Miscellaneous Thoughts About an Unlikely Convert

I borrowed Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield on Wednesday and finished it by Saturday. It is the amazing story of the conversion of an atheist lesbian college professor to Christ. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it hard to put down. She writes candidly about her struggle to come to faith and the complete train wreck it made of her life. She also tells of her transition to becoming a Reformed Presbyterian pastor's wife and their journey to parenthood through adoption and foster care. But I was especially moved by the process of her conversion because God used a means as simple and ordinary as friendship.

Butterfield was befriended by a Reformed Presbyterian pastor and his wife. Ken and Floy Smith invited her to their home. They didn't ram the gospel down her throat, even waiting two years before inviting her to church. They were honest about their belief in God, His Word, and what it said about her lesbianism, but that did not deter them from loving her. The Smiths didn't see her as a societal problem that needed to be fixed but a person with feelings and thoughts who needed the gospel.

This was very convicting because it brought back memories from my undergraduate days. I was involved in a Christian group and attended a study led by a young man who ended up dating my roommate. We were hanging out in the dorm lounge one evening, watching the latest installment of Dynasty. This particular episode was the first to portray a homosexual relationship on network TV. Quite tame compared to Downton Abbey, but the response in the room was unanimous. There were cries of, "Gross! Disgusting!" You get the picture. Afterwards, this young man commented, "What if there was a person in the room who was struggling with being gay? Do you think he would feel like he could talk to anyone about it?" His question has haunted me to this day because within a year, he came "out". My roommate was devastated because they were briefly engaged to be married. As for the rest of us, let's just say that the Smiths put us to shame.

Shortly after Butterfield became a Christian, she counseled a woman in a secret lesbian relationship who was part of a Bible-believing church.  These were the woman's words:

"Rosaria, if people in my church really believed that gay people could be transformed by Christ, they wouldn't talk about us or pray about us in the hateful way that they do."

Christian reader, is that what people say about you when they hear you talk and pray? Do your prayers rise no higher than your prejudice? 

I think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Christ if people stopped lying about what we need, what we fear, where we fail, and how we sin. I think that many of us have a hard time believing the God we believe in, when the going gets tough. And I suspect that instead of seeking counsel and direction from those stronger in the Lord, we retreat into our isolation and shame and let the sin wash over us, defeating us again. Or maybe we muscle through on our pride. Do we really believe that the word of God is a double-edge sword, cutting between the spirit and the soul? Or do we use the word of God as a cue card to commandeer only our external behavior?¹

This book is well worth reading for Dr. Butterfield's testimony but it's more than that. It will challenge your ideas about evangelism. It will challenge your attitude towards those who are very different from you - people who need Jesus, including those in the gay/lesbian community. By no means is it a call to compromise and condone sin. But do we believe God is able to save? I hope the answer is a resounding "Yes!" After all, He saved us.

Here's more on the book:

Carl Trueman's review
Mortification of Spin podcast
Connected Kingdom's interview with Rosaria Butterfield.

1. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Cross & Covenant Publications, 2012, pg. 25.