Continued from part 4 of A letter to a church.

My intention in writing this letter is that it will help you to
understand one person’s prayerful journey to accepting his sexuality
and the man God intended him to be. I realize too that many readers
will consider me a sinner and will react to my story with the “Love
the sinner, hate the sin” response. With that in mind, the most
loving response I can imagine would be for those taking this stance
to consider the following: “Perhaps, God has called some of his
children to be gay. Perhaps the traditional teachings of the Church
are based on years of prejudice and misinterpretation of God’s
word.” Then within that framework of openness, prayerfully study
the Scripture in light of the cultural context in which it was
written and study the meaning of these often-cryptic words in the
original Greek.

In my years at Park Community Church I have established many
friendships that God has truly used to help me grow and be
transformed into His image. However, I feel deeply convicted that
God is leading me elsewhere now. I have found a new church home
where all of God’s children are welcome; a church where my two
beautiful children can grow and thrive in the love of Christ and
witness me flourish in my faith. Now every Sunday morning I stand
shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Christians and cite the Apostle’s
Creed in a loving, accepting community:

I believe in God the Father Almighty
Maker of Heaven and Earth,
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost
Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
>From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead;
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church;
The communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body; and life everlasting.
Amen

I realize that there are many out there who believe that the Kingdom
of Christ does not include God’s homosexual children, and these
judgments have resulted in many homosexuals leaving the Church and
rejecting the claims of Christ. I, however, boldly stand firm in the
face of these judgments and projections, standing firm in God’s
promise outlined by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:37-39:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any
powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.

My hope one day is that Park Church will be a place where all of
God’s children will be welcomed, and challenged to live Godly lives
regardless of their sexuality. Until that time, however, it is with
great sadness that I respectfully withdraw my name from membership at
Park Community Church.

In God’s Love,

Todd Zimmerman

Continued from part 3 of A letter to a church.

I studied and read arguments from both sides of the debate. On both
sides of the debate, I saw truths outlined and I saw God’s words
manipulated in order to fit a preexisting bias. I sifted through the
arguments and let the Scriptures be the guide, willing to accept a
life of celibacy if that is what God had intended. As I studied, I
was most disheartened by the nearly universal theme on the
traditional Christian argument that equated homosexuality with
recreational sex and fetishism, an argument that was clearly meant to
instill fear and disgust amongst the readers. Like these authors, I
agree that this is not the way that God has called us to express our
sexuality, whether in a heterosexual or homosexual context. What I
did find lacking from the traditional arguments was a biblically
based rationale for prohibiting loving, monogamous, same sex
relationships. What I came across were distortions of the original
Greek texts that were reminiscent of how the Church at one time used
the Scriptures to condone racism and slavery, condemn inter-racial
marriages and turn its back on issues like domestic violence.

In the midst of my reading, I came across one influential work
entitled, The New Testament and Homosexuality by Robin Scroggs. The
author, a heterosexual New Testament scholar with no apparent hidden
motivation, set out to study the classic Scriptural references to
homosexuality in light of the cultural context in which they were
written. The conclusion? There is no biblical mandate against
consensual, monogamous, loving, same sex relationships. For me, this
conclusion was even more justifiable in light of the fact that Christ
himself never mentioned or condemned homosexuality.

So I don’t know why I’m gay. What I do know is that my sexuality is
an integral part of my being, and it is not a choice, conscious or
otherwise. What I have learned though is that as a gay man, I am
pleasing to God. Several weeks ago, I heard a sermon on the
following passage from Jeremiah, Chapter 18.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, “Arise and go
down to the potter’s house, and there I shall announce my words to
you.” Then I went down the potter’s house, and there he was, making
something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay
was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so he remade it into another
vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

Through this sermon, I learned that there is not one design for God’s
children and that God created other vessels that are equally as
pleasing to him. As a result, my relationship with God is now
stronger than ever. Stronger because I now see myself as God has
truly intended me to be and for the first time in my life, I see and
feel that I am pleasing to God.

I am deeply saddened however, to see how countless Christian churches
continue to reject many of God’s children. It is not surprising that
rates of depression and substance abuse are higher among homosexual,
which I believe to be in part attributable to the fact that
homosexuals are frequently marginalized by society, and told by many
Christian churches that they are evil, and thus not worthy to enter
the fold of Christ. During my reading, I was particularly offended
to see many of the traditional arguments use the high rate of
depression and substance abuse as an argument for why homosexuality
is evil, failing to see this as a call to compassion, to bring those
hurting and marginalized by society to find peace and comfort in the
love of Christ.

…to be continued tomorrow…

Continued from part 2 of A letter to a church.

I felt a wave of peace flow through my entire being. I felt like
Harry Ashfield, the small boy in one of my favorite short stories,
The River by Flannery O’Connor. In this allegory, Harry is a boy
searching and struggling for meaning and purpose when his sitter
takes him to the river for a baptismal service. The preacher
baptizes Harry and then tells him, “You count now.” Afterwards, the
sitter takes him back to his loveless home where everything is a
joke, and upon awakening the next morning, Harry dreams of the
river. So he returns and finds the riverside healing place now
deserted. He bounds into the water, takes a gulp and stands there
trying to decide what to do next. One thing for sure he isn’t going
to fool with preachers this time. He’ll baptize himself and find this
Kingdom of Christ where he thinks life will be so much better than it
is back home. He ducks under the water and tries to stay there but
the river pushes him back. He tries again,

“…and the same thing happened. The river wouldn’t have him.”

He decides it’s just another joke. He gets angry, kicks out at the
river and the next thing loses his footing,

“…and the waiting current caught him like a long gentle hand and
pulled him swiftly forward and down. For an instant he was overcome
with surprise; then since he was moving quickly and knew that he was
getting somewhere, all his fury and his fear left him.”

In my life, I tried desperately to be heterosexual only to be “pushed
back” like Harry in the water. As I continued my struggling against
what God had intended for me, God, in the midst of my brokenness,
pulled me with his gentle hand into the life that Christ had intended
for me. Like Harry who stopped struggling once the hand of God
gently pulled him under, so too my struggle ended and my fury and
fear left me.

Tears streamed down my face.

With my newly gained acceptance of whom God had intended for me to
be, my struggle was now intellectual as I sought to reconcile my
sexuality with my understanding of the Scriptures. So I prayerfully
studied the Scripture in the hopes of gaining clarity on this complex
and emotionally charged issue.

…continued tomorrow…

Continued from part 1.

So I married. I married in the hopes that if perhaps I just tried
it, God would then provide me the freedom from my struggle. Well,
the marriage failed and while there were many reasons for the
failure, it is undeniable that my struggle with my sexuality was one
of the key factors. In our marriage bed, I struggled desperately.
What should have been a beautiful expression of our love left me
feeling hollow and depressed, falling far short of the physical
intimacy, the “one-flesh” experience that God intended for his
children.

As the marriage continued to unfold, I sat in a weekend retreat four
years ago being guided in prayer. During that session, we were asked
to listen to our hearts because God had a message for us. As I
quieted myself before God that morning I heard with alarming
clarity, “Todd, you are a gay man.” I was startled and shaken. The
message was so clear and delivered with such authority that on a
visceral level I knew it had to be God. However, I was so scared
that I convinced myself that this message was not from above, but
from Satan in attempt to deceive me.

Next I bought into the argument that my struggle with same-sex
attractions was somehow the result of “bad parenting” or unresolved
conflicts from my childhood. Building upon years of counseling, I
turned to therapy under the guidance of a trusted Christian therapist
and for the next few years, I made the courageous decision to face
the pain, fear and anger resulting from growing up in an imperfect
world. Through this process, I tapped into the river of sadness
within me, faced the dragons of my fears and cleansed myself of years
of unresolved anger. I sought help and counsel through different
therapeutic milieus and for a three-year period, I dedicated three
nights each week in an attempt to heal and overcome these desires.

God is indeed faithful, because I did heal and I did find new clarity
in my life. I felt safer in the world. I found deeper connection in
relationship with others. More importantly, I found myself closer to
God as I was able to free myself of old stories and lies about who I
thought God was. Through it all though, my struggle remained the
same. Despite years of prayer, despite years of therapy and healing,
despite an attempt at marriage, my struggle with same-sex attractions
continued.

Things changed for me this spring after I joined a men’s care group
at Park Church where we studied the book, Wild At Heart. In one of
the chapters, we were challenged to examine our wounds in the light
of Christ’s healing, and in this section, I was particularly drawn to
one of the prayers:

Father, who am I to you? You are my true Father—my Creator, my
Redeemer, and my Sustainer. You know the man you had in mind when
you made me. You know my true name. O Father, I ask you to speak to
me, to reveal to me my true strength and my real name. Open my eyes
that I might see, give me ears to hear your voice. Father, I ask
that you speak it not once, but again and again so that I might
really receive it. And grant me the courage to receive what you say
and the faith to believe it.
In Jesus Name.

For the weeks and months that followed, I lived and breathed this
prayer, seeking clarity from God about whom he had intended me to
be. As the fog lifted, I came to understand clearly that the message
I had heard four years earlier on that retreat, those simple words
whispered with such authority and clarity, was truly the voice of
God. So as I completed the last line of the prayer, “And grant me
the courage to receive what you say and the faith to believe it,” I
came to fully understand that yes, I am a gay man.

…continued tomorrow…

September 20, 2004

To Park Community Church,

Since February 1989, I have called Park Community Church my home and
I can say unequivocally that God has blessed me during these past
fifteen years. At this point in my life, however, I believe that God
is calling me elsewhere and I hope to share with you in these next
few pages a brief summary of my journey thus far.

When God brought me to my knees after the collapse of my marriage, I
chose to seriously examine those areas of my life in need of healing,
and one aspect that clearly required examination was my sexuality.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with same-sex
attractions and for equally as long, I have wondered what was wrong
with me. Like most raised in the Christian church, I was raised with
the understanding that homosexuality was immoral, and an
abomination. As a small child, this shame was further compounded as
I witnessed members of Christian churches laughing at debasing jokes
about homosexuals and condoning, whether directly or through their
silence, violence against homosexuals. Confused and terrified, I
remembered crying out to God asking what was so wrong with me that
even the body of Christ, his church, would condone or even commit
violence against me.

So I kept silent. I kept silent to protect myself. I kept silent to
protect my family. I kept silent because as a struggling young
child, I had no idea what to do. Out of legitimate fear, I didn’t
dare tell anyone about my struggle, so I did what I was taught to do
in Sunday school. I prayed.

And I prayed; for over thirty years I prayed that God would free me
from these same-sex attractions and somehow or another awaken in me
a “normal” attraction to women. For over thirty years, I was
disappointed and bewildered as to why God was not willing to change
me. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy that somehow or another
God didn’t think I was worth the effort. I could not understand why
I could not be granted this simple victory despite my faithful
efforts to seek Him. Seeing that this was not going to change
through prayer alone, I bought into the argument that my sexuality
was somehow a choice and jumped head first into heterosexual
relationships. This I prayed would provide me the liberation that I
so desperately sought.

…continued tomorrow…