Pastors who are gay
I’m a closeted homosexual man.
When I first typed that sentence, it felt fine. The more I looked at it on my screen, the less fine it felt. I want the courage to delete the word “closeted” and to not confine my declaration to written words that will never be attributed to me by name.
I’m a closeted gay male, but of a different sort. I’m attracted to other men – always have been – but I trust in a traditional view of marriage. And I’ve been an evangelical pastor for more than thirty years. Who knows, I might be your pastor.
Gays started using phrases like “coming out of the closet” in the 1960’s, the same decade when I was figuring out that I had this huge problem that I did not want, did not understand, and that I had no one with whom to talk it over. I didn’t know the closet metaphor – I was ten, eleven, twelve in my period of self-discovery – but I knew I needed to put my attraction to other boys and the tingle they caused inside of me away, out of sight, out of anyone else's grasp , behind other stuff.
My family’s sexual morality contradicted godly wisdom in every way, but even in our house, I knew that boys being attracted to boys would be condemned and met with my father’s lea
Is it biblically allowable for a pastor to be gay?
Answer
Some people consider themselves gaybecause they are attracted to members of their own gender, even if they do not act on those attractions. Their situation is love that of a married person who is attracted to someone besides his or her spouse, but who refuses to proceed on those adulterous desires. So it may be biblically allowable for a pastor to examine himself gay—that is, he struggles with homosexual attraction—if he is committed to sexual purity, never acts on those desires, and never encourages anyone else to do so (see Romans 1:32). For the purposes of this article, we will define gayas “practicing a homosexual lifestyle.”
This scrutinize of whether the Bible warrants a gay pastor was unheard of until the last couple of decades. There was never any question within the churchabout whether a practicing homosexual could or should pastor a church. The sinfulness of homosexuality has never been up for debate until our sexually exploitive society decided it should be. God’s Word is as clear on the sin of homosexual action as it has always been (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Timothy 1:10
An Openly Same-sex attracted Pastor Leading with Faith and Romance
Bob Luiz Botelho is a male lover Pentecostal evangelical pastor and activist who works directly with the LGBTIQ collective in Brazil. He founded the group Evangelicals for Diversity, which has created a network for LGBTIQ evangelicals to connect and give experiences.
“So many LGBT people come to me or to my organization to talk,” Botelho said. “They feel at fault , they feel pain, they feel condemned by the Bible, by the church, by Jesus, persons of Jesus. We do our function of pastoral nurture, studying the Bible with a gender non-conforming perspective and giving tools and instruments to learn how to read the Bible without the fundamentalist glass.”
Botelho said that the gender non-conforming perspective of faith is not just for Christianity, but it was just the Christian perspective he could communicate about. The lgbtq+ perspective of faith is to know that we perform not have a complete view of God, according to Botelho.
“So to be an image of God is to understand that everybody represents a piece, or a part, or a pixel of the divine picture, which is God. And I like to believe and to dream in a colorful God,” Botelho said.
Botelho talked about the importance of all
Gay US ex-Christian pastor on losing everything before result acceptance, love, and residence in Czechia
At the age of 30, Don decided to change his being and moved to Europe, eventually settling in Prague. Now he’s written a book about his experiences and his journey to get to where he is today.
I spoke to Don at his place in the Prague district of Vršovice to receive a taste of what the book is about, and started by asking him when he first realised he was gay.
“I think I realised there was a difference probably as early as four years old but I didn’t have a mention for it, but then I realised what that difference was – it was being gay. That was difficult, being raised in a fundamentalist Christian family in the Thick South.”
Don Hall|Photo: archive of Don Hall
So you did realise and you did have a name for it when you were still Christian?
“Oh yes, a long time before.”
But you never told anybody?
“We were taught that to be gay meant that you go to hell. It’s always talked about on Sundays as this burning pit of fire and the pastors always elaborate how the flesh melts from your bones and you’re in agony for all eternity, and it’s terrifying for a child.
“So because of t