[Via ExChristian.net] Ray Boltz, a Christian singer recently came-out as gay:
Ray Boltz, who sold about 4.5 million records before retiring from Christian music a few years ago, came out of the closet Friday to announce that he’s gay.
In an interview with the gay magazine The Washington Blade, Boltz said he came out to his family and some close friends in December 2004, but only now decided to go public with the news.
“I’d denied it ever since I was a kid,” Boltz, 55, told the magazine. “I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore … when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, ‘Just end this.’”
…
“This is what it really comes down to,” he says. “If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.”
(Source)
I feel bad for the guy – he spent decades suppressing his homosexuality because that’s what he was “supposed to do”. Christians like to say it’s just a choice, but getting that heterosexuality to stick on some people seems impossible. (In fact, several prominent ‘ex-gay’ Christians have been caught soliciting gay sex. Whoops.)
Video of Ray Boltz (and more videos here):
Looking around on blogs, plenty of Christians have been very judgmental about his coming-out (surprise!).
Of course, the two options available to Christians aren’t simply: accepting homosexuality, and thinking that homosexuality is “just a choice”. When my oldest brother came out as gay, my parents thought it was some sort of spirit or demon of homosexuality that was plaguing him. They thought that it could be prayed-out. (They never attempted an exorcism, but given their ideas about homosexuality, I don’t know why not – other than an aversion to exorcism.) Again, this attitude and approach to homosexuality seems incredibly naive and ineffective at accomplishing anything. Also, I could never understand why a “loving God” allowed evil spirits/demons to exist. (Did God think it was too easy to get into heaven, so he added a few obstacles? You know – to trip up the people he “loves”?) I think the problem for Christians is that they don’t quite understand how these “bad” homosexual desires can exist. It’s kind of an enigma, and they’re searching for ways to explain it without accepting it (which is a “sin” in their eyes). It also poses a problem for New Testament teachings which state:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Yet, this “new creation” seems remarkably like the old version – complete with the same homosexual desires. (What, Christianity has no transformative power? How can that be?)
Speaking of “just a choice”, I was recently at a coffeeshop when a guy asked me for help connecting to the internet. Turns out that’s he’s gay, and he moved to the US recently – from Iran. Quite a few Middle-Eastern countries kill people for being gay, and the fact that there’s still gay men and women living secret lives in these countries should give Christians pause when they claim it’s “just a choice”. (More on that topic: Struggle for gay rights in the Middle East, Iran: Gay Teens Executed by Hanging)
If you would like to point out the “judgmental” parts of what I posted, please let me know.
I’m actually talking about the blog comments – not necessarily the original blog post itself.
You make some very good points. I think a lot of Christians do struggle with understanding the homosexual lifestyle. And I don’t think our faith in general, does a good job addressing all the questions homosexuality raises.
One example: If we’re all created in God’s image how can someone be born gay?
Because we don’t understand it, because it doesn’t fit neatly into our Faith box – we fear it – we dismiss it – we condemn it – we villify it.
That’s much easier to do then to struggle with it, struggle through it. We so much want things to be black and white, right or wrong. We hate the grey areas.
Yet we refuse to recognize that Jesus lived and moved and worked in the very grey areas we’re afraid of.
There is hope though. There are Christians that are willing to take risk, willing to love. Willing to wrestle with their faith. Hopefully their voice will rise and one day drown out the hate and venomous language we here too often today.
I grew up Christian, was a Christian up until I was 18. Then I got disenchanted with it because of a lot of things. Most especially judgmental ‘Christians’ who cant seem to think outside of the written word. — Now, I don’t know what I am.
Back in the blog you were talking about, I had several comments against those people who say that Boltz was an agent of SATAN. I mean c’mon can you get any more close minded than that.
I personally applaud Boltz. So many people out there stay closeted just because they are afraid what people might say about them. Because its supposed to be a ’sin’. So many people stay in abusive marriages. Some women stay with cheating husbands just because divorce is a sin.
As I mentioned in the previous blog. I think that ‘God’ is lenient and forgiving. Who are we to condemn a man for expressing his true self.
Thanks for this blog in retaliation tinyfrog. People are just so closeminded sometimes.
Thanks for the article. I hate bigotry in any form so much that I felt I had to send a comment to one of the web pages you listed that we bashing him for coming out. Here’s what I sent:
“All of you “True Christians” make me sick. You judge other people when your buybull explicitly tells you not to, you slander a man who only wants happiness, and then after all of that you feel as if you’ve come out on top because you’ve taken the “moral high road.” If your god made someone gay and then hates him for it, your god is an arrogant sack of puss. I hope the rapture comes soon so I wont have to look at people like you who spew hate and bigotry, yet think they are doing the world a service. You people make me sick.
Although straight, I am disabled and have had to deal with a lifetime of bigotry and ignorance. It makes me sick to know that people (in this case christians) will treat each other this way merely because someone is different. And the most interesting part of it all, they do it to make themselves feel superior because they know they are petty, conceited, and disgusting creatures both inside and out. And yet, they can go to church and be given absolution for the hate they spew, all you have to do is hide behind a bible.
Disgusting.”
Once again, thanks for the article, I really appreciate your blog. Keep up the good work!!
Azazel
Thanks!
Man, I read through some of those threads and weep for the wasted neurons.