of fundamentalism was too strong.  Once I moved to Ohio in the 6^th grade, my life became consumed by BJU influences.  My pastor and his wife were Bob Jones graduates.  Eighty percent of the teachers at my Christian school were also BJU graduates.  Our soccer camps were at BJU.  The music competitions were hosted at BJU.  Without even realizing it, my church and school experiences were making my college choice inevitable.  I was being brainwashed into the idea that it was God’s “plan” for me to attend BJU.

No one description better sums up Bob Jones University and Christian fundamentalism than this now famous quote from the great Peter Gomes:

“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert. It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic and is suspicious of ‘the other,’ in whatever form that ‘other’ might appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define ‘the other’ as deviant.”

I didn’t meet an openly gay person until I was 25 years old in graduate school.   I had no reference for what “gay” really was other than the constant comparisons to child molesters and murderers at church and school.  I had such a conflict going on in my own head.  I knew those awful and hateful remarks were being directed at me, but at the same time I knew deep down those remarks were not true.  My parents instilled enough love and self esteem in me so that I could not 100% accept the premise that what I was, what I could not change, was evil or wrong.

I spent the better part of 12 years begging God to change me.  It wasn’t until I finished my time at BJU that I accepted the fact that my sexuality was not going to change.  It was my cross to bear.  It was my “thorn in the flesh.”  I became convinced that the apostle Paul was gay, and I was fighting the same battle he fought.

Graduate school was a real eye opener for me.  It was the first time since grade school that I had been outside of the fundamentalist bubble.  For once, I was not being told how to think.  Finally, I was being asked to think for myself.  Over the course of the next two years, my views of people and life outside fundamentalism changed.  It dawned on me that fundamentalism’s “hook” is fear.  Fear of displeasing God, fear of going to Hell, fear of doing something “wrong”.  All that fear was keeping me from being my authentic self and accepting myself.  I decided that I had to give myself the opportunity to love another human being.  Little did I know that this decision was opening up the door to loving myself.

This makes me feel like a dinosaur to admit, but I responded to one of those personal ads on the back of one of the local entertainment rags.  We talked on the phone a few times.  We finally met for dinner.  That night ended with a very brief kiss.  One kiss eradicated every last ounce of doubt I had regarding my sexuality.  There was nothing wrong with my same sex attraction.  It was 100% natural.  I never questioned God again about whether what I was doing was right or wrong.  All that internal turmoil from the magazine aisle with my sisters to the moment of that first kiss feels like a different lifetime.  Who was that person?  Did I really go to Bob Jones University?  Did I really believe those bizarre views about God and the Bible?

Fifteen years later, it is hard to wrap my mind around those many years in fundamentalism.  It took years to deprogram my thinking, and come out 100%.  I now have a wonderful partner, four beautiful dogs, and a challenging and exciting career that lets me see parts of the World that I never dreamt of seeing.

It gets WAY better!