‘Oh no’ I thought[‘ here we go again’. Yet another memoir on being a gay Christian. But I had heard this girl was good…..so I ordered Gay Girl, Good God in the hope that it might not be bad. I was wrong….it is superb! This is the book that Vicky Beeching should have written!
I couldn’t help but contrast it with Vicky Beeching’s ‘Undivided”. And the contrast is stark. Jackie’s story is about how she started off having an identity in sexuality and ended up with her identity in God. Vicky’s is about starting with her identity as a Christian artist/theologian and ending up with a new identity as a gay rights activist. Jackie’s book honours Scripture and glorifies Christ…Vicky’s denigrates Scripture (by twisting and changing it to suit her views) and demeans Christ (by turning him into nothing more than a cheer leader for the current ‘liberal’ zeitgeist).
One other difference – Vicky is welcomed and lauded by the secular media – she is the new darling of the anti-Christian establishment, with regular appearances on secular tv, radio and in parliament and the big companies. I guarantee Jackie, (despite being a black female rapper!) will not be invited on to the BBC, Sky or CNN! The sad thing for me is that even mainstream Christian news outlets give far more publicity to Vicky Beeching than to Jackie Hill Perry. Just go on to any of them and ‘search’ the two names and see who has the most mentions and the most articles. It’s a sad day when we publicise heretics and silence the faithful!
Gay Girl, Good God, is highly recommended. Get two copies (ASAP – before Vicky gets her way and books like this are banned for being ‘conversion therapy- which it isn’t!) – one for yourself and one to pass on. And My Christian book of the year so far….(I love the sub-title – The Story of who I was, and who God still is.
In this video Jackie tells us about the book….
Here are some quotes that will give you a flavour.
In believing the devil, I didn’t need a pentagram pendant to wear, neither did I need to memorise a hex or two.
Love, as I’d understood it – through my mama– wasn’t like the wind. Indifference was like that. Wind and indifference went wherever it pleased. Settling down when it benefited, moving on without warning, even if it ripped a home or two apart on the way. Love was like the sun – always there. It might have looked like it was moving – but it was forever still. Daddy couldn’t stay put, so as far as I was concerned, Danny didn’t love me.”p.31
“Sexual abuse, for me, turned male intimacy into an undignified practice of the male ego, to which I would only be a body to conquer and not a person to love.” P.37
“As much as I wanted to believe God grinned when He thought of my life, I knew He didn’t.” P.59
“In my mind, choosing God was the same as choosing heterosexuality.… I now know what I didn’t know then. God was not calling me to be straight; he was calling me to himself. The choice to lay aside sin and take hold of holiness was not synonymous with heterosexuality.… In my becoming holy as he is, I would not be miraculously made into a woman that didn’t like women; I be made into a woman that love God more than anything.” P.69
“Who gave mercy my address? Or told it how to get to my room? Didn’t it know a sinner lived in it? On the way down the hall, shouldn’t the smell of idols kept its feet from moving any closer.” P75
“Death was the Goliath no stone could defeat and the Red Sea no staff could part.” P 81
“is this what it feels like to be a Christian? I thought to myself. Is it to have a quiet war inside of yourself at all times? Wanting God over a woman was an entirely new experience for me. It wasn’t even something I considered as being a part of Christianity, let alone the Christian. It seemed to be a religion of just duty. I’ve met so many disciples who preached more of sin than joy, whose eyes were stuck in a constant state of solemnity, clenched teeth and an endless fascination with holiness. Why haven’t they ever mentioned the place happiness had within righteousness, or how the taking up of the cross would be a practice of obtaining delight? Delight in all that God is? Even their saviour had this kind of joy in mind as he endured his cross. So why haven’t they set their focus on the same? In their defence, they were not to blame for my unbelief. I just wonder if they would have told me about the beauty of God just as much, if not more, than they told me about the horridness of hell, if I would have burned my idols at a faster place.” P 84
“to my surprise, being a Christian delivered me from the power of sin but in no way did it remove the possibility of temptation. A common lie thrown far and wide is that if salvation has truly come to someone who is same-sex attracted, then those attractions should immediately vanish.” P 87
“a man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness – they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist. CS Lewis” P 88
“It was up to me to believe him. His word was authoritative, active, sharp. In it, God spoke and showed us what he is like, how much better he was than anything that had been made, how eligible he was to be our joy, our peace, our portion, how trusting him, if even a little at a time, would move mountains – the biggest one, being me.” P 90
“The gay community is called that for a reason. It is a community. A collective of people with different names, social statuses, eating habits, upbringings and more but with one commonality shared among them that make them all more alike than not: their sexuality…… The difference between the gay community and the Christian community. Was not skill, intellect, comfort, humour, or beauty; it was that in one and not the other, God dwelled.” P 94.
“I’ve been told plenty of times, by more people than I preferred, that my face looked more solemn than safe.” P120.
“He wasn’t my friend any more. He was a threat. Because he was a man. And men hurt things, people, me. They always did. They always hurt what they touch. Like they came into this world only to feed off the bones of women.” P127.
“I couldn’t let fear hold my hand. Even though it was a familiar palm, a consistent one even, I knew it would only work to separate what God was going to join together.” P137.
“marriage was the way God wanted me to glorify him. Becoming one flesh would not complete me. Marriage is not what would make me whole, but it would be God’s work in and through my marriage, along with whatever else the Potter chose to use to shape me as his clay that would. God was my first love.” P139.
“do you know why we have a hard time believing that a gay girl can become a completely different creature? Because, we have a hard time believing God. The Pharisees saw the man born blind, heard his testimony, heard about his past and how it was completely different from the present one, and refused to believe the miracle because of Who the miracle pointed to.” P145.
“I don’t believe it is wise or truthful to the power of the gospel to identify oneself by the sins of one’s past or the temptations of one’s present but rather to only be defined by the Christ who is overcome both for those He calls His own. All men and women, including myself, that are well acquainted with sexual temptation are ultimately not what our temptation says of us. We are what Christ has done for us; therefore, our ultimate identity is very simple: we are Christians.” P148.
“LGBT culture has done an excellent job of renewing or should I say, destroying, the mind of many, mainly by consistently using words as the greatest tool in their efforts to draw people into finding greater joy in identifying with their sin rather than their creator.” P149.
“So, the burden for SSA Christians – when it comes to identity – is not to learn more about themselves or how to “become a better you” as an entry into self empowerment. It is to renew the mind so that men and women begin seeing themselves in light of who God has revealed himself to be so that they can glorify him in the ways he commanded. This happens among community, with much prayer, and with a consistent, thoughtful internalising of the word of God.” P151
1 . Identity of Sin – God is beautiful
“there will come a day or two or many for the SSA Christian when the affections for which they once delighted in will whisper for them to return. It will whisper the promise of joy and fulfilment. But it will feel more true than it is, for sin can never deliver on its promise to make us happy. Vomit will always be vomit even if drizzled with chocolate, sliced almonds, and a cherry on top (2 Peter 2:21 to 22).” P152.
- Identity of a Saint – You are not your temptation.
- Identity of the Church – You are not alone.
- Identity of God – GA is better than you can imagine.
“And for so many others, unbelief has convinced them that they can serve both God and homosexuality. Both God and flesh. Both sin and Saviour. For this, we know, is impossible.” P173.
“Jesus didn’t endure because he was strong; he was most likely at one of the weakest points of his humanity, but he endure because he loved his God.” P174.
Chapter 17 – same-sex attraction and the heterosexual gospel- is a stunning chapter in its own right…should be read by every Christian.
God isn’t calling gay people to be straight.
You’d think he was by listening to the way Christians try to encourage same-sex attracted people within, or outside, their local churches. They dangle the possibility of heterosexual marriage above their heads, point to it like it’s heaven on a string, something to grab and get on with. And though it’s usually well-meaning, it’s very dangerous. Why? Because it puts more emphasis on marriage as the goal of the Christian life than knowing Jesus.” P177.
- We are more than our sexuality
- marriage is not the pinnacle of the Christian faith
- singleness is not a curse
- evangelism is about God
“the most alarming problem with the heterosexual gospel is that it is no gospel at all. It’s missionaries carry into the world a message unable to save and set free.” P190.
And this is such a great way to finish!
“I didn’t want you to come and hear about me. I’m not the one who’s done anything for my soul. I’d only done things to it. But what God has done to my soul is worth telling because he is worth knowing. Worth seeing. Worth hearing. Worth loving, and trusting, and exalting. My telling is, as I’ve said before, my praise.” P192.
I love this wee clip of her talking about the bible as well..
