Table of Contents
Part I: Genesis
0 In the Beginning
1 Coming Out, into the Closet
2 Not in Kansas
3 Shawn
4 Will
5 Church Street
6 The Mirror
7 Revive Café
Part II: The Old Testament
8 Difficult Truth
9 It’s Hard to be Gay in Spring
10 Recruited
11 What David Felt
12 Living in the Tension
13 Activist Like Me
14 Sticks and Stones
15 My First Prom
16 Outed
Part III: The New Testament
17 Jesus in Drag
18 Becoming Invisible
19 The Descent
20 Happy Endings
21 Pride and Prejudice
22 Rescued
23 Don’t Tread on Me
24 New Bridge
25 Another Season Ends
Part IV: Revelations
26 The Other Side of the Rainbow
27 The Walk
28 I Kissed a Boy and I Didn’t Livingke It
29 Angela
30 A Reunion
31 Baby Human
32 Love Never Fails
33 Freddy, Please
34 The Ball Drops
35 The Beginning
One man’s abominable quest to find Jesus
in the margins
Timothy Kurek
The Cross in the Closet is a work of nonfiction. Nonetheless, some names and personal characteristics of individuals, places or events have been changed in order to disguise identities. Any resulting resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places or events is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
Copyright © 2012, 2013 Timothy Kurek
Visit at timothykurek.com
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by BlueHead Publishing, LLC.
BLUEHEAD PUBLISHING and colophon are registered trademarks of BlueHead Publishing, LLC
Visit at blueheadpublishing.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurek, Timothy.
The cross in the closet: one man's abominable quest to find jesus in the margins / by Timothy Kurek
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9835677-4-5 (alk. paper)
LCCN 2012947790
1. Gay--Social aspects. 2. Gay. 3. Christian.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
First Published - October 11, 2012
Book Layout & Cover Design by Dave Thompson
Interior print layout and ebooks created using Bookshop.
For Marissa.
For your inspiration to “write it down.”
Endorsements
“Tim’s personal journey and awakening is evidence of the path being taken increasingly today by Christianity and other religions everywhere. This manifestation of respect for God’s great diversity allows us to better see the world through the eyes of Christ. The Cross in the Closet is a gift to us all.”
—Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
“Tim Kurek has written a book that could be described as ‘spiritual espionage.’ As a young fundamentalist, he goes undercover—accepting all the attendant moral and personal ambiguities—and gathers ‘intelligence’ that few heterosexual people have ever had access to. He tells his story with skill and grace, revealing secrets that need to be heard from where he began (Liberty University) to wherever you are. A one-of-a-kind book with unforgettable moral impact.”
—Brian D. McLaren, Author, Speaker: A New Kind of Christianity; Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?
“It took great courage and serious commitment for Timothy Kurek to begin his year long journey into our world, the world of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. I’m delighted that readers of The Cross in the Closet will gain a whole new understanding of the stereotypes and untruths that cause my sisters and brothers so much suffering. I hope many will standby this straight ally and support the message found in his book, the message that says God truly does love us all. I encouraged him to take this journey and now that it’s over I will stand by him still. I admire Timothy’s courage and creativity, and his journey into our world will make a difference! You go, Tim!”
—Mel White, Author, Stranger at the Gate
“I hope Tim’s voice echoes through the halls of every McMansion church until Christian hubris is humbled. Fundamentalist arrogance is today threatening a religion founded foremost on empathy and love. The Cross in the Closet serves as a blunt reminder and should be a wake up call to every closeted bigot that dares to thump a bible.”
—Greg Barrett, Author, The Gospel of Rutba: Christians, Muslims, and the Good Samaritan Story in Iraq
“The Cross in the Closet is the book I’ve been waiting for. Now—at last—I have the book to give to every person I know (and there are many) struggling to understand how and why so-called Christians hate gay men and women and what to do about changing their minds. Kurek writes movingly and well. This is the best book I’ve read that opens the door to understanding what it is like to be labeled gay and trapped in a community that dismisses your very self before even hearing you out. Brilliant!”
—Frank Schaeffer, Author, Crazy For God
About My Title
I believe everyone has a calling in their life. A purpose. A cause. Something unique that gives the mundane, meaning. During my two decades in the conservative church every pastor of every church I attended spoke about finding that purpose. They referred to our callings as our cross to bear. The image conjured was a gruesome sight to behold: bloody flesh nailed to slick timber, stained red. Finding your cross isn’t about finding happiness, they said. It’s about our search for meaning.
I too believe we all have our crosses to bear…
I just never realized I would find my cross in the closet.
Foreword
It has taken me a lifetime to come out of the closet. And I’m gay. I have witnessed first hand the positive and negative responses some have expressed toward my friend Tim for his “coming out” experiment—I for one think him to be a hero.
He is a hero because he sought to understand the thing he once loathed. How many of us are big enough to even consider that possibility, much less spend a year of our lives, our reputations and emotional capital living the role of our former foe—in an effort to understand.
The Cross in the Closet has great potential to help many followers of Jesus who are concerned by the thought of appearing to condone “the lifestyle” of the homosexual person. Many fear that it will put their gay friend’s soul in eternal peril, or moreover, put their own soul in hell for not having stood for righteousness.
Jesus asked us to follow the greatest commands of all: To love; to love our God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan makes it very clear what he would think of the religious and pious, who would have nothing to do with the enemy outcast left bleeding and dying by the road. Jesus gave us permission to love the outcast. His story compels us to care for the outsider—in point of fact, the one who did so was the hero of the story.
If you are struggling with the “gay thing” this book is for you. Look through the eyes of one who has learned to love those he hated—those “fags” who are God’s beloved sons and daughters. They are the one’s we will one day need to give an account for—an explanation for our decision to leave them bleeding and dying along side the road.
This could be your year of living and loving dangerously. Just like Timot
hy did. Just like Jesus did.
—James Alexander Langteaux, Author, Gay Conversations with God
Author’s Note
If I have learned anything in my brief time on this planet, it is that people are imperfect. No one has it all figured out. In the same way people aren’t perfect, books aren’t perfect. This book isn’t. It is messy and limited, as I am messy and limited. So before you begin this book, let me clarify a few points of imperfection, if for no other reason than so you might read past its flaws to the heart of the message I am sharing.
I am speaking about a very sensitive issue. I would even wager to say that it is the most heated social issue of our day. I want to make clear that I am not an expert in lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender issues. I haven’t spent years with my nose buried in books, studying every nuance of LGBT culture, history, or community. I am not a professor, a theologian, or an expert in anything other than my own personal journey…but I have learned a lot from my experiences. If you are looking for highly detailed answers to the intellectual questions you may have regarding LGBT issues, there are many people more qualified than me out there you could ask instead.
I frequently use terminology that is technically incorrect. To refer to the “gay community,” for instance, is to relegate that populace to a monolithic entity. It is as technically incorrect as the “straight community.” People are diverse and communities are diverse, so when I use that term, don’t shudder. I also sometimes use the word gay instead of LGBT, for the same reason. The LGBT spectrum is as diverse as any other, including the “Christian community,” so read this book with that diversity in mind.
I also want to stress that this is not a book about being gay. I am fundamentally unqualified to write that book. Instead this book is about the label of gay and how the consequences of that label shaped and changed my life.
What this book is really about is prejudice: specifically, my prejudice. In traditional orthodox Christianity, one repents before salvation becomes possible. To repent means to turn away. In order to repent of my past sins, I had to acknowledge what my sins ultimately were, and I have done my best not to hold back, not to try to whitewash who I used to be to make myself look better than I was. An author friend once told me to write what scares me; this book is a result of that sage advice.
I hope this book speaks to you. Thank you for picking it up and reading it. No matter what you believe, know that I love you.
Your friend,
Timothy Kurek
Part I: Genesis
“We don’t see things as they are,
we see them as we are.”
—Anais Nin
0 In the Beginning
Spring 2009: Four months into the project
The protest sign in my hands feels awkward, surreal, as I stand in the vigil line. Rain drenches my sweatshirt and jeans, and the cold makes it difficult to feel my body. I am in lower Manhattan, protesting with a group of Soulforce activists outside the Vatican’s embassy to the United Nations. The knot in my stomach is the result of nerves and intense culture shock, but still I stand here in the rain, holding my red, octagonal sign to my chest. The morale of the group is waning: my new friends stand silent like statues against the backdrop of the booming metropolis. Matthew, one of the leaders of the group, sings “We Shall Overcome,” his pleasant tenor fighting the sense of hopelessness we all seem to feel as we look at the vacant building across the street. Chris and Bryan join in, and I feel all the more awkward because I can’t. I do not know the words. I know the words to hymns and many contemporary praise songs, but not protest songs.
This particular protest is small, from what the others have told me; there are just under thirty of us here. But it seems intimate, passionate, a last stand against an ideal no one here supports. Not even me, anymore.
Until I got to New York City, I did not even know the Vatican has an embassy to the United Nations, but here I am. The gates are barred and locked like the doorway to a prison, but we can see inside. The letters on the lobby wall read The Path to Peace. This very morning, the Vatican vetoed a bill in the UN that would decriminalize homosexuality across the globe. Why? So some countries can go on killing or imprisoning gay people just for their orientation? Until I found myself standing on this corner earlier this morning, I didn’t know that people were still killed for being gay. My eyes are fixed on the lobby wall, on the word peace, and I am sure of one thing: I hate this building—because this building reminds me of me.
I’m out of place. Unbeknownst to everyone around me, I am heterosexual. I am a conservative fundamentalist Christian, undercover for a year, questioning everything I have been taught about the label of gay.
Matthew finishes the song and again reverent silence falls upon the group. And it is in this silence that I remember the last time I was at a Soulforce protest.
It was four years ago to the month. And back then, Soulforce was my enemy.
The birth of doubt: Four years earlier
I entered Liberty University—the evangelical equivalent of West Point—four years earlier, in 2004, and became what the students affectionately call a “Jerry’s Kid.” As a student, I was expected to follow a lengthy code of conduct called the Liberty Way; my parents were thrilled, encouraging me to become what the brochures had promised, a “Champion for Christ.” And that was when I first encountered Soulforce—the lesbian, gay, queer, and transgender (LBGT) civil rights group. The young Soulforce activists were an odd-looking bunch, all waiting to embark on their first freedom ride across the country. The campus at Liberty was to serve as their training ground, a gauntlet of dogma they would have to overcome in order to make the trip.
Jerry Falwell—president and founder of LU, and also a famous televangelist—warned us about Soulforce, briefing us on the “real threat”: their amoral, degenerate leader, Mel White. He spoke of Mel’s “agenda” as if it were some master plot to invade Christendom with machine guns and rocket launchers. From the way Jerry described him, Mel might as well have been a gay Rambo. Jerry spoke more passionately about this man than almost any other I had heard him speak against, and his words felt more personally motivated. I was skeptical that this Mel White character was any worse than any other liberal activist I had watched on cable news.
I walked outside the arena where convocation (a mandatory biweekly chapel service) was held, that sunny spring morning, with my own agenda, and I found a small cluster of the young Soulforce activists about twenty strong. They seemed like normal college kids, but I knew better. I’d been taught to be wary of gays. They were all HIV-positive perverts, and liberal pedophiles. I saw my hall-mate, Patrick, already engaged in an intense debate with an activist, but it wasn’t going well. He was losing. Badly.
“So you aren’t supposed to love your neighbor as yourself?” The young man challenging my friend was tall and awkward looking, and his tone was even and delicate. It didn’t take long to figure out that he was letting Patrick make all of the mistakes. A worthy adversary.
“Well,” Patrick was saying. “I mean…Yes, but we are supposed to…That is to say, we are supposed to…”
Both sides of the crowd shook their heads disapprovingly. I decided to answer the young man’s question.
“Yes, we are supposed to love our neighbor,” I said, “but sometimes loving people means telling them how evil their decisions are.” My voice caught the young man’s attention and he smiled at me, welcoming me into the conversation. Patrick melted gratefully into the crowd and disappeared. Coward.
“But we can’t judge the heart. We have to love and accept people for who they are, without motives.” His voice was laced with something I couldn’t put my finger on. It made me uneasy. I had learned early on in religious debates that it was my job to control the conversation, and I wanted him to answer my questions. I was not going to get pulled into a debate over queer rights.
“Why exactly are you guys here?” I said. “Picking fights doesn’t seem to be the best way of commun
icating with someone who disagrees with you.”
“We are fighting for the rights of our friends who attend this college even though they’re gay. We’re their voice because they can’t speak up.” He was trying to humanize those I didn’t see as human, but it would not work. They were abominations, every last one of them, and I would not be bullied by a fag lover who was most likely a faggot himself.
“They should leave, then!” I said. “This is our campus, a Christian campus. They should’ve known better than to even apply.” My face was flushed.
“That’s not true. They should be able to come and learn here with just as much freedom as anyone else. It’s wrong to exclude them just because they’re gay.”
I looked over my shoulder and noticed that another dozen or so students had walked up to listen to my conversation. The attention was empowering and addictive, even, like a drug.
“That’s their choice, and it’s mine to not want to be around them. And you’re not even representing them, anyway—you’re promoting that adulterous homo Mel White, and the breakdown of the traditional moral family. You guys are wasting your time.”
The oohs and ahs behind me began to fuel my pride. I was doing it! I was being a Champion for Christ! My parents would be so proud.
“What’s your name, brother?” His tone was even softer this time.
“That’s really none of your business, and we aren’t brothers. You’ve chosen to be an enemy of God…and that makes you my enemy too.” The words, once spoken, elicited a stranger mixture of feelings.
“I just want you to know something, whatever your name is: I love you and I’m sorry you have such negative feelings about me and my friends.” And at that moment, something inside of me broke, and I felt sick to my stomach. “I really do,” he said.
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