It’s been coming, I can’t say for a long time, but for some time.
I was that guy, that pastor who believed homosexuals were sin-dripping heathens going straight to hell in a hand basket. I preached it, taught it, and stood against it. It was a no brainer, slam dunk issue. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Those who listened either applauded, baptizing me in the oil of their approval, or they walked away, silent and discarded. Shamefully, I didn’t really care, I was right, they were wrong. No blip on my radar screen. They were going to hell anyways, what’s a pastor to do when he has a church to build. Poor gay people, what are we going to do with them?
Then, Grace came to my door. He shook me, wrestled me into His arms and leveled my feet. Deep waters of humility, unconditional love, and supernatural compassion. I was sinking fast. Every footing, every foundation of prior understanding of Jesus, God, and the Bible, forever altered, deconstructed and resurrected into life. Soul searching, soul strangling, and soul saving. That’s what Grace does, it changes everything. Nothing can withstand its refining fire.
I believed it, drank it down, driven to believe it all the way. Consumed by the Consumer. Jesus, the intoxicator of my soul, baptizing me in barrels of Grace.
“So Chris, when did you choose your heterosexuality, give me the date and time?” “So Chris, go over and caress that man’s hands and kiss his lips… what, you can’t, why not? But you are asking me to?” “So Chris, why in the hell would I ever choose to be gay, are you kidding me?” “So Chris, I am supposed to abandon my gay child, put him out of the family?” “So Chris, I am just supposed to flip a switch, I’d rather die, cause I can’t do that, and I can’t do this (holding open Romans 1 with tears in their eyes pointing to the phrase ‘God haters.”” “So Chris, God created me, but hates me, He put in me a desire He in return dooms to eternal fire, cause I know I didn’t put there, I would kill to make it go away, but I can’t?” “So Chris, my sexual orientation defines me?” “So Chris, you love me, but hate a core piece of who I am, no choice of my own?”
That was just the beginning. Experience with real people. The experience gay condemners rarely have. Homosexuality became no longer an issue, a theological debate, but rather… living, breathing, human, loved by God and some, Jesus loving… people.
Then, the pivotal, haunting, and life-changing question… “did I read this right?” Grace grabbed me by the feet and hung me over the biblical texts, like my dad once held me to jerk out the hotdog I was choking on soon about to snuff out my life, ridding my lungs of breathe.
Grace grabbed my feet, hung me over the text, shaking out the ignorance I swallowed whole for so long, revealing that I was barely breathing all along.. that is, before the great Grace dislodging. Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy. Clobber passages that became clear passages, not for the condemnation of homosexuals, but against those who strip them of their context, rape them of their intent, and turn them into gay-seeking missiles. Hijacking each one from their intended warfare on sexual atrocities well outside the world of homosexual orientated, consensual, life-giving, monogamous, same-sex relationships.
I had been singing in the chorus of the false accuser of our brothers an sisters. Hating with the haters, all under the veil of a Jesus centered life.
Not any more. The curtain has been torn in two.
Today, I came out as a gay loving, homosexual affirming pastor. My church heard it, line by line, verse by verse, one text after the other.
Now, you are hearing it.
It hasn’t been easy, the cost is costly, but at the end of the day, I know this to be true… you have the heart of Jesus when the religious scatter and the broken gather.
Whatever comes and whatever comes my way… Grace wins yet again.
Amen to this post Chris like you i can not bring myself to hate Gays or treat them bad and so on and since i am no pro nor is anyone really i mean no one gets the bible fully no one fully understands it i mean all the diff groups of Christains that read the same bible yet condem one another to Hell because they all read the bible diff that tells you something right there and i have no right to judge anyone or say anything bad or harsh about anyone no matter there lifestyle who they are or who they Love Jesus loved everyone no matter what and we should to. it has made me very sick how so called Christains treat Gays like they are just utter dogshit didnt mean to cuss but just had to use something to say how i feel and i just cant go with that ideal anymore im sick of everyone not a member of a Church or anyone that is not Repenting enough or changing there lives enough to be Loved by so called Christains im sick of it and i will not stand for it any longer but i loved this more then i have words for and i will share it with others on my quest to try to get so called Chrstains to start living like the very Jesus they so clame to love and follow but we all know that is a Bullshit you wont worse Judgemental point the finger and Turn or Burn people then inside of many many churches sad but true.
Thank you Daniel, so appreciate your thoughts, support, and encouragement!
I am glad you are on a journey and I bless it. I do want to point out that Beth Moore explains this stronghold the best way I’ve ever heard. A person can be born gay but it’s a stronghold possibly brought on by an open door from their parents. We are called to love gays but tell them the truth, God loves them to pieces but wants to set them free. https://books.google.com/books?id=gQlpbE82CeMC&pg=PA280&lpg=PA280&dq=beth+moore+gay+praying+gods+word&source=bl&ots=pQdd1D46E2&sig=kn9g7epcnHu9v8Gg32EBYyraaCA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAWoVChMIisnWhsX3xwIVi1U-Ch1T7AqJ#v=onepage&q=beth%20moore%20gay%20praying%20gods%20word&f=false
I appreciate your comment Ashley and thanks for your encouragement, but I don’t believe homosexuality is a stronghold.
A stronghold brought on by their parents. You don’t really believe that. Its not even biblical.
That’s like blaming a parent for having a special needs child.
A stronghold….
Is your hair color a stronghold?
Is your eye color a stronghold?
Use common scientific sense. When did you or Beth Moore earn your degree in Science and Biology?
Hi
Beth Moore thinks this and publishes something about it but sorry,
many people through the ages have believed homosexuality to be one thing or another, why do you put more faith in what Beth Moore says than praying to God yourself and asking Him to show you what is Grace in relation to homosexuality?
The church is filled with people who refuse to do their own spiritual work and rely on people like Beth Moore to do it for them. But I doubt Beth Moore has prayed about this issue, experienced it in her life or had a close friend or family member who were gay. Because to call something a ‘stronghold’ that one has no choice about is pretty cheap theology.
Well said Karen
I am not saying that I don’t love gay people. I can believe it’s a sin without hating people. I have struggles in my own life, no judgment here. I have gotten with the Lord on this and asked him for myself. I do that with everything. I have actually experienced a healing of this with someone. A GW student came to a prayer group with me and she ended up being the only one. She told me that she was having same sex feelings and she knew that God could heal her. We prayed together and in her instance she was instantly healed, I was actually shocked when she said she had no more desires because this usually takes prayer more than once. I was also healed myself from a same sex “pull.” A lady rebuked a perverted spirit off me, which I thought was strange but then the pull was gone. I was so excited that God used this to heal me because it showed me that I could pray for others as well.
I firmly disagree with Beth Moore’s explanation. Blaming the parents is a James Dobson tactic that has caused more pain and harm than you can imagine. As a parent to a gay child, I wonder what “open door” I presented to him that could have actually changed his sexual orientation from straight to gay. He was not abused, he was not controlled, he was loved, cherished, and raised in the faith. Moore’s explanation is absolute male bovine excrement, and that’s the kindest way I can say it. My son was different from the early days – and I mean from toddlerhood. He came into the world that way.
It’s important to talk with parents of LGBT children and learn their stories rather than throwing us under the bus. If I thought, for one minute, that I’d influenced my child to be gay – that I had that kind of power over his sexuality – I don’t think I could talk myself into living another day.
Please think about what you are saying and the harm that ensues when you lay this kind of blame on us. Not okay.
Amen Momto6, preach on! Couldn’t have said it better myself! 🙂
As a mom with a gay son, I totally agree with you. My son was raised in a loving family with Christian principles. I, too, saw signs from when he was very young. My family has been scarred by Beth Moore’s teaching and the teaching of other conservative Christians. I truly thank God for this pastor and pray God blesses him for following where the Spirit is leading him.
Hi Rose,
My son is also gay and I went to the Christian book store and bought about $300 worth of books seeking to understand. I was simply clobbered with the message that it is the parents that created this. It is so crazy and was so hurtful. Put me in years of depression and confussion. I finally had to let it all go and hang on to my Mom’s words, “Honey the only thing you will be accountable for is DID YOU LOVE YOUR SON?” And then a pastor spoke and she said, “Just go be his mum”. He was from Australia. My son is incredible. He happens to be gay. His sexuality has taught me understanding, love, kindness, at the deepest level. For that I am grateful. He has made me a better person. Now to get him to understtand that YES! Jesus does love him!! Rose there is a facebook group for Christian Mother’s of gay children. You can find me on facebook if you are interested and we can get you added. 🙂 Marcella Kvick
My 17 year old son has recently come out. Can I join the group and is it private from my other FB friends and family. As this is new, our family does not know yet.
Thank you for all you are doing Chris! I will be sharing many of your posts when the time comes! You have been a true Godsend to me!
Marcella, so good to connect with you! This post is not private. However, please friend me on Facebook at… https://www.facebook.com/chris.kratzer
I can certainly connect with you there privately and connect with you with other private groups as well. If you are not on Facebook, call or text me at 980-295-0230, or email me at
ckratzer@ymail.com I stand ready to support, encourage, and help you in any way I can!
Beth Moore doesn’t blame the parents. I use that to explain how people can “feel” that they are born gay. That’s not a Beth Moore thing. When you understand the demonic realm you can start to see how if your parents committed adultery then you can struggle with it easier because it’s in your family line. Again you have to totally understand intercession and the spirit realm to understand it.
All this foolishness about a person’s sexual orientation being somehow the fault of the parents is based on a speculation Sigmund Freud made at one point in his career (you know, the guy who blamed every single problem a person had on the parents, especially the mothers), trying to place the template of his model over this issue. Later in his life, however, he changed his position and said that people are born with their sexual orientation, and that it cannot be changed. Many former proponents of reparative therapy, including the largest ex-gay organization in the world, Exodus International, have admitted that sexual orientation cannot be changed in 99.9% of cases. So, why would Beth Moore think it’s OK to make parents feel so guilty for something over which they had no control? Science shows that people are born with their personal sexual orientation and gender identity, and a gay person can no more be made straight than a straight person can be made gay. It’s just who they are. The church is guilty of a great sin in its response to LGBTQ people. I am the mother of a daughter who identifies as “queer” (her word), and I have spent several years studying this issue and trying to understand what those few verses in the Bible are really talking about. It’s not about who my daughter is, and how her heart and mind work. She loves God with all her heart, and she’s still queer. She was never abused as a child (we never even spanked her, because she was so smart and sensitive, all it took was a conversation or, at most, one day without a certain activity, to have her “get it” and change an undesirable behavior), and she’s still queer. She has a loving father, who was very involved in both his daughters’ lives as they grew up, and her sister is straight, but she is queer. Her father and I have always worked our marriage as a partnership of equals, with neither of us “ruling the roost”, and she’s still queer. It’s just who she is, it’s how God made her, and I love and celebrate her.
Absolutely Marlene! Keep on speaking truth! Thanks for sharing your story. I stand with you and your family.
Yes Marlene. I totally agree with you
Ashley, You are commanded to LOVE only. No if and or buts. A faith journey is an individual and personal one for each person to follow their own path. I do not need nor do I want your truth or your advice of what you think is the truth. If you are heterosexual than that is your truth but it is not mine. For me to marry a woman would be living a lie to her and myself.
Love your work…..keep it up.
Thanks Anthony!
Thank you for your bold move after your grace awakening. I’m so thankful and encouraged when people such as you open their minds and get it….without having to be hit over the head with the news that your own child or loved one is gay. That’s what it took for me. The freedom and unconditional love I feel is the most incredible gift I can imagine, and I recognize that same transformation in your words. Thanking God for you, Chris!
Thanks so much Leslie! I hope we can stay connected. If you are on fb, would love to connect with you there.
Hi Chris.
Explosive post!
Just recently I came into the revelation of God’s grace in Jesus after 46 years of trying to get closer to God. I now walk every day in the knowledge that my heavenly Daddy is tickled pink with me.
I also know that God is tickled with the whole cosmos including homosexuals. But I’ve been struggling with how to view gays now.
It’s come to a head now particularly as my niece was just married to another woman this past year and I didn’t know how to support her. I was loudly silent about her wedding (she lives a great distance away and I had an excuse not to be there).
I still had the “love the sinner not the sin” mentality but as I began reading your blog that started changing. As I read it out loud to my wife I wept. I am now following your current sermons on the scriptural “clubs” that have been used on gays. I will be sending my niece and her partner a love-filled wedding gift.
Blessings.
Paul
Wow Paul! Thanks so much for sharing this comment! I am so blessed by your words. I hope we can stay connected, would love to hear more of your story! It sounds very similar to mine.
Would love to hear more of yours too, Chris.
Chris:
I love your post. One of the reasons I abandoned belief in a god is because of views condemning homosexuals. Its not the only reason as there are many condemnation passages in scripture concerning different subjects. I do not believe the Jesus I experienced growing up would condemn anyone nor say love the sinner hate the sin as that is just hate with justification.
A person has an individual faith journey which is theirs alone. Unlike generations past each one of us can read and contemplate the scripture for ourselves. If we can come to peace within ourselves with God concerning our homosexuality than that is all that matters. Who is truly dishonest? The homosexual man that swears to love a woman with all his heart, that marries her and has kids, while thinking about a man? Or the gay man living his life true to his heart with the man he loves? Those that say we love gays but God commands we tell them the truth, which truth and for whom is it so? God commands Thou shalt not lie. So why do they command me to be a false witness to and about myself?
David, great thoughts, so honored to have you read and comment on my article!
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. It’s okay to have a lie in your heart that needs truth but I am kind of bummed that you would bash me for my thoughts. I was very kind and open with you about how I felt. I prob won’t try to visit The Grace Place, there’s not a lot of Grace here in my opinion.
God bless you, as a mom who voluntarily adopted 3 wonderful men God has brought to me, all of who happen to be Gay, and two of which are still strong Christians
It’s my honor, great to connect with you Monica!