“Basically what happened was I fell in love,” begins leading British evangelical leader Jayne Ozanne, 46, as she publicly tells her story of coming out of the closet.
For the last decade, Jayne has risen up the ranks of the evangelical faction of the Church of England as a lay faith leader, choosing her place among ministries that actively suppress the idea of homosexuality.
But here’s the shocker! She struggled with aligning her own feelings with those of her holier-than-thou church. Must be the first time that’s ever happened.
She participated in various forms of “deliverance ministry” similar to the “ex-gay” movement in America, and wouldn’t you know it? That didn’t work either.
In fact, the attempt at “deliverance” was so harmful it led to a nervous breakdown. “[Deliverance Ministry was like] trying to cast out myself from myself,” Ozanne told Christian Today.
Her psychiatrist ended up giving her a piece of good advice that her church never would have even considered. She told her that maybe it’s time to switch religions.
Jayne left her church, and has now accepted a role as the leader of Accepting Evangelicals, which calls itself a “network of Evangelical Christians who believe the time has come to move towards the acceptance of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships at every level of church life, and the development of a positive Christian ethic for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”
Which — OK, better than nothing we guess. But maybe, just maybe, if the evangelical church can be wrong about homosexuality, might it stand to reason that they could be wrong about other things? Just throwing that out there.
Here’s Jayne telling her story:
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Six Easy Tips For Antigay Preachers
via Think Progress
Ladbrook
Protesting too much… example # 2,387.
DistingueTraces
Yes, well.
The lesson here: it’s very easy to have compassion for your own suffering and exclusion.
Having compassion for OTHER people’s suffering and exclusion was kind of Christ’s thing.
As a Christian leader, she should maybe look into that.
RomanHans
@DistingueTraces: Exactly! Congrats to Ms. Ozanne on finally finding her truth, but it doesn’t say great things about her that she doesn’t recognize evil until it smacks her in the face.
demented
” if the evangelical church can be wrong about homosexuality, might it stand to reason that they could be wrong about other things?”
Why does it matter to you so much that someone hasn’t totally thrown out her beliefs merely because she is LGBT? That seems to really bother you.
NoCagada
@demented: Try the Log Cabin Club…you, too, can be invited to SCORES of GOP galas.
Xzamilio
@demented: No, what’s really bothersome is the mental gymnastics otherwise reasonable people will do to justify staying in a religion that blatantly condemns who and what they are. I don’t see this any differently than the conservative bible thumpers who cherry pick what they will and will not follow. How anyone in the 21st century can still believe this iron age nonsense is beyond me, but I guess this is better than nothing.
Xzamilio
Great… more religious nonsense. Isn’t it obvious by this point that God is a made up concept that people form and mold to their liking? God doesn’t accept gays… then he accepts gays. God is a god of righteous judgment and an angry god… God is love. Shut the fuck up already. Christians don’t need to be schooling anybody on sky daddy. 40,000 plus denominations and NONE of them agree on which interpretation of the bible to follow, or who God is, or Jesus, or how he treats “sinners.” Get a working definition of Christianity before you go filling my head with millions of rectum-derived interpretations of unoriginal transcripts translated over thousands of years from decades of spoken word.
Pfft
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Ya can’t fix what ain’t broken……………