Rosaria Butterfield

 I'd like you to watch the video below. It's a little over an hour long, so find a slot in your day when you have time. It's an interview with Rosaria Butterfield. If you haven't heard of her, she wrote this book:

The book has been around a bit this past year, caused a stir. I haven't read it because I generally don't buy new books; they cost too much. In a nutshell, here's her story:  she was a lesbian English professor at Syracuse University in upstate New York. She was happy in her lesbian lifestyle with a partner, a home, and a tenured position doing research she loved. But an unlikely friendship with a pastor and his wife, and thorough readings of the Bible for her research, jointly propelled her onto a crash course with God. As she says, it wasn't easy, and it wasn't pretty.


The video above is interesting for much deeper reasons than sex, thankfully. Butterfield digs earnestly into issues the church needs to address.
1) How do we befriend the non-Christian, and particularly the gay/lesbian person? Do we need to revise our out-dated models of witnessing and judging?
2) Emerging from a life-style of sin is always painful to lots of people. There's no way around it.
3) Why don't we talk about our sins? This one really hit home. Butterfield's sin was "out there," and public. Everybody knew she was lesbian at the church she eventually attended. But what about the other worshipers there? She asked them, "What did you have to give up, to come to Jesus?" She had to give up her girlfriend. We really don't like to talk about the sins we have to give up, to have Jesus.
4) She addresses the "I'm born that way" discussion, regarding gays/lesbians. And she agrees -- which I personally felt gratified to hear! As she says, "We're all 'born that way' -- whatever way it is."  I was born a deeply ingrained coveter. I know people who were born to be bitter for decades, holding grudges. Many are born with a sexual sin ingrained. We're all hard-wired for some sin.  Pick your poison. So if you're ever chatting with a gay person and they say, "Hey, bud, I was born this way. I had no choice,"  you can agree with them, and then tell them the offensive trait you were born with. We're all born sinners, born with specific sins too. We're all trying to kill off the sin inside, one day at a time, with Jesus's help.

Anyway. It's a great, great video. She's so honest. She has a new perspective, a good one.