HOMOSEXUAL, CHRISTIAN AND HAPPY: EVANGELIST’S STORY

Second Edition of A Life of Unlearning by Anthony Venn-Brown

When I first heard that a former Assembly of God Evangelist had ‘come out’ as Gay and written his story I was intrigued.

That he was Australian was another point of interest, but the fact that he was literally the leading itinerant evangelist within the denomination at the time absolutely peeked my interest.

It seems extraordinary to me that society has always delighted in sharing blessings from creative and arty homosexuals and other ‘alternate lifestyle’ people without being prepared to fully embrace them as part of our family. The stories of Christ’s response to outcasts in the Bible remains an enormous challenge to a world and churches that are not nearly as loving and forgiving as He is, or we should be.

So given the opportunity to read Anthony’s story, and in a sense walk with him through his life struggles was to me an honour.

Anthony’s second edition of the book includes up to date research and comment on the reality of life for the homosexual and a clear claim that this is not a chosen lifestyle, but rather one into which people are born. It relates a number of sad cases of young male suicides where sexuality was the prime challenge.

A genuine Christian response to the book will be to read it, and to read it honestly reserving any judgement to the end.

When Anthony Venn-Brown departed his role as a leading evangelist within the Assembly of God denomination in Australia, I’m sure the church was left the poorer. The reason this great preacher no longer ministers within his denomination today is simple. His sexuality. This, despite the fact that many people within Australia and overseas found their faith and a purpose in life through his preaching and leadership. In the book Anthony speaks of his principle role in the founding of the Youth Alive NSW and contributing to the growth of the movement around Australia which has been such an incredible force for good amongst youth and through which thousands have come to faith in Christ.

A Life of Unlearning is an important book. It is an honest, gutsy and very personal autobiography that gives us the opportunity to try and understand what life has been like for one homosexual minister of Christ, and therefore for others who have battled their sexuality within a forbidding church. Hopefully, many readers who start the book antagonistic to his story, will finish it better people for the journey. They may or may not come to a greater point of acceptance but at least the compassion meter should be raised. May there be many in church leadership across the denominations who take that pilgrimage through the book!

In any society it is so easy to condemn others for failing our own religious or cultural standards. It is much harder to hold back judgement and love those with whom we are in disagreement, as I understand Christ to teach. To stand with someone in their pain, offering support and encouragement, is a great and honorable thing to do. In many respects, A life of Unlearning gives us all that privilege as we journey with Anthony through his life of joys and tears. At times I felt that he was giving me too much information, but then I realized that without the story ‘warts and all’ I really couldn’t understand his journey, so I’m grateful now for the detail. Few of us, myself included, would be prepared to speak so openly about our most personal journey including our sexual desires.

Anthony’s book is an important contribution to any debate on Homosexuality and Society, but more importantly Homosexuality and the Church. A fundamentalist view will no doubt condemn him for his inability to overcome same sex attraction. The compassionate and dare I say informed response will be to recognize that over many years Anthony does everything in his power to overcome his same sex attraction, without success. He seeks help from godly Christian professionals, pastors and friends. His journey includes exorcism, prayer, psychiatry counselling and even months in an ex-gay live in program. His constant prayer is that God will take this thing away from him and make him like other acceptable heterosexual Christian men, but it seems heaven is silent. Perhaps the silence of heaven on this issue for Anthony and others like him is because the issue is not a problem for God, but only for men and women who interpret the Scriptures without Grace.

That this man, and many men and women like him are forced to suffer a journey of self loathing because some areas of the church still teach that they are an abomination to God is more likely an abomination to God than the former.

The end of Anthony’s story is the beginning when he comes to the conclusion that either he must accept the fact that while ever he lives as he is, he remains an abomination to God, as his denomination and others teach, (and therefore beyond redemption) or that the Church has somehow got the message wrong. Hence; A life of Unlearning.

What a delight that Anthony has been warmly reconciled to his two daughters from his previous marriage and that is former wife has moved on and remarried. Thank God, Anthony himself is reconciled for who he is and with that an acceptance that God’s love for him covers every aspect of his being, even his sexuality. He is Christian, Homosexual and Happy.

Finally, Anthony’s book gives us the opportunity to embrace that wonderful word ’empathy’ in our viewing of him and other people who don’t quite fit our own limited prescription for humanity – whether of religion, sexuality, race or age.

‘The Important Role of Empathy in Communication’ was an article by Dr Les Parrott published in Christianity Today April 2003. Parrot writes: Empathy combines two important capacities: to analyze and to sympathize, to use our heads and to use our hearts. Our analytical capacities involve collecting facts and observing conditions. We look at a problem, we break it down into its causes, and we propose solutions. That’s analyzing. Sympathizing is feeling for another person. It is feeling the pain of someone who is suffering or feeling the anger of a person in rage. Analyzing and sympathizing are the twin engines of empathy. One without the other is fine, but their true power is found in combination. We need to love with both our head and our heart to empathize.’

‘While the word “empathy” is never used in the Bible, it is, in a sense, what the whole Gospel message is about. The apostle Paul encouraged empathy in Hebrews when he said: “Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Hebrews 13:3).’

David Ayliffe

November 2007