Surrendering My Identity

Part Four: Changing My Mind, Chapter 23

Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

- The words of Jesus, John 3:8

November 2022

I value my Anabaptist, peace-making heritage. My Mennonite upbringing.

I valued my role as a Vineyard pastor in central Ohio for twenty years.

I valued my place as a theologically conservative church leader.

I valued my stance as a non-affirming person, one who held the line.

Therefore, I am the least likely candidate to write this kind of a memoir. If you would have told me that I’d eventually alter my world-view and radically adjust my thinking toward LGBTQ+ people, I would have said, “There’s a far better chance I win an Olympic gold medal in the biathlon, than to change my mind on this issue!” (For reference, the biathlon is one of those winter sports in which Americans have never secured a medal in. I think I’ve made my point).

While it’s true that many grow up within a more main-line, liberal church context, I lived and breathed in a significantly different place than that. For me, the setting where I became a Christ-follower, discovering the overwhelming love of Jesus, was within conservative Christianity. I loved my people! I valued my tribe!

To be honest, I don’t remember discussing gay people very much in church or in religious contexts. I don’t remember any heated debates at all. But in most places I frequented, the assumption was to be gay is simply to not be Christian. And please, to celebrate someone’s gayness is considered, at best, deceived, and at worst, a false teacher who perpetuates a ‘doctrine of demons.’

I never questioned this understanding: Being LGBTQ+ was not the will of God.

At the time, there was no need to question such a foundational thought. This baseline understanding was never challenged by those who surrounded me, ever. Every single pastor, Sunday School teacher, and youth group leader believed that gay people were in rebellion against God, plain and simple. Those who publicly paraded their gayness, living out a so-called “gay lifestyle,” were in blatant sin against the Creator God. I could picture a queer person shaking their fists toward the heavens, and grieving the Spirit of the Lord in the process. If someone within my circles believed something contrary to this - that is, that being gay is not the will of God - they opted not to tell me. If they had other ideas about gay and trans people, they never blew their cover in my presence. For every single one of my Christian relatives, Christian mentors, Christian professors, and Christian friends seem to have a unified voice on the matter. If people were gay, bi, trans or non-binary, there was something deeply wrong. There was something broken that needed fixing. Something that Jesus could heal, of course, if they would only repent and turn to the Lord. I never questioned this perspective, for there was no need to question it. I was among friends.

But now, we were approaching the holiday season in the year 2022.

Let’s pick up the story right here.

It’s been five years since our daughter told us she’s gay, and three years since she came out publicly. I was learning many things in a short period of time. Yet, I still had thousands of unresolved questions in my head. So many questions, along with a deep sense of peace from God. I gave myself permission to be in process. I was developing a close friendship with ambiguity; I was buddying up with the concept of uncertainty. In other words, I could still rest in the love of God even with all the unanswered, untested, unresolved questions that were still in front of me.

As I was reading extensively about LGBTQ+ people, my heart was wide open for the new. So much of what I was learning felt revolutionary. I never heard these things before! I wondered, is this what the early explorers felt like during the 15th and 16th centuries? Is this what it felt like to set sail from a safe, European port and eventually discover a new world, later to be tagged, “America?” My learning explorations also felt like discovering new lands and exploring new possibilities, all of which produced an adrenaline rush of joy and unprecedented adventure.

Photo by Robert Katzki on Unsplash

But truth be told, I would not have gravitated toward any of this wild exploration on my own. I was the son and grandson of conservatives. And here I was, questioning some of those ingrained assumptions.

I had decisions to make.

I was discerning whether or not God was leading me to become more publicly affirming as an LGBTQ+ ally. As I processed this in late 2022, I’d like to share with you a few insights that caused me pause. These insights, although they were not everything I needed to make an informed decision, they certainly helped support my journey toward changing my mind.

People do not choose to be gay

At one point, I assumed people chose this lifestyle. They decided to be gay as an act of the human will. This no longer made sense to me. It became clear that nobody chooses their sexual orientation. I remember the first time I was challenged to think about this. I was invited to consider my own experience with romantic attraction in general. “Conrad, when did you make the conscious decision to be straight? When did you make a decision to be attracted to the opposite gender? That wasn’t a deliberate decision you made, was it? It was a decision made for you as part of your internal wiring.” As I considered the question, I remembered my secret crushes from grade school. It was true, 100% of them were girls of the cutest variety. My crushes were never boys, always girls.

In the same way, a gay person does not make a conscious decision to become romantically attracted to the same gender. In fact, many have said, “Why would anyone choose to be gay, bi, or trans? People don’t wake up in the morning and say, on a whim, ‘I’m going to make this unpopular decision that would cause me to be rejected by my church, ridiculed at my school, marginalized within society, and become the victim of hate crimes.’ ”

Justin Lee, himself a gay Christian, says, “I know a lot of people who were horrified when they realized they were gay, either because of their moral beliefs or because of prejudice against gay people among their family or friends. Like me, they would have never chosen to be gay, but they were anyway.” (Lee, 55).

People cannot simply pray the gay away:

Early on, I assumed I could change my daughter’s sexual orientation through effective, persistent prayer, but as I’ve already shared in our story, my prayers were not exactly answered. They were not effective at changing my girl’s mind about being a lesbian in the world. Initially, ‘pray the gay away’ sounds noble. On the front end, it sounds like a worthy goal in light of God’s creative, miracle-working power, which we see on full display throughout the pages of the Bible. I thought, if God created the heavens and the earth by his powerful word, why couldn’t the Lord change someone from gay to straight? Is anything too hard for the God of Creation, the very one who “calls things that are not, as if they were” (Romans 4:17)? And what’s precisely why I prayed throughout the watches of the night. That’s precisely why many Christians, particularly those who believe God does not support LGBTQ+ people, have tried to cast it out or pray it away, without effect.

When people initially told me that one couldn’t pray the gay away, I used to push back at that very point. What’s with the unbelief, I thought? Are there not success stories out there? Are there not powerful testimonies from those who are no longer gay, those who broke off relationships, those who found freedom in Jesus? Are there not powerful stories like this? Yet over time, I began realizing these stories were the exception, not the norm. And going a step further, these stories did not necessarily represent a change in orientation, per se. They represent, instead, a change in the person’s relationship status or a change in their life choices. For example, a Christian gay person might feel a need to commit to celibacy. But when pressed, they still have same-sex attractions. They’re still gay. Another example could be the following: A gay person might attempt heterosexual marriage. When pressed later in life, they still have same-sex attractions. Some are able to stay married, having a beautiful friendship with their spouse, but they’re still gay. There are more stories to tell, but I’ll stop at that.

There is one more thing I’d like to mention about praying the gay away. I want to highlight the many LGBTQ+ people who have prayed for God to make them straight. Many have attempted to remove their queer inclinations through a diet of Scripture and prayer ritual. Many queer Christians have testified to crying themselves to sleep at night, begging for God to heal them, restore them, change them. They were good Christian kids who loved Jesus to their toes. Studies have shown that 96 percent of LGBTQ+ folks have prayed for God to make them straight at least once in their lives (Lambert, 170). That’s a lot of desperate prayers that went up and reached the listening ears of God. But at the end of the day, people were still gay. This caused some to be very disillusioned about the Christian faith, and some became suicidal in the process.

These stories caused me to pause and reflect.

People should avoid conversion therapy like a plague:

Many LGBTQ+ people tried or were forced to try orientation change through attending a local ex-gay ministry. LGBTQ+ people underwent an intense process often referred to as conversion therapy. This is now a practice that’s illegal in twenty-six states and the District of Columbia. There are a number of reasons conversion therapy is dangerous and illegal in many places. LGBTQ+ people who have gone through conversion therapy are “more likely than those who haven’t to use illicit drugs, twice as likely to face depression, two and a half times more likely to die by suicide, and three times more likely to die by suicide if a religious leader encouraged them to undergo that treatment. Four out of five people who underwent conversion therapy did so under the leadership of a religious leader rather than a licensed therapist, which means they were unprotected by legislation” (Lambert, 170-171).

The failure of conversion therapy has recently been brought to light by a high-profile name, Alan Chambers. This man was the president of Exodus International, the leading conversion therapy organization worldwide. Alan Chambers made a surprising statement that 99.9% of the people they tried to help had not experienced a change in their sexual orientation. A year later, Chambers closed the doors on this ministry and publicly apologized in 2013. There were too many stories of the terrible suffering gay Christians endured as they tried to change their orientation under external and self-imposed religious pressure, without effect (Gushee, 19). In 2019, Chambers went on record by saying, “No one changes their orientation; it doesn’t happen. No therapy, no ministry, no prayer meeting, no nothing - you cannot change your sexual orientation” (Lambert, 171).

During this season of my life, God was doing something in my heart pertaining to LGBTQ+ people. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves the queer community. He loves all these beautiful souls who did not choose to be LGBTQ+ and could not pray or will themselves to be straight. God loves them. They too are God’s children, bought at a price through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

In late 2022, if I was asked, “Conrad, what do you sense the Spirit of God saying?” At that time, I would have had to admit that, if there is any direction from the Lord it’s stepping toward the queer community, not away from. The direction from the Lord was to be more affirming, not less. To be more inclusive, not less. To be more open to the work of the Holy Spirit among LGBTQ+ people, not less open.

Photo by Jose Pablo Garcia on Unsplash

All of this was a part of the chronicles of surprise. I never saw it coming! One of the reasons it caught me off guard was this: I assumed that people who become queer affirming do not have a close relationship with Jesus. They likely have hardened their heart through evil desires. Or, they are simply choosing their gay child or their gay friend over and above their relationship with the Lord. But I knew my heart was not stoney hard. I knew I loved both God and my beautiful child, and never felt I needed to choose one over-and-against the other. And as far as my walk with God, it was always in play. I love and serve God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I sense God’s divine presence, and hear his gentle encouragement on a daily basis.

God is with me.

God will never leave me, nor forsake me.

Nothing will separate me from the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus my Lord.

All of this, and God began giving me beautiful insight into his heart and his love for the queer community. In light of all the things I was learning, I was in a very real place of discernment. Is God leading me to become LGBTQ+ affirming? Vicki and my girls were able to get to that place much quicker than I was. Why was it so difficult for me to call myself an ally of the queer community?

One day, I realized why it was virtually impossible for me to take the leap toward becoming LGBTQ+ affirming. This epiphany came while journaling during a spiritual retreat weekend in southeast Indiana. The reason that surfaced in my mind was this:

I did not want to disappoint people. Period.

At that time, I remembered all of my conservative pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, mentors, seminary professors, and close friends. I could picture them looking at me sternly, hands folded, heads shaking. Even though I felt the peace of God to continue moving toward LGBTQ affirmation, I now realized it was more than just spiritual in nature. It was cultural, contextual, and deeply emotional. I didn’t want to disappoint people. I like it when people think well of me and speak well of me. I enjoy people’s pride in my accomplishments; I love being celebrated by family and friends.

If I take a leap of faith to become gay affirming, there are so many beautiful men and women of God who would be deeply concerned. They would be disappointed. How did I know this? I knew this because, even then, many church friends expressed ardent concern about Vicki’s position and my girls’ position, which is fully affirming and inclusive in nature. I also knew this because some people, even those I personally led to Christ and water baptized, took it upon themselves to sternly warn me. They encouraged me to not compromise, not to give in to culture, not to reject the truth of the Bible. One of my very best friends told me to remain on God’s ancient path and not deviate from it. Some have spoken to me like a father addresses a son, like a pastor addresses a wayward congregant.

Then it dawned on me that this was part of counting the cost for me. The cost, plain and simple, was this: Many people will no longer think well of me or speak well of me. Am I okay with that? As I thought about potentially losing even more friends, I was experiencing anticipatory grief. I needed to grieve the loss of friendships, yes, but also the loss of my reputation within conservative circles. This loss was inevitable. I needed to count the cost of not being honored by many ‘strong and beautiful Christians,’ people I love and care deeply about. There would be strong, beautiful, theologically conservative Christians, who would no longer honor me in public. I was projecting, but it was all so real. They would no longer speak highly of me, no longer invite me to guest speak at their churches, no longer trust me to lecture in their theological schools. No longer hire me for staff positions within their churches and para-church organizations. Am I okay with this? Am I okay with people no longer thinking well of me nor speaking well of me? This was counting the cost for me. It was a spiritual process, but it was also cultural, contextual, emotional.

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November 1, 2022

As stated,

I value my Anabaptist, Mennonite upbringing.

I valued my role as a Vineyard pastor.

I valued my place in this world as a conservative.

I valued my stance as a non-affirming person.

I valued people thinking well of me and speaking well of me.

During the same retreat weekend in Indiana, I did a lot of hiking, praying and talking to God about everything. I found my way to a beautiful lake. And since it was a Christian retreat center, I sat on a bench that overlooked the tranquil body of water and, looking to my right, there was a large wooden cross. Between the bench that I was sitting on and the towering cross, there was a metal sign with a question for people to consider. The sign read: Is there something God is asking you to surrender?

Photo by Hugo Fergusson on Unsplash

I thought about the question. Deeply. I thought about my life, one that was very much in flux and in transition. I thought about all the pressing decisions I was making that felt weighty. I thought about all the things I valued, as listed above, and the relationships I esteemed. All of which, depending on the choices I would make, would either be kept or lost. They would either be gripped tightly or held loosely. Before the wooden cross and in that beautiful outdoor setting, I knew it was time to surrender.

I proceeded to, one by one, surrender my identity at the foot of that old, wooden cross:

Lord, I surrender my identity as a pastor

Lord, I surrender my identity as a Vineyard leader.

Lord, I surrender my identity as a conservative.

Lord, I surrender my identity as a charismatic.

Lord, I surrender my identity as an evangelical.

Lord, I surrender my life-long position as a non-affirming person. If you want me to be an LGBTQ+ ally, I’m willing to do that for you. I give my life, and how I’m perceived by others, to you.

Before the cross that day, I surrendered all these marks of my identity that I took pride in over the years. I put them at the foot of the cross. This process of surrendering felt good and right. After which, I took a deep breath. I had a profound sense of peace and rest as I looked back over the quiet lake. I felt like a free person, with the weight of the world off my shoulders. I now had freedom to be led completely by the wind of God’s Spirit, and not the expectations of others.

Next Week’s Article: Spiritual Encounters & Inner Promptings

** As always, title subject to change.

Works Cited:

Gushee, David P. Changing our Mind (Read the Spirit Books, 2022)

Lambert, Zach W. better ways to read the bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool for Healing (Brazos, 2025)

Lee, Justin. Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays -vs.- Christians Debate (Worthy, 2024)

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I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, even sharing some of your story. Let’s compare notes and grow together in the love of God. However, so we’re clear, unkind or accusatory comments will not be tolerated on this forum. We welcome civil dialogue and questions asked in good faith. Comment, share insights, add additional stories, ask real questions. If you have a question or a thought that you’d rather not ask publicly, feel free to message me directly. You are loved. Deeply.

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