Transcription
I was not just the lesbian next door who wanted to live a quiet life, but I was, um, a political activist. I spoke at gay pride rallies, I testified before the New York legislature, and I taught thousands of college students to hate the Bible. I truly believed that an LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Movement would be good for the whole world. And the reason I believe that is, I believe that people were inherently good, and if we are just allowed to flourish in the things that we want to do, that we desire to do, that we would have such capacity to do such great things in the world.
I was a committed LGBTQ+ activist. I was a committed feminist, and I was the product of that from my household. I was, uh, raised in Chicago. My parents are both Italian, but I was raised in a liberal Catholic, uh, household and school. So, uh, my parents were divorced before they got married, so they had lots of axes to grind with the Catholic Church and their positions on divorce. My dad would drop me off in the morning every day at school and he'd say, "Rosaria, be good, be kind, listen to everything the nuns say, and don't believe a word of it."
I had a brother, a step, a half-brother who was a heroin addict and lived with us. It was a family that was very rife with anger, unresolved problems. I, I hardened my heart against my family and I left. I got to college and men found me attractive, and so I, I dated. I dated all throughout college, and I would often have these weird experiences. I, I'd be publicly dating a man and I'd be falling in love with a woman over there, and I'd think, "What's going on with me? You like, what, what is that?"
I had a number of lesbian friends who'd come up to me and they'd just say, "Rosaria, I think you're gay, and I think you're just avoiding it." And I don't know why I decided they were right. I was tired of dating men and falling in love with women. That was a cycle I wanted to break. And so I, um, met my first lesbian lover, and I don't know, life just finally came together and made sense.
I was writing a book on the religious right, basically trying to figure out why Christians just hated people like the person I used to be. I couldn't figure out why they just wouldn't leave consenting adults alone. So I had to read the Bible to write this book. I really thought the Bible was just a misogynistic, patriarchal, racist, ancient book, maybe useful so that you could understand literary illusions, but beyond literary illusions, it had no claim on you.
When I started reading the Bible, I was not reading the Bible because I was searching for, like, help or meaning or, you know, "Please, Jesus, save me." That was not it at all. I was really an atheist. I was just interested in Christianity as a, as a cultural movement. Something happened when I started reading the Bible, and it got me so mad. The Bible said that I needed to repent of my sin, and I thought, "Well, how can I repent of a sin that's me? Like, where, like, where do you work that one out? How do you do that?" I thought sin was a cultural error, I don't know, like wearing the wrong shoes at a dinner party or something. I didn't realize that they believed sin as treason against a holy God and condemnable by death and hell. I didn't believe people actually believed that. How did this book make these statements? Who, who has the right to say this? And in some ways, that's a really accurate point. See, if God hadn't worked through chosen men to make sure that every word of this Bible was true, it would be outrageous. It would be an unthinkable book. But because I was still reading it as an atheist, all I had was the outrage.
I ended up needing help to read the Bible. I, I found that help in Ken Smith, who's a pastor and a neighbor, and, and he was taking me through this Bible, and, and at a certain point, it was starting to work on me, the Bible, and especially the words of Jesus were starting to work on me. And I remember talking to a friend of mine in the gay community, a, a transgendered woman, which is a biological man, went by the name Jill. And I remember saying once at a dinner party, "Jill, I don't know, something's going on." And, and, and then Jill said to me, "Rosaria, I think it's this all this Bible reading you're doing. I think it's bad for you, and I think it's changing you." And I said, "But, but what if it's true? And what if Jesus is risen? He's the, what if Jesus is the real Risen Lord, King of all nations? We're all in trouble, right?" And I remember Jill saying, "Rosaria, I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years. I, I left a wife and kids. If you want, I'll pray that God heals you." He didn't heal me, but I, I believe some of these things too. It was crazy to think that anybody in my gay community had read the Bible.
The next day, Jill left something for me when I came home from work, and it was boxes of books from when Jill was in seminary. Jill's dead name was written in big block letters inside the front flap of all the books. Matthew. Jill's name was Matthew. And for the first time, I thought, "Matthew had a wife and kids." You know, one of the things we always said to each other in the LGBTQ+ movement is, "Leave consenting adults alone. We're not hurting anybody." But the feminist in me was saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Matthew abandoned a wife, and he has children out there without a father. That is wrong." So I couldn't hold it in the same piece, like the idea that we aren't hurting anybody, but what about Matthew's wife and kids? And that's when I just got really mad.
And at a certain point, I decided I wasn't going to do that research project anymore because it was ruining my life, basically, and I would go find an easier thing to do. So I went to Ken Smith one day and I said, "Okay, thanks for all these nice dinners. This was fun. I'm done. And here, you can take all your Bibles back. I'm done. This is driving me crazy. I don't want to have to go to therapy again just over a research project." I mean, he didn't exactly make himself a stalker, but he came close. He didn't leave my life, um, even though I stopped for a while going to his house and having dinner and socializing and reading the Bible and talking about it, he would just show up at mine. He'd bring a book he wanted me to read, or Floy had made me some fresh bread that I liked. And that was powerful also because my relations in the gay community were transactional, and I, I had nothing. There was nothing transactional about my relationship with Ken and Floy Smith, except for that they were Christians who, in obedience to a holy God, loved me as their enemy and didn't think God was done with me until I became God's friend.
One of the things that Ken said to me after I stopped was, um, "So, what did you think of Hebrews 4?" "I don't know, Ken. What do you mean?" He said, "Well, here, here, here's a Bible." He puts it in front of me. "Here's a Bible. Let's look at Hebrews 4." You know, because one of the things you said, Rosaria, is that this, this research project was driving you crazy, you wanted a rest, you wanted, you wanted a rest from this research project, it was driving you crazy, and, you know, the Bible talks a little bit about about rest. So I just want to know, what do you think of this? So starting with verse 11, "Let us therefore strive to enter that rest." Like, see, Rosaria, the Bible talks about rest. God cares. But rest, "so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." Those words were my undoing. It hurt to think that the Bible knew me better than I know myself. See, that's what it means that the word of God is discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. It means the Bible knew me better than I knew myself. That's an intimacy that you can't tolerate unless you commit your life to Jesus. Like, you can't go halfway across this intersection. You've got to go all the way to the point where those words, instead of being horrible and painful, an intimacy that you don't want, those words have to go all the way to the Jesus who says, "His yoke is easy and his burden is light, and he will lead you out and will set you free."
And it was at that moment that I took the Bible back from Ken and I started to read it on my own. I did throw the research project away, but I didn't throw the Bible away because there was a Christian out there named Ken Smith who didn't throw me away. And only one thought came to mind: "Rosaria, if you believed this, it would go a lot better for you." I was still stuck on how to repent of something I thought I was. See, I didn't think of sin as something outside of me. Part of what it means to have your identity rooted in LGBTQ+ is to mean that you are the sin, which means that you sort of become the sacrificial lamb instead of having Jesus be the sacrificial lamb. And so I tucked it away that night and I thought, "I'm going to call Ken tomorrow and I'm going to ask him, how does someone like me repent of a sin that is who I am? Like, how in the world? Like, this is my identity." And Ken, being Ken, said, "Well, maybe it's a false identity. I understand it's your identity, but maybe it's not true." And I thought for a minute, "Well, my lesbianism is very real. Ask my girlfriend. But maybe it's not true." I mean, maybe it's not true.
And then, and then Ken brought me to Romans 7. Basically, the question is how to, how to hate your sin without hating yourself, because you can't hate yourself if God loves you. You can't hate you, but you have to hate your sin because Jesus died to set you free from it. And, and Jesus is not going to become an ally to the sin that he paid for on the cross. And so Romans 7, this is Paul speaking: "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." What is that possible? Is my lesbianism not I, but sin that dwells in me? And I thought, "Well, is it possible that Jesus is waiting for me on the other side of this? Like, is that possible? Is it possible that the God of the universe, the Creator God, wants a relationship with me? And that this whole Bible is that promise in a form that I can understand?" And Ken Smith, who's my neighbor, he, he's, he's treating me like a daughter. He, he's telling me the truth. And it was surprising for me to realize that I was starting to believe that my life as a lesbian was real, but not true.
And after years of meetings and dinners and struggle and conversations, it seemed to me that Jesus Christ was risen, and that his birth, death, and resurrection was a holy invitation for all who would repent and believe to live for something bigger than ourselves. My partner found me. I was found, found by my partner in the morning reading the Bible and praying, and she just lit to me and said, "What are you doing? Why are you wasting your time with that?" And I realized, here I'm an out lesbian feminist activist in New York, and I've become a closet Christian. And my girlfriend is berating me for that, and I'm somehow, what, okay with that? I realized something had to shift. I had to go one direction or the other. And that's because everybody has to go one direction or the other. It's Jesus or it's not Jesus. Jesus wants exclusive rights to his people because he died for you. And not only is Jesus not going to let go of you, you can't even sabotage it. It may be the only relationship you can't sabotage. He will never leave you nor forsake you.
At a certain point, I realized that I was a Christian, and I didn't know what else to do but go to Ken and Floy and I said, "I'm a Christian." And they said, "Wonderful. Get on your knees. We're going to pray together." And so they, in the living, living room at Ken and Floy Smith's house, where I had had multiple, you know, meals and arguments and all of that, we held hands in a circle, and I committed my life to Jesus.
So maybe you've listened to this video and a bunch of other videos, and you've heard people talking about being set free, and you're just wondering where that, where you would start, and what that might look like for you. And I would bring you to the Great Gospel of John 8:31-32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The truth will set you free. And so to be set free by this truth, get on your knees, and you tell the Lord Jesus you believe him, and you ask him to show you your sin. You want to be convicted in your heart by your sin. You repent, and you believe, and you follow Jesus. We repent of our sins because Jesus paid for our souls to liberate and ransom us from our sins on the cross. You repent of your sin because the tomb is empty, because Jesus has risen from the grave. He is seated at the right hand of God the Father. He is interceding for you. He is rooting for you. And in love and obedience and allegiance, you repent of your sin. And repentance leads to sanctification, and sanctification is where you grow to be more like Jesus. I want you to know that I know that this is very hard. And I want, I want you to know that nobody flipped a switch in me. I didn't wake up one day and all my bad desires went away, and I was filled like an angel with good desires. Not at all. The Christian life is rugged. Its feet on the floor. But the reality is, you are going to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only better, Jesus is the only way to faith and life, to joy, to meaning, to purpose, and to grace.