Faith Autopsy—what this is (and isn’t)

from the book

When I began to follow Jesus, I felt the tension between what I knew about myself—that I was gay—and what I was being taught about God and sexuality. Out of necessity and self-preservation, I bought the company line: I didn’t call myself “gay,” I said I had “same-sex attraction.” Orientation was a choice. God had a better plan. If my desires didn’t change, lifelong celibacy was my only faithful option. I memorized those lines and drilled them into my heart. They helped me survive—and nearly killed my soul.

When my life blew up—publicly and privately—people asked if I’d lose my faith. I didn’t. I cried, searched, swore, hid, and lamented. I kept calling out to God, which is its own kind of faith. I also knew I had to reckon with the texts myself. I had accepted the party line without doing the hard, honest work. So I wrote, researched, and reflected. I needed to see for myself.

That is what I mean by a “faith autopsy.” Kierkegaard said “all faith is autopsy”—not in the forensic sense, but from the Greek autopsia, “to see for oneself.” Faith can’t be secondhand. It calls for first-hand encounter and clear-eyed examination before God. This book looks closely—story and Scripture, doctrine and practice—to keep what is true and life-giving and to discard what is not.

When the closet door blew off, I wrote online to survive. This book is the steadier version—less frantic, more seasoned, still honest. It isn’t a scorched-earth memoir. It’s a field guide for disciples who want to follow Jesus with a Bible in one hand and their honest life in the other—without dropping either. We will take the seven “clobber texts” seriously, reading them in their world before deciding what they mean in ours. And we will build what has too often been missing: a positive Christian theology of sexuality and gender that can hold real lives, produce good fruit, and call all of us—straight and queer—to covenant fidelity, consent, honesty, and non-exploitation.

I am not the first to walk this road. Others have gone ahead—scholars like James Brownson, William Loader, and Megan DeFranza; pastors and writers like Matthew Vines and David Gushee; storytellers like Jeff Chu[i]; and communities that risked their reputations to welcome LGBTQ+ disciples as full family. Their work shaped me. I will quote them, argue with them, and build on them throughout these pages.

I am also not a neutral referee. I’m someone whose life exploded; who has sat with parents in tears and teenagers on the edge; who has seen both the beauty and the carnage of how churches handle this. My commitment is simple: honesty about Scripture, honesty about people, and obedience to Jesus—measured not by slogans, but by fruit.