‘I’d Rather Go to Hell for Telling the Truth’

‘I’d Rather Go to Hell for Telling the Truth’ November 14, 2014

Rev. Dr. Daniel Meeter asked me to repeat those words as we walked and talked in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Rev. Meeter was my field education supervisor during my final year at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a progressive White pastor of a congregation that is part of the Reformed Church of America. As he encouraged me to repeat those words, I thought, “this man can’t be saved.”

As a product of Black churches—formerly a member of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), baptized in “Jesus’s name” at an Apostolic church, attendee of a tongues-speaking, foot-stomping holiness church in my childhood—I was convinced that God despised and would deliver me from the “spirit of homosexuality” that seemingly had its grip on me.

Despite the fact that I left the Church after being suspended from ministerial preparation at the last church of which I was a member, I was still scarred so deeply that Rev. Meeters’ words seemed to be paradoxical. I could not believe, even then—even after having nearly finished seminary, God loved (gay) me.

That is why I was not surprised when a video of a self-proclaimed ex-gay COGIC member lauding his newfound attraction to women, in front of thousands, at the denomination’s 107thHoly Convocation was widely circulated in social media. While I was never bold enough to publicly denounce my queerness, I did so in private, often.

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