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D a m a s c u s R o a d
After Coming Out, I Came Home
By Richard G. Evans
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This Rock
Volume 19, Number 7
 September 2008 
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I cannot recall a time when I was not aware of God in my life. While other little boys were planning to be firemen or police, I often said, even at age seven or eight, "I want to be pope!" I jumped at the chance to become an altar boy, having already had much practice as the family "priest" when we played Mass—complete, at times, with flattened "hosts" made of white bread and cut out with bottle caps. The idea of actually serving next to the priest at the real Mass was incredible to me, and I did so with joy for the next four years.
When I was 11, my mother, who had assisted in the Catholic conversion of my father when they were married, had a crisis of faith. It was the late 1960’s, and both the nation and some in the Church had become radical in many ways. The Church began to share more publicly some of the mistakes made in years past, and my mother’s faith in the one institution she trusted most was shaken deeply. She began visiting a number of local churches and eventually settled in at the local Assembly of God. I remember telling her that I was afraid for her soul—a bit bold for a sixth grader—but eventually found myself visiting services with her occasionally.
It did not escape my notice that these very kind people read and used their Bible at every service and seemed to know it well. Even those in the youth group tried seriously to live their faith on a daily basis. I was impressed. I found myself attending regularly, and the calling I had once sensed to possible priesthood became directed towards evangelical ministry.
Around this time (I was 14 by then), I had my own faith crisis and began questioning all I had ever been taught, both Catholic and Protestant. One day I just went to a quiet corner of the house and told God that I didn’t really care if I was Catholic, Protestant, or Buddhist, but just wanted to know who he was. A few weeks later, the pastor prayed with me to "accept Jesus," and I did so eagerly. While no thunderbolts exploded in the sky, deep within me I knew that Christ was real, and that I wished to serve him for the rest of my life.
A Lonely Secret
Having hit puberty and all of its accompanying hormones, I also realized I had some desires that most other boys my age didn’t seem to share: While they talked excitedly about girls and football, I found myself having "crushes" on some of the other young men in our church and school. I had noticed these feelings years earlier; however, being raised in a home where sex was never once discussed, I did not know what they were called or why I had them. Only at age 11, after reading an issue of Look magazine, did I put a name to my desires—was I a "homosexual"? I did not know but suspected I was, and I also knew it was something I could tell no one—period. It is lonely to have such a secret at that young age. Later, after my experience at the Assembly of God church, I came to understand that this was, from a biblical standpoint, sinful behavior.
Growing up, I did not identify myself as "gay." I finished high school and attended an Assemblies of God Bible college. I remained a virgin until I married a very sincere and caring Christian woman. But the feelings were there, and even after 12 years of licensed ministry and marriage they remained a strong and disturbing temptation.
At age 34 I decided to revisit all of the Scripture passages on homosexuality and see if there was something I had not understood. It was not my desire to "go out and sin," but I sincerely wished to know if there was a possibility that I had missed. Studying each passage, I used every tool at my disposal, such as Greek and Hebrew lexicons and books written with both traditional and "pro-gay" theology. I concluded, after months of study, prayer, and even fasting, that the Bible was just not as clear on the topic as I had once believed. Because I could not seem to find unambiguous answers in the Bible alone and rejected Sacred Tradition at that time, I based my subsequent conclusions on science, current thinking in psychology, and the experiences of others. All of these seemed to point towards accepting and embracing my "gayness," and that is what I did. My marriage ended in 1991, and for the next 15 years, though still loving God in my own way, I lived what is commonly called the gay lifestyle.
Man with a Country
The long journey back to faith began when I started attending a local Methodist church that was both accepting and yet very evangelical. The congregants were certainly not "pro-gay" by any means but loving and charitable. I found myself digging once again into Scripture on a regular basis, and I became celibate, at first not by choice but eventually with enthusiasm. On the other hand, I still held on for dear life to my "pro-gay theology." Go figure.
In 2004, I saw The Passion of the Christ, and a hunger for the Jesus of my childhood was stirred within me in ways I cannot even yet describe. I was daily listening to Protestant talk radio, which questioned the faith of people such as Jim Caviezel simply because they were Catholic. This incensed me, as I had all my life known many Catholics who loved God with all of their hearts, and as a result I had never gotten caught up in an anti-Catholic attitude. Although I did not fully espouse the Church’s theology, my memories of Catholicism were mostly fond ones, and I knew what I was hearing was simply not true or accurate.
Then, in 2005, while attending a "gay marriage" rally at the Minnesota State Capitol, I found myself walking away when the leader of a prominent GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) lobbying group began to rail against those who believed in the Bible. It tore me up inside to have to choose between two groups I was part of, "Bible-believing Christians" and those who lived with homosexual inclinations. But at that moment the line was drawn in the sand. Even in my activist years I knew that this radicalism was not tolerance, and I had always known, if it ever came to choosing between God and a lifestyle that was for this world only, I would follow him, no matter where he led me. I left the rally feeling like a "man without a country," not fully on board with the Church or with the radicals I had been listening to. I only knew I loved Christ and I loved homosexually inclined people too, and that the two groups seemed very nearly to hate each other.
Searching for answers, I found a book called Beyond Gay by David Morrison. In his story I found some amazing parallels with my own, as he too was a gay activist who came back to Christ through a very caring Evangelical church, and who now believed in a concept I had never heard of: same-sex attraction. He suggested rather than concentrating on being "cured," our main goal should be holiness—which meant celibacy and lifelong chastity and not letting a set of feelings define who we were. Morrison had become Catholic during his search for wholeness and was now working extensively with a Catholic-based ministry named Courage. Surprised and hopeful at his sane approach to this topic, I was finally, once again, a man with a country.
Christianity from the Top
That same summer, another seemingly unrelated series of events began to propel me towards the Church, at last pushing me through the door.
During the 1950s, some Evangelical Protestant missionaries were in Ecuador, and five young men were killed by an obscure but violent tribe they were trying to reach with the Gospel. The widow of Jim Elliott, one of the martyrs, later published his writings. This story had gripped me deeply as a teen. Now I found myself reading extensively about it once again, as the 50th anniversary of their deaths neared. Mrs. Elliott and the sister of another of the martyrs, Nate Saint, had later lived with the tribe who killed their husband and brother, and nearly the whole tribe was converted.
With a new hunger to serve Christ and do whatever he wished for my life, I learned that Elisabeth Elliot’s brother, Dr. Thomas Howard, former chief editor of Christianity Today magazine, had too become a Catholic! Although at first disturbed by this conversion, I became curious why someone from such an amazing Evangelical family would jump ship. I decided to find out why.
By this point I had my fill of old-school Christian talk radio, especially the anti-Catholic sentiments often expressed, and on occasion, I found myself watching Catholic television instead. I was surprised to hear almost none of the bigotry I had been listening to and was amazed at the level of kindness and respect shown to everyone, friend or foe—while maintaining traditional Catholic stances. I particularly loved a certain nun and found myself hooked on Mother Angelica Live. I started watching the Mass, almost daily, and eventually discovered a program called The Journey Home. I learned of Dr. Scott Hahn and other Protestant ministers who had come into the Church during the 35 years I had been away. I also learned that there was now a new Catechism of the Catholic Church. Digging into Church teaching, Bible in one hand and Catechism in the other, it finally dawned on me that, unlike what I had been led to believe during my many years as a Protestant, the Catholic Church did indeed teach correct Christianity from the top, so to speak. I always believed that there were Catholic Christians, but I had assumed that this was in spite of Rome, not because of it. Now I realized I had been wrong about this my entire adult life.
The final thing that happened after this rapid-fire convergence of events was reading Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s book Rome Sweet Home, in which they chronicle their own struggles and journey from Protestant to Catholic. I ended up devouring it nearly in one sitting. At the end I knew I needed to return to the Church—and soon.
In the early morning just a day or two later, I walked to Mass at a nearby parish and for the first time in 35 years went to reconciliation and the Eucharist. This was on October 4, 2005, which was the memorial of St. Francis of Assisi (who also had a checkered past) and also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And it was indeed a new beginning for me. Many questions remained, but at age 50 I was confirmed as "Stephen Francis" on April 15, 2006. Home at last!
Richard G. Evans lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and works as a staffing coordinator for a large hospital system in the St. Paul area (HealthEast). He is single, and besides his love of the Catholic faith, he also enjoys collecting vintage records and phonographs, particularly jazz and blues.
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