TESTIMONIES |
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They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Revelation 12:11
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 The word Jesus stuck in my throat like an elephant tusk; no matter how hard I choked, I couldn't hack it out. Those who professed the name commanded my pity and wrath. As a university professor, I tired of students who seemed to believe that "knowing Jesus" meant knowing little else. Christians in particular were bad readers, always seizing opportunities to insert a Bible verse into a conversation with the same point as a punctuation mark: to end it rather than deepen it.
Stupid. Pointless. Menacing. That's what I thought of Christians and their god Jesus, who in paintings looked as powerful as a Breck Shampoo commercial model. As a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical, I cared about morality, justice, and compassion. Fervent for the worldviews of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin, I strove to stand with the disempowered. I valued morality. And I probably could have stomached Jesus and his band of warriors if it weren't for how other cultural forces buttressed the Christian Right. The surround sound of Christian dogma comingling with Republican politics demanded my attention.
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 I was born in a nominal Christian family. I was abused physically by my mom and felt rejected by my father. Because of that, I began loathing myself and was tempted to commit suicide a few times but God always stopped me every time. Since my childhood, I felt different and was always attracted to the same sex. I also felt like I was only a quasi-man. I tried to "pray the gay away" and change myself with my own power to be "straight" but I kept failing. So, I believed the lie that it was just who I was and I would die as a gay man. Finally I decided to just embrace and enjoy it. In doing so, I rejected the notion of God and His existence because I knew the truth that you couldn't follow God and live in sin at the same time. I ended up completely forgetting God. For me back then God didn't exist and after death there was only oblivion. Finally I was able to do what I wanted to do, such as lusting over men, watching porn, masturbating, etc. I was addicted to many things, including gaming. I've become really good at suppressing the truth about sin and my guilt. But even after living the life that I wanted, I was never satisfied.
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