Forward

Here is the forward to the book Faith Autopsy, written by an undergrad college student, whoc is choosing to stay unnamed.

I’m writing this from a dorm desk that wobbles when I type. There’s a half-finished problem set to my left and a church bulletin folded into fourths to my right. Two months ago I told my parents I’m gay. Last month I told my campus ministry small group. Tonight I’m trying to explain why this book matters.

I grew up in church. I can find the clobber passages faster than most Bible drills—Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, Corinthians, Jude. I also know the feeling in your stomach when those verses get lobbed like grenades across a room. You brace. You try not to cry. You wonder how long you can keep loving Jesus without lying about yourself.

I found this manuscript at exactly that point—tired, split in half, and pretty sure I would have to pick either faith or honesty. What I expected was another book arguing about Greek words. What I found was a pastor who tells the truth about his own life, shows his work in Scripture, and then asks the question that changed everything for me: What kind of fruit does your theology grow?

That’s the drumbeat here. Not loopholes. Not slogans. Fruit.

Ben doesn’t dodge the hard texts. He reads them the way he teaches us to read everything: Christ at the center, context in view, canon in conversation, and people—not abstractions—in the room. He shows why Sodom is about attempted violence, not covenant love; why Leviticus belongs to Israel’s holiness vocation and has to be carried forward with the wisdom of Acts 15; why Paul’s vice lists target exploitation, not orientation; why Romans 1 sets a trap for the moralizer and then removes the gavel. He never waves a wand. He shows the method. He invites us to do the work with him.

But the exegesis wasn’t what kept me turning pages at 2 a.m. It was the faces. J.R. at the margins reminding us ministry starts with names and coffee. Bart at the diner saying the line I have taped above my desk now: learn to love God and like yourself at the same time. Pastor Nancy, who held grace and responsibility in the same hand and pastored a community where belonging wasn’t bait-and-switch—it was the point. Those stories kept pulling me back from arguments to people, from defending a position to becoming a person.

Two moments sealed it for me.

The first was the chapter on eunuchs. I’d never noticed the arc: Deuteronomy’s exclusion → Isaiah’s promise of “a name better than sons and daughters” → Jesus naming realities without shame → Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch on the spot. Ben doesn’t pretend eunuchs are a 1:1 stand-in for LGBTQ+ people. He shows something bigger: the family of God is formed by covenant and baptismal belonging, not by reproductive capacity or fitting a script. When the eunuch asks, “What prevents me?” the gospel answer is “Nothing.” I underlined those three words so hard I ripped the page.

The second was the “Two Fruit Tests.” I’d heard “you will know them by their fruits” my whole life. I’d never seen anyone apply it to theology the way Ben does—patiently, consistently, with data and with tears. If our teaching produces despair, secrecy, homelessness, self-hatred, and death among LGBTQ+ kids, we have to question the tree. If our teaching produces integrity, mutuality, covenant faithfulness, and the fruit of the Spirit, that’s a sign we might be near Jesus. It sounds obvious. It did not feel obvious when I was trying to be holy by disappearing.

This book didn’t give me permission to do whatever I want. It gave me a way. One ethic for everybody—covenant fidelity, consent, honesty, non-exploitation—no double standards. It lifted up celibacy as a real calling for some and marriage as a covenant for others, without shaming either. It refused purity-culture line-drawing and asked wiser questions: What builds love? What protects the vulnerable? What bears good fruit over time?

There’s more. The chapters that engage other voices (Gushee, Hays, Rohr, Wright) model how to disagree without caricature. The sidebars on hosting hard conversations feel like a field guide for my small group leader. The CBT practices at the end of chapters sound small until you’re trying to breathe after Romans 1 has been weaponized against you; then they’re a lifeline. And the interludes—about a first Sunday where nobody made a show of inclusion because it was just normal, about two baptisms read with tears—reminded me what church could be.

If you’re a student like me, here’s what I hope you hear: you don’t have to choose between Jesus and telling the truth about your life. You can stop bargaining with God and start walking with God. This book won’t make every conversation easy with your parents, your pastor, or your friends. It will help you ask better questions, stand on better ground, and measure everything—including your own impulses—by the fruit of the Spirit.

If you’re a pastor, a parent, or a professor, I hope you read this with an open Bible and an open calendar. The hermeneutics are teachable. The practices are concrete. But most of all, the people in your care cannot wait for you to get comfortable. The damage of non-affirming systems isn’t theoretical; some of us live it in our bodies every day. Your church’s fruit is telling the truth about your doctrine right now. Pay attention to it.

I don’t know where my story goes from here. I’m still new at being out. I’m still figuring out what dating looks like without shame. I still get nervous when someone quotes Leviticus with a grin. But I’m not split in half anymore. When I hear the eunuch’s question—What prevents me?—I can answer with the church: nothing. And when I’m tempted to turn this into a fight to win, I think about J.R. at the margins, Pastor Nancy’s stubborn grace, and Bart’s dare to like myself while I love God.

That’s the invitation of this book. Not to win an argument. To walk in the Way of Jesus—truthfully, courageously, together—until our lives, our churches, and our policies bear good fruit.

—A fellow traveler,
a recently out college student

October 2025