“Ultimately, We Believe In A More Loving Church”

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As the debate over LGBT rights rages on, rising statistical trends show growing support for the gay community in the church. At the forefront of this movement is the Gay Christian Network, a non-profit organization that has worked with the likes of Tony and Peggy Campolo and Canadian religious program New Directions, in an effort to engage the discussion about the scientific and spiritual implications of sexuality. John Wofford recently held a discussion with GCN founder Justin Lee, and Office Manager/Donor Relations Specialist Nate Krogh, on religious politics, civil rights, and common ground between persons of faith.

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JW: The Gay Christian Network celebrated its eighth anniversary recently. How did the Network come about? Where did the vision come from?

Justin Lee: It really has to do with my background. I grew up conservative, Evangelical—Southern Baptist, actually. I had nothing positive to say about gay people. I certainly didn’t think my life had anything to do with them. I believed what I was taught in my church, which was that homosexuality was a sin, being gay was a choice, gay people needed to repent and turn to Christ…all of the things that I think a lot of us have heard. I was very much a “goody two-shoes,”  conservative with a Bible in my backpack, ready to witness to anybody who would listen. I didn’t realize at the time how annoying this was.

[laughter]

But, I mean, that was me. My identity was completely wrapped up in my faith, and…well, I mean it still is—I don’t mean to suggest in anyway that I have walked away from my faith; I would say it’s stronger. But that was my background. I only listened to Christian music, only watched TV shows and movies that my church would have approved of, and was very active in my youth group: all the things that a good Southern Baptist does.

The big secret, which I told myself I would take to my grave, was that from the moment I hit puberty and became sexually aware, my attractions were exclusively for guys. Early on in my development, I wrote it off as a phase. I heard James Dobson say that some children go through a period of sexual confusion during adolescence, so I considered it something that I would grow out of. But in the meantime I just couldn’t tell anybody because I knew they would think I was weird or sick. So I focused on God and my studies and didn’t worry about it too much.

As I got older, I became more and more aware—and painfully so—that something was different about me, compared to all the other guys that I knew. Those guys would talk about women in a way that I didn’t feel. And at first I thought that the reason I didn’t think about the opposite sex in that way was because I was such a good Christian, therefore I had no reason to objectify women!

[laughter]

It’s funny, because I’ve talked to a lot of other guys who had been through the same thing, who felt the same way… and we all kind of thought: “well, we’re good Christian boys and that’s why we don’t lust!” Eventually, though, I began to think, “Okay, something is WRONG with me.” It got to the point where I was crying myself to sleep at night, begging God “Please don’t let me feel this anymore,” because I felt dirty, I felt sick. I didn’t want to be attracted to the same gender; I wanted to be attracted to women. I considered myself straight even then—I dated women in high school.

I felt worse and worse about myself, and I felt that I had this horrible secret, which if anybody found out, they would hate me. In spite of my years of desperate prayers to take away these feelings, it never happened. I gradually began realizing that this wasn’t a phase—that it wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t until I was 18, a senior in high school, that I started making a connection between those things, and the word “gay.” I think a lot of people are shocked that it took me that long to make that connection, but the word “gay” had nothing to do with me. It had something to do with videos of half-naked men, rainbow feathered boas, and dancing in pride parades… that was gay, and I didn’t have anything to do with that: I was a good Southern Baptist kid.

So I looked into ex-gay ministries that claimed, “with prayer and therapy, you can become straight,”  and I discovered that they weren’t for real. That the claims they made weren’t reality, and that even the leaders of these groups were still as attracted to the same gender as I was—even if they were married to a member of the opposite sex. And I thought, “Well I can’t do that to somebody. I can’t marry someone who I don’t feel this way about.” That started a process in college of wrestling with my faith and my sexuality. I went through a tremendous amount of depression. Eventually, I made gay friends in school, but I was also involved in Christian groups. My Christian friends didn’t understand “the gay thing” and my gay friends didn’t understand “the Christian thing.” I felt, at that time, like the only guy in the world dealing with these things.

In the process of writing my thoughts and experiences and publishing them on a personal home page, I started getting emails from people I’d never met—from all over the world—who were going through the same thing, and had no one to talk to. They were scared, and asked me for answers I didn’t have. So God started working on my heart, and as I studied what the Bible had to say, and coming to conclusions about it, I realized that I needed to do more than simply work this out for myself. I needed to make a difference for all these other people who were going through similar things.

In August 2001, after I graduated, I created this online community, called the Gay Christian Network. Originally, it began as a support group for others. I envisioned a couple dozen of us, being there for one another. Over eight years, that couple dozen became thirteen, or maybe fourteen, thousand. It’s also become a non-profit organization focused on, not just supporting gay Christians, but trying to help straight Christians understand the issues, to facilitate parents or family members who might wrestle with a loved one being gay—all the things associated with that. We do a lot of things: an annual conference, online communities, local groups, our documentary video, and so on.

JW: Nate, tell me how you got involved with this. What’s your story?

Nate Krogh: I found GCN during a senior year during college. I actually came out to my family at the beginning of that Fall semester, found the Network, and felt greatly blessed by the staff – their services, ministries, etc.

Initially, my family wasn’t receptive to [my sexuality]. When I came out, it was a shock to them. I know now, but at the time I did not—as it took me years to come to terms with my sexual orientation, and how that interacted with my faith–it was going to take my family time as well. The biggest thing was that they saw I still desired to have faith as a foundational aspect of my life. So, by seeing me get involved with, and immediately rush to, a Christian organization for support confused them; it didn’t mesh with how they understood the behaviors of LGBT peoples.

After several months of processing things, I felt like I was at a place where I could, and wanted to, give back. So I asked Justin, “What can I do to help? I’d like to do something,” while volunteering as a message board administrator for the site over the course of those months. As I got their support, became more involved in the community, etc., it has slowly started turning things around. Granted, my family would be more of the “Side B”  theological standpoint, but it’s leaps and bounds from where they were before.

Eventually, a job posting came up for the Office Manager position in Raleigh, North Carolina. My friends talked me into it, said basically, “What do you have to lose?” A few weeks later, I made the move, and here I am.

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