Foundation for
Reconciliation
Mission Experience
This is somewhat a lengthy post on how my sexuality affected
my faith in God. It’s also a brief account of my entering into
and coming out of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
From July 2004 to June 2006, I served as a missionary for The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the
Mormon Church. I had converted to Mormonism in 2002. Prior to that I
was a pretty active evangelical, attending Baptist and
nondenominational churches, and seriously thought about becoming a
minister.
The first time I realized that I might be gay was during my
freshman year of high school, in 2000. Because of my faith, I did
not allow myself to even consider accepting the possibility that I
wasn’t straight. It wasn’t acceptable. It seemed to me at that time
that God did not accept homosexuals. I was able to take a
conservative path that allowed for safe dating and relationships.
After all, sex didn’t matter much when sex was forbidden; right?
I’ll admit that I, probably like most who attempt this sort of path,
did push the limits a bit; however, it never felt totally natural.
It was always forced. I thought it was because my faith was holding
me back, like God was pulling me away from going too far. Now I know
that wasn’t the case. The problem was that I just wasn’t interested
in girls.
The Mormon Church is one of the most conservative churches anyone
can join. I guess I had pushed the notion that I might be gay out of
my mind when I made the decision to convert. I’m sure someone out
there would make the argument that I was trying to run from my
sexuality my turning to God with greater devotion and submission. If
so, it was subconscious. I didn’t join the Mormon Church thinking
that it would change me.
Between my conversion in 2002 and when I left to serve a mission
in 2004, I became more aware that my being attracted to men would be
a problem; and, though I had been planning to be a missionary since
shortly after converting, by the time I went through the process of
applying to serve a mission, I did think that putting myself in
God’s hands as a missionary would help me to be straight.
I did alright for the first half of my two year mission. I really
did go out focused on the task at hand: teaching and helping to
convert people to what the Mormon Church calls the “Restored Gospel
of Jesus Christ”. I tried to be a good missionary. I tried to help
people. Among other missionaries, I tried to fit in. Fitting in was
somewhat a problem.
You see, even though Mormon missionaries are supposed to follow
strict rules that included prescribed hours of study, eating,
working, number of lessons they teach, and how they are to associate
with missionaries, members of the church, and non-members; they are
still mostly young men who are interested in all the things that all
young men between the ages of 19 and 22 are interested in. This
included girls and sex. I can’t tell you how many times I would be
walking with or riding in the car with a group of missionaries where
everyone was oogling over a good looking girl, and sometimes making
comments that didn’t quite fit with the perceived “goodness” of
missionaries. As this scene repeated over and over, I realized that
I never had at the same response as most of the other missionaries.
I faked it at times, but my response was always delayed. It was
forced.
Things started unraveling for me when I approached the halfway
mark of my two year mission. My inner conflicts boiled to the
surface and started causing issues with how I approached my work as
a missionary and how I treated others. A breaking point occurred one
afternoon where a flareup between myself and another missionary led
me to request that I be sent home dishonorably. As that time, I told
my Mission President that I would not be able to live up to the
expectations of missionary life and the expectations the Mormon
church had for me after I finished my missionary serviced. I stopped
short of telling myself, and telling him that the reason I would not
be able to live up to these expectations was that I was gay. I still
wasn’t ready to accept it fully. I was told to think and pray about
going home, and I buried myself into prayer, reflection, and study.
I decided to continue serving as a missionary. This cycle would
happen two or three other times over the next year.
I started questioning the truthfulness of the Mormon Church. I
studied hard, and prayed hard. I studied the scriptures, religious
and secular history, and various theological works. I wanted to see
if the picture painted by these multiple sources, in addition to
whatever inspiration from God I would be granted, would strengthen
my faith in the church. All of this led me to believe that the
likelihood of any church, including the Mormon church, being the
“true church” was extremely low. I still wanted to believe though. I
didn’t want to give up my faith, but I struggled to keep it.
Toward the end of my mission, in the last area I served, I
started to think about who I was again, and who I was going to be
after my mission. I wanted to give God the opportunity to change my
heart in regard to my sexuality. Late one night, I knelt down next
to the couch in the apartment, and prayed as hard as I had ever
prayed. I asked God to change me, to accept the sacrifices I was
able to give, and to make me who He wanted me to be. I listened
intensely for any inkling of a spiritual whispering or change, and
it was during that time that something became clear to me: I was
gay. Not only that, but I felt that God did not condemn me for being
gay. I felt that I was who God wanted me to be. It was as if a great
weight was lifted off of my shoulders when I accepted these things.
I knelt there in the darkness of that apartment, with moonlighting
shining on me from the window, and thanked God to accepting me as I
was.
While I did face the agony of having my faith in the Mormon
Church crumble during my time as a missionary, I also started to
accept myself for who I was. Without having endured the pain, I
don’t know if I would be who I am today. It still took some time and
experiences to fully accept my sexuality, but I’m at that point now.
Not having that inner conflict brings a lot of peace that I didn’t
have before.
I believe that whether you are gay, straight, lesbian, bi-sexual,
transgendered, or however you identify, God loves you. You are who
you were created to be, and God accepts you as you are. I almost
gave up on God, until I realized that God didn’t condemn me for who
I am. Our culture gets so bogged down with the doctrine and dogma of
organized religion, where the ideas of the “moral” majority are
allowed to define what is acceptable and what is not.
Personally, I
don’t believe they speak for God, and I refuse to believe that God
would make outcasts of people who just happen to be attracted to and
love people of the same sex. I don’t know why all people aren’t
straight, but I do know that GLBT people exist. I believe it’s part
of God’s design. After all, we all are the product of His creation.
- Joel McDonald, August, 2009
