Chad’s account on Monday<\/a>, it’s worth reading:<\/p>\n—————-<\/p>\n
When you’re desperate to fit in,<\/b> you’ll do just about anything. You change your hairstyle, go
\nto the gym five days a week and collect music because you think others might like it. You laugh
\nat things that aren’t funny, you take up hobbies that are boring as hell and you hang out with
\npeople you think are creeps. You embellish stories, tell lies and pretend interest when you have
\nnone at all.<\/p>\n
You memorize loads of Scripture, get up at 6:00 in the morning for two different “accountability
\ngroups” and attend church any time the doors are open. You get baptized three times, go
\nforward to rededicate your life six and keep track of how many you’ve “saved.” You learn how
\nto pray out loud with just the right sprinkling of spiritual words like “amazing”, “great” and
\nespecially <\/i>“just.”<\/p>\n
You swear you believe things you don’t, you try to sound sure when you’re not and you learn
\nhow to BS so well that often you can’t keep your own stories…um…straight. Doubting
\ncan’t be part of your repertoire — unless of course, that cute new guy is a doubter, too. “Lord,
\nplease have him be doubting about the same things I am.”<\/p>\n
You change how you walk, or how you move your wrists when you talk, or act like you want
\nto make it with every hot girl so that no one guesses you’re secretly a hell-bound f—-t. It’s
\nenough that you <\/i>know it. God forbid that anyone else should find out the dark, dirty secret that
\nyou’re attracted to boys more than girls.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you slip and one of your friends catches you looking at him longingly, which always
\nrequires damage control by acting a little more manly or making a joke about some kid in
\nschool who acts really gay. You ache to tell someone the truth and be open about what you
\nfeel. But you’ve learned the church is not the place for that kind of honesty.<\/p>\n
Your prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. You decide that either God isn’t there, doesn’t care or
\nis ignoring your pleas. The proof is in how heartlessly exclusive and cold Christians are toward
\nothers like you. You hear “love the sinner, hate the sin,” and “the Bible calls it an abomination”
\n— which quickly translates into “there’s no place for you here.” Stories in the news about young
\npeople taking their lives are often met with stabbing comments like “maybe they’re better off”
\nor “their parents must not have been paying attention.”<\/p>\n
So you leave and your gut wrenches because you want to believe in a Jesus who cares about
\nthose like you who don’t belong and who don’t fit in. Following Jesus and loving like He loved
\nmakes such sense. That kind of compassion saves a place for me at the table. <\/p>\n
But why is it
\nthat believers often behave so differently? If you’re listening, Church, answer me. Why are
\nChristianity and following Jesus often two very different things?<\/p>\n
—————-<\/p>\n
How do we answer<\/b> struggling believers like Steve?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My friend, Steve, sent this to me yesterday about his experience as a gay man growing up in the church. He lives in Berkeley, California. Like Chad’s account on Monday, it’s worth reading: —————- When you’re desperate to fit in, you’ll do just about anything. You change your hairstyle, go to the gym five days…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"yoast_head":"\n
Letters: Desperate to Belong - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letters: Desperate to Belong - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My friend, Steve, sent this to me yesterday about his experience as a gay man growing up in the church. He lives in Berkeley, California. Like Chad’s account on Monday, it’s worth reading: —————- When you’re desperate to fit in, you’ll do just about anything. You change your hairstyle, go to the gym five days…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-13T07:18:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Letters: Desperate to Belong - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Letters: Desperate to Belong - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"My friend, Steve, sent this to me yesterday about his experience as a gay man growing up in the church. He lives in Berkeley, California. Like Chad’s account on Monday, it’s worth reading: —————- When you’re desperate to fit in, you’ll do just about anything. You change your hairstyle, go to the gym five days…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-10-13T07:18:23+00:00","author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html","name":"Letters: Desperate to Belong - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-13T07:18:23+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-13T07:18:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/letters-desperate-to-belong.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Letters: Desperate to Belong"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}