New Year, New Blog

So I guess that you may have heard this story before. It's out there, actually published in the real world, in a book, so it's not like "news".

Except that - it's always news. The thing about "coming out" stories is that they are always new. Just when you think you've got through everyone, you have to do it all over again...

So.

Years ago, there was a quiz show on the BBC. The Weakest Link. It was on every evening before the 6 O'clock news. A mate of mine really wanted to be on it, and he saw how you applied to appear on the show, and he was telling me about it - and just to annoy him really, I applied as well.

He never heard again. They rang me up.

I thought it was a joke. I laughed at them. But it was for real. There were auditions to be a contestant. I went to a hotel outside Cardiff and the production team put us through a pretend game, and then interviewed us on camera. I sang for them.

I still wasn't entirely convinced it was for real.

Then they asked me onto the show. And then cancelled. And then re-scheduled. And then cancelled. And then re-scheduled. I think we recorded on the 2nd of April - the day before, apparently, they'd had all sorts of shenanigans.

Anyway.

Before I drove down to whatever studios it was, outside London, I was walking the dog one morning when suddenly I thought - O Lord, she's going to ask if I'm gay.

Anne Robinson, the host, was known for her acerbic wit. She was quick to put down anyone who stepped out of line - and anyone who didn't. It was part of the show. She played nasty with the folk who dared to show how little they knew on the way to winning not-a-lot of cash.

And, in my mid-thirties, being single, and a vicar, it was suddenly blindingly clear to me that Anne would ask if I was gay. It was a standard thing she'd throw out. We're talking the early 2000s.

Thing is, I am - but I'm also evangelical, and at the time I'd hardly told anyone about my sexuality. I mean, we just didn't talk about that kind of thing in those kind of days. "Don't ask don't tell" wasn't in it. I knew that I simply had to hide in plain sight and I'd be fine.

Sure, I like opera & musicals (stereotype or what) but I also go to Old Trafford and am one of the few people I know who has actually travelled abroad to a World Cup. When you get beyond a certain age, people 'wonder', but no-one really wondered about me. I just wasn't the type.

My parents didn't know I was gay.

A few close friends did - but only a very few.

What would I do if I was confronted on national TV? Coming out in front of the nation wasn't an option. But nor was lying.

So I spent a day - an entire day - thinking through what my response would be if Anne asked. And when she asked, in the middle of the show, cameras rolling, everyone watching, my fellow contestants audibly gasped in shock at her question ("So Marcus, you're 36, single & a vicar - are you gay or just married to God?") but I simply smiled nonchalantly and ('off the cuff') replied "Why Anne, you checking to see if I'm available?"

It was another eight years (and a pretty major breakdown) before I'd answer that question honestly to all my friends. My family. And slowly, after that, to any- and everybody else.

You see, I had spent all my Christian life understanding that there was something wrong with me because I was gay. I understood it because of what I heard from pulpits and from pews. I knew I was intrinsically shameful, bad, and - no matter how hard I tried - bound to be a second-class Christian and human being. I tried to change, but I couldn't. And every time I tried and every time I failed, I heard (because I hid so well) unguarded comments from pulpits and pews that simply reminded me how shameful, bad and second-class I was.

Well.

Jesus says - you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Let me tell you, that kind of thinking about being gay doesn't set you free. That kind of hiding so people don't spot you are gay doesn't set you free. That kind of living so you are never yourself doesn't set you free. So when I eventually got very ill and very honest, for the first time I began to question just how right the traditional teaching I'd heard in churches all my life about being gay really was.

Because I am gay. And I am evangelical. Cut me, I bleed my faith in Jesus and I live by his word. I'm sorry, it's just who I am.

But it also makes me really, really awkward.

I'm the guy who won't believe something unless I see it on the page for myself. I don't care if it's what we are supposed to believe. I don't care if a really clever and famous preacher says it. I don't care if it's the Party line. I want to see it in Scripture.

Unless - and here was the problem - it was about the thing I hid about myself, and then I just took every thoughtless slur that ever came out of someone else's mouth and believed it hook, line and sinker. I suddenly realised I had to be the same guy about who I was as I was about every other darned thing.

And...

Thing was, I discovered that being gay didn't make me the weakest link any more.

This blog is about that story. It's about the ways I have worked my way through the Bible. It's about life and Scripture and grace and gift and about how God is wonderfully, wonderfully kind.

If you are gay, and evangelical, and feeling like there's no-one who understands - let me say: God loves you. And if you ever along the way feel like telling me I am 100% wrong, then let me say: God loves you too. This is a grace-filled space. I don't need you to agree -

But by the mercy of God, I pray that as we look at the Bible together we might find the possibility of difference turn out to be a blessing, an inspiration, a godly and a life-giving thing.