BJUnity

PROLOGUE:

I’m a theatre teacher at an arts magnet high school, and I see many things from a perspective of play analysis. So forgive me, but here’s a lot of exposition on myself as the protagonist of this story:

ACT I, SCENE 1: EXPOSITION

CURTAIN RISES

PROTAGONIST enters. He is 30-years-old, average height, too skinny, with bleach blond spiky hair, wearing trendy glasses and fitted clothes, and is obviously (you know)…

My family has always meant the world to me. I had a happy childhood, and was very close to my parents and younger sister in particular. (Ironically, my older sister and I have gotten a lot closer now that we live at opposite ends of the country.) My extended family did EVERYTHING together, so we were very close, all living near each other.

I grew up in an Independent Fundamental Missionary Baptist Church in Indiana. The same church that my parents still attend. Those are good people that know how to greet you and feed you! My great-grandfather, Ford Porter, wrote the gospel tract “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation,” and my parents lead Lifegate, Inc., the ministry that distributes the tract (so I was considered a missionary kid growing up). Like my grandmother, I became church pianist at age 12. I attended Christian schools my entire life. Was a “spiritual leader” in High School, winner of the “most spiritual” awards, etc. I attended L.A.M.P. at Northland Baptist Bible College’s summer camp and C.I.T. at The WILDS (both are selective teen Christian leadership programs). And I traveled on two summer sacred musical drama teams with The Academy of Arts, based in Taylors, SC.

My time at Bob Jones University was filled with similar opportunities. I attended BJU (where my parents met) for 7 years and earned two degrees. While at BJU, I performed in numerous productions each year, sang in the most exclusive choral groups, recorded in SoundForth Singers for 6 years, was a Prayer Captain in the dorms, traveled on Musical Ministry Team, traveled on Musical Mission Team to Europe, worked two summers of BJU Drama Camp, counseled for a summer at the WILDS, and was engaged to a girl. I followed the rules hard core. Never drank or smoked or cussed. Never did anything sexual with anyone.

I am so grateful for all of these amazing opportunities. On the outside, I must have looked like a fantastic kid, but we all know that’s not good drama. Something has to go wrong. Hold that thought.

ACT I, SCENE 2: HONESTY

I am a very honest person – to a fault. I get into more trouble these days because I just can’t lie my way out of things. (Pause for laughter.)

I knew at a very early age that I was gay. I also understood that it was a part of me that I did not choose. What child chooses or even understands their sexuality?

My “objectives” in life have always been the same: share my entire life with my love (I’m a romantic), and teach music and theatre. I’ve happily been achieving the latter since graduation. But the road to the former has been bumpy. How can you share your life entirely with your love if you only have the option of loving someone you are not going to be physically attracted to?

It took me forever (and actually coming out) to realize this. The thing that was the most distressing to me about “it” was actually that I FELT LIKE I WAS LYING TO EVERYONE.

ACT I, SCENE 3: LIES

I and many others have grown up in this Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) environment that forces gays to be untruthful. We learn quickly not to be honest to our authorities. We hide parts of ourselves from our closest friends. And in some cases we completely lie straight to their faces.

When my relationship with my female fiancé was coming to an end during grad school, we went to Dr. Jim Berg (BJU’s Dean of Students) for help. He asked me three different ways if I was gay. What was I supposed to say to that?

PROTAGONIST: NO! I don’t WANT to be gay. I’m not doing anything that is actually “gay.” I don’t talk about it. I don’t even want to THINK about it – let alone DO anything physical with a guy. I’m excluding “it” 100% from my life. So, NO, for all practical purposes, I’M NOT GAY! STOP ASKING!!!

ACT I, SCENE 4: SECRET PAIN

I was always a wreck inside. My “character” had lots of “conflict.” Here’s where it gets interesting. (Cue dramatic lighting.)

I’m very sensitive and eager to please. I can’t bear letting people down, especially my parents. All of my authorities and leaders were telling me the same thing: homosexuality is not only a sin, but second only to blasphemy, except that we will treat it as the worst. That hits very hard for someone who wants to make everyone else happy. Suddenly there was something about me that I hadn’t even asked for that was in direct conflict with all of these important people in my life. (The protagonist throws himself down on the bed in spiritual agony and weeps.)

It seemed as if all I had was Antagonists. Certainly no help – not from God, not from anyone. This is why I was “saved,” “resaved,” and again had to find “reassurance of my salvation.” But multiple baptisms later, still nothing about that kind of faith had helped.

PROTAGONIST: WHY ISN’T GOD DOING ANYTHING???

I was in private turmoil. After all, I would have rather kept all the pain to myself so everyone else could be happy. So for years I had an overwhelming sense of guilt – not for anything I had done, but for what I knew I was. I also feared so many things: that someone would find out, that because I was gay I could never go to heaven, that I’d let everyone down. I was in mental anguish:

PROTAGONIST: I’ll destroy my parents if I come out. I’ll never see them again. I’ll lose so many friends. I’ll never serve in a church again. I’ll have to leave my job as a Christian School teacher – I’ll miss my kids so much! I won’t get to see my nephew grow up. Never return to my home church…

Not one time did anybody ask me what was wrong. I knew my pain showed sometimes. Considering that very few people were surprised when I came out, it would follow that they “knew all along.” It didn’t seem as if any of them had thought through what I could have been going through. I was left alone to deal with it.

I thought about suicide. A LOT. For years. But thank God I’m stubborn. And I knew that killing myself would be just as bad for my parents as coming out, so I decided living would still be better for now, if only nominally.

I developed stomach ulcers. And I still have TMJ from grinding my teeth at night. The doctors and dentists all say that I must have been worried about something. I was diagnosed with serious depression by a doctor during college. But I refused to take the pills because I had been convinced by preaching that depression was a sin, so taking pills for it was even worse. Now the depression became another unwelcomed part of my life that I had to deal with – ALONE.

Growing up, I believed that God cared. I wanted to love God more than anything – why else deny something that seemed so hopeless to beat? I believed that God would take away what was wrong in our lives if we genuinely let go of it and beseeched God. Well, that didn’t seem to be true. Not from my experience.

So I had to give up on God and do it myself. I fought my own nature on my own (the Protagonist as his own Antagonist), because I had allowed nearly every spiritual figure in my life (Antagonists) to tell me that God was against homosexuality. They had left me with the image of an unkind God actually staring down at me saying,

UNKIND GOD: (leaning back in easy chair with feet up) I’ve got this one to the point where he’s completely hopeless. Now, let’s see how he handles “it.” Will it be frequent sex with perfect strangers? Drugs? Oh yes, that’s a good one. Suicide? Oh, I hope not. That’s getting old. Maybe he’ll actually come up with something original and amusing for a change.

I have always been teased for being too artistic, too effeminate, too skinny, too blah, blah, blah… So it took me a long time to realize that I’m a beautiful person just the way I am. (Thank you, Christina, Pink, Gaga, and God!)

I was taught that I was “struggling with homosexuality.” (Thank God I am no longer struggling.) But I believed it! Now I see that my struggle was with everyone I knew telling me (indirectly through preaching, teaching, joking, etc.) that I was sinful, worthless, repulsive, abominable, better off dead…

Bullying is such a hot topic right now for public school teachers like me. Well, BJU and IFB churches do nothing short of actual bullying when addressing the subject of homosexuality. This causes deep trauma to the mind and soul. And mine were severely wounded.

The bullying that affected me the most injuriously growing up was from the pulpit. It was a barrage: daily Bible classes and weekly chapels at Christian school, 3+ church services a week, the sermon tapes we are strongly encouraged to listen to, week-long revival and evangelical services, the harangue of sources at BJU, and then all the same at church (where I taught in the Christian school) for two years afterwards… By the 2008-09 school year, it was literally preached against in every single church service, and most of the chapels. (More Antagonists everywhere I turned…)

PROTAGONIST: (looking up, screaming) HOW MUCH CAN ONE GUY TAKE???

A Christian school teacher of mine in high school told the class that he wished he could have shot a gay couple who were kissing in their car ahead of him at a stoplight. He said they made him sick. But eventually you just know what these people are going to say, and you get into the flow of “amen-ing” (even joking) with the best of them so you don’t out yourself in church.

“You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for… years.” — Bertrand Russell

I just couldn’t afford to lose everything I loved so early in life. My family, friends, job… What does that leave you with? That’s why suicide can seem like the best resolution to your problem – because those around you have made you believe that they’d prefer you to be dead than to be someone they must daily reckon with.

ACT I, SCENE 5: SEPARATION

And then my parents called in June of 2009 to ask me if I was gay.

I was never ready to tell my parents about my sexuality. Not because I couldn’t handle it – I had my whole life to prepare. But because I knew they would be literally destroyed by it, like many other fundamental Baptist families. I anticipated that they would stop eating, lose all sleep, be humiliated, and gradually die of broken hearts. Not far from the truth.

This is really hard for me to talk about.

(The PROTAGONIST stands in the middle of a room surrounded by his PARENTS, FRIENDS, SPIRITUAL LEADERS and GOD.)

Sometimes, we do not truly treat one another in love, even when we think we are. BUT we should love as God loves. My parents believe that because they love me, they cannot talk with me until I am “changed.”

(Exit Parents.)

The last time I spoke with my little nephew on the phone, he was told to say, “We love you, Uncle Jared. We are praying for you.” And that’s it.

(Exit more Fundamentalist Family.)

Many of my friends from growing up or college believe that because they love me, they are forced to “speak the truth in love” about my “gross sin,” so they send me harsh emails and messages and then step out of my life.

(Exit Friends.)

Many preachers believe that it is actually loving to preach fiery messages about “the sin of homosexuality,” pounding their fists on the pulpit.

(Exit Spiritual Leadership.)

I knew I could not return to my job teaching at the Christian School as an openly gay man.

(Exit Job.)

And above all, I knew that God didn’t want me the way I was, and I knew there was nothing I could do to change the way I was.

(Exit God.)

Well, this part of my story is still unfolding. I would love nothing more than to one day have an addendum to this article saying that my parents and I are back on speaking terms and they have welcomed Fabio to the family.

BJU and IFB churches taught my parents and friends to “separate” from sinners. So it’s only natural in that worldview for them to do so. Just consider me the “shunned.” But to me, there is nothing loving about separation. There is no such thing as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Love is unconditional.

When my parents told me that I was not allowed to talk to them and then hung up the phone, I wept for weeks. I thought I had taken my lifetime to that point to prepare… But I ended up receiving the response that I expected my parents to have. I found myself without parents, friends, spiritual guidance, a job, and without God.

INTERMISSION (I need a break – don’t you? lol)

ed. note: check back tomorrow for the rest of Jared’s powerful story