Episode 013 – What about Gay Pentecostals? – Anthony Venn-Brown OAM (Part 3)

22 May 2021

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This transcript has been edited for clarity.

 

T: Well everyone, welcome back to I was a Teenage Fundamentalist, this is Episode 11.3, you lucky teenage fundy teenyboppers, you all get three episodes in one day, and as if you didn’t see enough of us already, B and I have got the very famous – or dare I say infamous – Anthony Venn-Brown who has been telling us a lot of his stories over the past two episodes, and now we’re going to get into another dimension, or another angle, talking about what he does now, what he’s learned, what positivity has come. Because that’s one thing that we’ve always said, haven’t we B, that we want this to have a positive spin. So while the last two have been super heavy, hopefully now we can talk about the positive side and bring it all to the fore. So if it’s all right with you Anthony, I’m going to start with asking you a question, and it’s kind of a big question. Now I can remember reading books when I was in church about homosexuality. I think there was one by a guy named Tim LaHaye, and it said that homosexuality was caused by being a phlegmatic personality mixed with an absentee father and a dominant mother – this is in men, and in women it was the reverse. It was an absent mother, a dominant or too close relationship with the father. And we were told it was purely a choice, that people chose in spite of all that, in spite of the bio- psycho- social- feeding in of all this, it’s still ultimately a choice. How do you respond to that now?

A: Think about that. Why, why – don’t give me ten reasons why you would choose to be gay. Give me one. Why would people choose to be rejected? Why would they choose to possibly miss out on promotions at work? Why would they choose to possibly be rejected by their family? The most ridiculous argument of the Christian about homosexuality over previous decades is oh you chose to be gay. It is through every Christian book that you’ll find on homosexuality from the 1960s – and I’ve researched all this stuff, so I’ve read the garbage. What they did was they rehashed a theory that was in the mental health professional world in the 50s and 60s, which never worked and finally they said it’s not actually an illness that needs to be cured. So they dropped that in 1973, and that’s really when the Christian church took that up. But it was discredited in the 50s and 60s. But I still come across people who believe that. It’s environmental, it’s because your father was too distant, it’s because your mother was too domineering – it’s all false. The other thing is of course they talk about being sexually abused so that causes homosexuality. It’s an orientation.

T: Growing up in my neighbourhood if it was all about absentee fathers and mothers that were too involved in your life, we’d all be gay.

A: Exactly! My whole generation the dads were the providers in the family, they’d work til whatever hour, come home, have their dinner and go to bed, and there was really nothing going on. They were just an authority figure and mums were there looking after the kids, so the majority of that generation should be gay, but that theory is garbage. Anyone who believes that, please do yourself a favour and start doing some reading.

B: So Anthony in 1991 you walked away from ministry, and we heard your story in the last episode, because you didn’t feel there was a choice. You had to choose one or the other. Where do you sit with that now? Is there a faith or a God in your life as well as being able to be homosexual?

A: I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned. I’ve learned to live in the ministry – in the mystery.

B: Freudian slip there.

T: We’ve done those.

A: So I’ll give you a little bit of an idea of my journey with this. So when I walked away, I walked away from everything, so there was no congruence between my faith and my sexual orientation, and I thought I was going to go to hell for choosing – no, let me rephrase that. For accepting my sexual orientation, no longer fighting it after 20 something years. And then I just thought that – I’d heard so much about being a lonely old gay man, I thought well I don’t want to be that. Okay, I’ll be out for eight years then I’ll kill myself at 50. So I won’t be a lonely old gay man. I can live without guilt for a few years, which’ll be nice, but I didn’t see a future for me.

T: I don’t want to make light of this, but 50 isn’t old, by the way.

A: No it’s not, but that was it, because at least I’m leaving the planet or my existence still reasonably attractive, maybe. Because I thought it was about attractiveness. And then what happened to me was that I did a personal development course, and this personal development course had a spiritual content in it, so as I’m doing this course I’m coming across stuff I’m really familiar with, like sowing and reaping, about positive thinking, about forgiveness. I used to preach on all this stuff. Then I got to the point where I thought, I wonder whether I’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water. Maybe I could still have my faith and be gay, that these two things are not opposed. I did a particular exercise that was a part of this course, and it was very confronting because the word God came up. Now I had been partying for about six to eight years. I don’t think about God. I’m medicating myself, I’m living out the anger, I’m doing all this stuff, and suddenly the word God appears. I remember that night I prayed for the first time in eight years, and I said God, we are on speaking terms again. 

T: Mmmmh.

B: Wow.

A: There was a point where I could have died, and I refused to pray. I could pray myself out of this but I’m not going to, fuck you God, and I didn’t. But that night I prayed. I said I don’t understand it, something’s going on here, and that was when I had like this almost like a born again again experience. 

B: Born again again. I like that. So Anthony, it appears to me here that you’re seeing a different God, or a different Jesus or whatever that you did when you were in the fundamentalist scene. What was the difference between the God you saw in the fundamentalist scene, and the one that seemed to be appearing now.

A: It was about universalism.

B: What do you mean by that?

A: It wasn’t about who’s in and who’s out. It wasn’t about judging, it wasn’t about I’ve got the truth and everybody else is wrong. It was about you know what? We’re all on a journey. We’re all trying to make sense of what this life is all about, and we find comfort in different things. That’s what I did, I found comfort and understanding – I was able to embrace stuff that was so familiar to me. I live very much by my values, and I realised that was really what I wanted initially, was a congruence around my values. That was the way that I lived, my integrity, my respect, my compassion – all these things now are what I live by. So it’s a universal thing, it’s not like yeah well Christianity’s got the only answer.

T: Do you think it’s like what Rob Bell calls Love Wins? Is that where you came to, or was it like love’s always won and you know, many paths. Where are you at with that?

A: Yeah, when not sure what to do, I always ask myself the question, what would love do now? What would love do in this situation with this individual? Sometimes I have some people I have to work with that really dislike me intensely and I think what would love do now? Would it tell them to fuck off or would it go just like oh, can we talk about this? There’s different ways of approaching. People I think are too quick to react, people from our background as you know there are some very toxic spaces that really don’t help people. They’ve got this identity where they’re almost like victims and they just keep feeding that identity by retraumatising themselves with information and the stories and what they’re hearing, and the people they’re mixing with. That’s sad. These are things that I love, and I think you guys would probably relate to this. I’ve made peace with my past.

B: Absolutely.

T: Yeah, I made a podcast, but keep going.

A: Yes, I have made peace with my past so there’s not huge amounts of anger or angst. I have my PTSD issues so I’ve learned to manage that but you know what, there are some beautiful things that happened to me back then.

T: Totally.

A: There was a point where I rejected it all, but you know what, I’ve embraced those things. I’ve made peace with my past, I understand what the exorcism is about. I understand what those ecstatic moments in worship were all about. I’ve got a better understanding of all that stuff but it feels so comfortable to say I come from a Pentecostal heritage.

T: I’ve often wondered, in the same way you talk about cultural Catholics and cultural Jews I wonder are we coming to the point where we’re reclaiming our Pentecostal culturalism? God help us, God help us, but is that what we’re doing? Even through this podcast we’re basically saying social justice, all that kind of stuff that the Catholics and the more secular Jews do, and we’re going to have our framework as being we came from Pentecostalism.

A: Yeah, well I can’t really say Pentecostal heritage, because I’m first generation Pentecostal in our family, but really it is about that cultural thing. There are so many things, language that we use, even in this podcast.

T: You see it in our Facebook group too, people are dropping names, remember this remember that etc. But look, I’m really cautious of time because we’re going to run out of our third episode time and this is our last episode on this, so I want to ask you Anthony, what are you doing now? What good are you doing for people that you don’t want to suffer what you suffered?

A: I’m changing the world, saving lives.

B: Same old same old.

A: In a nutshell. But essentially what I’m doing is I provide support for LGBT people from Pentecostal evangelical Christian backgrounds. I work with churches, just last Sunday I spent time with a church that is moving to becoming affirming of LGBT people, I’ve been working with them on a year on this. I have conversations behind the scenes with megachurch pastors, with church leaders, with denominational leaders. It’s all about creating a respectful, intelligent, informed dialogue with these people who are willing to have a conversation. If I came across as the militant angry aggressive gay activist, they would never entertain the idea, but because I come across and ask the questions, and do it in a respectful way and not attack them, the doors open for me to work with churches. On our website ABBI.org.au, you’ll find one of the most amazing things I’ve had to do was to work with the international YMCA to become LGBT affirming. You can read about that on our website. 

T: The irony, right. Y – M – C – A

A: I know! That was three days I spent in the Czech Republic with 12 people from all over the world in the organisation, six of those were from Africa I believe, in countries where homosexuality was a criminal offence and people were jailed because of it. So yeah I get some fantastic and fascinating opportunities, but it’s all about reaching out.

T: And what about the people that rejected you then. Have any of those come back to you now and said we were wrong, we’re sorry?

A: Not sorry, but I have had some conversations with some that have been very lovely. Not many, there’s some of the high profile people in the Assemblies of God today that I would like to have a conversation with, but they’re not ready for that I don’t think. But there have been a few, not as many as I’d like.

T: Did you do something about steering Hillsong away from ex gay therapy or something?

A: I spent a lot of time working behind the scenes with that, and worked with Brian and endeavoured to do that. He got to a point where he said to his staff, nobody is to refer anybody to an ex gay conversion therapy type programme. But, that has not been followed through with the leadership globally or in the local church. So yes I was involved with it and it was an important step, but then the dialogue shut down.

T: I thought you were going to say he said no one is to refer anyone to an ex gay ministry – except the one we’re about to start, praise God. 

A: I have a whole 9000 word article on that whole journey with Brian, which is on my website.

B: I did start to read that, then I didn’t finish because I really needed to get on with work, but I definitely will finish it because it was very interesting. So how can the church reconcile their past and even present anti-gay history and welcome practising homosexuals, gay, intersex, people who identify differently – whatever. How can the church bring them into the fold and care for them.

A: Once again on our website we have some strategies and resources for this to help churches. Nobody moves from anti-gay to gay-affirming in one step. This takes some time. It takes dialogue. It takes education. It takes time to work with people. This church that I’m working with is the same church I went through my ex-gay experience with, can you believe that? 

B: That’s powerful.

A: I’m actually working with them, and that’s been 12 months of work and we’re almost there, because you have to give people space and time. The gay people would like to have that done just like that, but you’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s about education, it’s about giving people space to question. Having them learn to live with some ambiguities. And creating a space – I’m going to work with several churches in Wollongong shortly, who are coming together to do that. It’s very exciting work, but it’s too slow. 

B: Yeah. 

A: I wish it all happened tomorrow.

T: I hear of churches – and I’m not involved in the church scene but I have friends that are, and they’ve told me that there’s churches where they allow same sex couples to attend, to be a part of the congregation, and I was like oh that’s great, that’s wonderful, and then the response after that was however, they’re not allowed to hold any positions of authority, be on the stage, they’re not even allowed to hand out the communion wine and I think ugh. Almost. You were almost there.

A: I had this meme that went viral, and it has the four positions – anti-gay, welcoming, accepting and affirming and the difference between those last three positions is enormous. The welcoming and accepting says we welcome and accept you, but. The affirming says we love you. Full stop. But that is a journey for them to go along, so people can find that on our website, it’s been shared 50,000 times last time I checked.

B: That’s awesome. You’ll have to post it to our Facebook group.

A: For sure, yeah. People need to understand the difference.

T: I just keep thinking back to my clubbed out friend with the scars and again here’s the metaphor of touch these and feel what you’re doing is real, you know, that this does matter. Even the people who don’t necessarily take their own life, the turmoil, the trauma – this matters

A: I wrote a letter to the national executive of Great Big AOG in 2008, highlighting or summarising all the emails that I had received – thousands of them – alerting them to the harm and the damage and trauma they were causing to people. To date, nothing has been done about that, but they’ve been called on it. And once again, that letter is on our website – ABBI.org.au. ABBI stands for Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International.

B: We will put those details in the show notes as well, so people will have a link to that.

A: Excellent.

B: So, we want to leave a legacy. You’ve got many years left on this earth, I’m certain of that, what’s the legacy you want to leave?

A: What do I want to leave? What would be absolutely amazing, and I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime, is that I would like – no, I’m going to take that back.

B: You’re allowed.

A: I have a dream, and I shared this with – I won’t mention his name, but if I did, everybody listening would know it. And I said to him I’ve had a dream that I’m standing at a big conference, there are thousands of people, and the conference is saying sorry for the way we have treated LGBT people, and there is this wave of repentance that sweeps through the congregation. I’m weeping on the stage, they’re weeping in the congregation, and there’s this amazing moment of reconciliation. And he said to me, in our church we believe in dreams. Wouldn’t it be amazing?

B: It would be amazing.

A: I won’t let that go.

T: So how do you sit with Pentecostalism now? How do you sit with the AOG and the Apostolics and the Charismatic Baptists, and everybody that comes under that banner – who are some of the others? CRC, all these other acronyms, how do you sit with them now?

A: As a revivalist, when I listen to you I go oh my God, yeah I know about those people. I’ve had dealings with them. I know everything you went through there. So, you know, there are some lovely people in those churches. There are some wonderful people, people who are in a questioning space. There are people who don’t even fully believe what I believe, or are anti what I believe, but still they’re good people. And I’ve learned to allow people to have their beliefs and their faith. I know what I believe and I know what causes harm, and I will try to change that, but I’m not out to destroy people’s faith. I’ve learned about allowing this. Does that make sense?

B: What do you mean by that?

A: It’s allowing people their journey. Say for example, Alan Chambers, who was head of Exodus. I was in a dialogue with him before he closed the whole organisation down, and he was not there at that point. I was in dialogue with him via email, we were having lovely conversations, and people were condemning him saying he should say this and he should do that, and I’m going he’s on a journey. You need that allowing-ness. We’re all on our journeys, and instead of telling everyone where they should be right now, give them the space. They may never come to a good understanding, but you’re not going to make any difference by just constantly condemning other people and putting them down.

T: Yes very much.

B: It sound like you’re being grace-full, Anthony. You’re employing grace.

A: I want to treat other people the way I’d like to be treated myself. 

T: Well see, now you sound like Jesus, here we go. Goodness me. Sounds like the golden rule to me. Nah, that’s good – look, the same is true for the flip side of the coin in atheism. There’s a lot of atheists that are quick to condemn believers of any sort, and as you know even within Christianity, Christians are quick to condemn each other, same within Judaism – there’s the Reformed arguing with the Orthodox, on and on it goes. But the idea of being inclusive, the idea of bringing everybody in, the idea of being welcoming regardless of your beliefs, I actually think that’s probably what – if there is a God – that’s probably what we’re being asked for. And what you said about this idea of what would love say? I practise that.

A: What would love do.

T: Yes, what would love do or say in this circumstance – you don’t need to have God in your life to do that, but it doesn’t matter if you do.

A: Yep. What a great world that would be.

B: It would be an amazing world, wouldn’t it.

T: All right gentlemen, on that note…

B: I just want to thank Anthony for laying your soul bare. It’s brought stuff up for you, we can see that, we can hear it, but you’re brave. You’re brave in telling your story and being honest with yourself in a way that many people aren’t honest with themselves, and you can see the growth in you for that, and the ability for you to impact people’s lives because of that honesty. We wish you all the best, we wish you all the best for ABBI going forward. I’m sure in the future we will bring you back again, because this has been an incredibly interesting and informative time, and I know you have a lot more to say. We will put the details in the show notes about Anthony’s book, but also about some other organisations you may want to reach out to if this has triggered you, and brought stuff up. We want to make sure you can get all that support you need, because that is important in the going forward and the healing, and that is what we’re all about – making sure we find the silver linings,.

T: I think it’s also important to know we’re going to invite Anthony to loiter in our Facebook group and answer questions and respond to people. So the conversation doesn’t stop here, especially if you want to talk about where to go next, what to do, how to find out, Anthony is going to be there for us.

A: You’re very gracious, and I want to say thank you for creating this space, and for this opportunity to be with you. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

T: All right, we’ll see you all next week, teenybopper fundies. Ciao everyone.

B: See you later.