In January 2000, two Episcopal priests traveled to Singapore to be appointed missionary bishops by the Anglican primates of Rwanda and Southeast Asia. The appointments were a response to the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the more liberal Episcopal Church.
My local parish, St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco, embodies this trend: As a sexually active gay man with dreams of entering the priesthood, I considered the bishops and myself the “enemy.” So, like any Christian, I prayed for them.
Hell is to be driven by your desires and fantasies and to be told that to deny them is to deny yourself the one joy that defines your entire existence.
St. Gregory was so passionate about praying for our enemies, I wish they had seen us on 9/11.
“Lord, have mercy.”
One Sunday I offered prayer publicly: during the morning liturgy, I stood as a deacon in my vestments, raised my hands and called up the names of two bishops, asking the congregation to pray for them that they might receive God’s blessing and guidance.
Essentially, this meant, “If they are wrong, God will help them; if they are right, God will move them forward,” to which the congregation was supposed to respond, “Lord, have mercy.”
Before they could do so, a priest stepped forward to the center of the room, added his own prayer to mine, and said in a loud voice, “And for their conversion!”
“Lord, have mercy,” the congregation replied.
After that incident, in a lengthy email exchange among the liturgical staff, it became clear that this priest (one of two vicars at the church) thought I was praying wrong. They were wrong and we were right. There was no need for God’s “guidance.”
The priest, who had recently come out himself, clearly accepted the current orthodox view of homosexuality: “These two people wanted to take us all back to the dark ages and we needed them to enlighten us. We were called to enlighten them.”
I was familiar with this line of thinking. Five or six years ago, when I was working as an administrative assistant at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, I had a conversation with my boss. He was a gay man (living with the pastor’s “spouse”) and his job put him in frequent contact with older, more traditional members of the church leadership. I asked him how, as a gay Christian, we could be accommodating to those with whom we disagree. Shouldn’t we as gay people be less confrontational about our private lives in order to follow St. Paul’s command not to slander one another?
The answer was a resounding no: there was no room for “homophobes” in the Church. In the words of Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop of the Anglican Communion, “Leave them alone.” Or, as the saying goes, “Goodbye, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”
However, I was beginning to realize that this way of thinking was in conflict with my desire to live as an Orthodox (lowercase “o”) Christian.
“You’re crazy, you’re not like us.”
My anxiety did not go unnoticed. A few months after the incident, another pastor in our parish asked me point-blank why I wanted to commune with people who did not want to commune with me. And why was I distancing myself from those who did want to commune with me?
But it was clear to me that these old friends and familiar faces were rejecting me. myselfNot because of my sexual orientation, but because of the liberal heresy of believing in the Bible, the created order of all things, and in Christ who was crucified bodily and resurrected bodily.
Abba Antony of Egypt once said, “There will come a time when people will become mad, and when they see anyone who is not mad, they will attack him and say, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’
In their eyes I was crazy. They just wanted to help me be myself. But the words of Father Alexander Schmemann came to mind: “Salvation is not only not the same as help, it is actually the opposite of salvation.”
I remained in the Anglican Church until Easter 2002. In July of that year I became Orthodox.
In August 2004, the Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson, the first openly celibate gay man to be a bishop. He would live in the bishop’s residence with his sexual partner. This only solidified my decision to leave the Church. I was never alone. Hundreds of parishes left the Church, ultimately leading to a split within the Episcopal Church.
Still, Pastor Robinson downplayed the scandal this would cause, predicting on CNN that his election would lead hundreds of people to now see the church as welcoming and inclusive.
To be honest, I find his vision appealing. The opportunity to attend a ceremony with your partner, sit there enjoying the music, be told that God loves you, and hear a sermon on “green ecology” and “social justice” and “liberal politics” would be a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning, followed by coffee or brunch with friends at a local eatery. We would all go home feeling more confident.
What’s wrong with a little affirmation?
“I’ve been in hell. I know what hell is like.”
The same sophisticated modern thinking that has given us polyamory and unlimited, near-instant access to pornography has also taught us that ancient cultures were woefully behind in their understanding of sex and sexuality.
It is so obvious that the deviation from Judeo-Christian ethics must stop, that some have even suggested that such morality was not part of the faith or was never intended to be included in Jesus’ “enlightened” teachings.
But there is another view. In 1956, Eugene Rose, a 22-year-old gay man living in San Francisco, I wrote a letter In a 2001 article published in Pomona College Magazine, he told a friend:
… My mother found out I was gay in a rather rude way (as I’ll explain later), and if you haven’t found out yet, it’s time you did. I haven’t been kicked out of the house yet, but I probably won’t be back after September. My mother was hysterical, but my father convinced me I was just “sick.” I agreed to go to a psychiatrist friend in San Francisco, something I was keen to do at my parents’ expense for other reasons.
As you probably already know, I expect that this summer I will be living and sleeping with a young man I love and who loves me.
The article said of Rose’s conversion:
It was her gay partner, who lived in San Francisco, who introduced Rose to the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. But while Rose was immersed in the mysteries of ancient Orthodoxy, her partner, who wrote a book about the church, lost interest in it. Eventually the church fully accepted Rose, and the two separated. A social doctrine adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synod of Bishops last year says that homosexuality is a “sinful injury to human nature” that should be “treated by the sacraments, prayer, fasting, repentance, and the reading of Scripture.”
“I’ve been in hell. I know what hell is like,” Rose once said about his youth, before he fully embraced the Orthodox Church.
I’ve been in hell, I know what hell is. I endorse these words of the man who became Father Seraphim.
This hell is caused by our hormones and we believe that denying it is unhealthy.
Hell is being driven by your desires and fantasies and believing that to deny them is to deny yourself the only joy in existence, the joy that defines your whole existence.
Hell is standing in your bedroom on a beautiful San Francisco morning while an orgy is going on in the hallway outside.
Hell is when you’re standing in a room full of men engaged in various acts with one another on a foggy San Francisco afternoon, and somewhere you hear a voice telling you that it’s all wrong, but you don’t know what to do.
Hell is a balmy evening on a back porch in the middle of the most liberal Anglican parish in the country, listening to 10 gay men claim that all churches are homophobic and evil.
Hell is it when a Sunday sermon tells you that Jesus died in first century Judea, that Jesus is not alive, that Jesus is not coming back, and that Jesus wants you to “follow your bliss” to find God’s will for your life. All this when you now know that every time you wallow in your “bliss” it makes you more depressed.
Hell is a pride parade where no one pays attention to you, no one returns your compliments, no one pays attention to you. Hell is having your self-esteem crushed on a day when it should be overflowing.
Hell would be to know that at this point someone reading this essay is going to say, “Oh, he’s just ugly and mean.”
Hell is watching your friends die for the freedom to damn themselves, and hearing them cry out, “I have done nothing to deserve this…God is an abomination.”
Hell is knowing that there is even the slightest possibility that these “Jesus Seminar” people and other “New Theologians” are wrong. Over 2,000 years of orthodox Christianity are right. What if homosexuality is evil?
Hell also stands next to those who end a conversation by saying, “Shut up.”
In hell you are told that all of the gospels are wrong, that thousands of years of brothers and sisters in the faith have been wrong, that Jesus loves you just the way you are, there is no need to change anything, and you should just throw away everything that disagrees with that.
In Hell, we are told that this nihilism and denial of all truth is exactly what the Church was meant to be, and what frees us from outdated notions of sin and righteousness.
Hell is knowing that no one really wants a “relationship” no matter how much they want to be celebrated or accepted. Rather, they only want the ease of sex, the right to demand to be accepted by their neighbors, and the ability to claim on insurance. Also, they want it to be non-monogamous, open, with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and the ability to “hang out” on weekends. And please don’t criticize us.
Hell would be standing in the middle of the most gay-friendly city in the country, maybe the world, and praying, God, that there could be something more to it than this.
Or maybe hell is a church that just pats you on the head and says, “It’s going to be OK.”
Hell would welcome you in from the cold by throwing all the windows and doors wide open and turning off the heating (as we all know, too much change can be a shock).
Hell is pretending that “we care about everyone and support our diverse community” doesn’t mean “we care about your soul as much as your local Denny’s.”
By the grace of God I was able to escape this hell and I pray that others who suffer as I did in this time of false “pride” will find a way out.
