I was born on January 12th 1948 into a family of Anglican church goers who sent away their male offspring to boarding school as a matter of course. I have to say all nine years from the age of eight were traumatic for me. The second school, one of the top public schools, was supposed to be established for the sons of Anglican clergy. It was there I first encountered homosexuality.

At one point in my life, I found myself standing before a crowd, speaking on behalf of a faith I no longer fully understood. As I talked about the teachings I once held dear, I was grappling with emotions of loneliness, jealousy, envy, fear of missing out, anger and lust. These feelings consumed me and turned me away from the incredible, loving and sacrificial God who had been my anchor. In that dark season, I chose to pick a girl over God - she was a wonderful person, but she wasn’t God. I believed I had been betrayed by the church.

In December 2024, I published an academic paper entitled, “Too Gay for the Evangelicals. Too Evangelical for the Gays: A Narrative and Autoethnograpic Study of a Celibate-Gay Testimony”. In the paper, I was seeking to explore the place of testimonies by same-sex attracted Christians within the church. 

I was brought up by two loving Christian parents. They both worked in full time Christian ministry, so I spent much of my childhood in or around church.

What is it that motivates you?

One thing that compounds any pain is the feeling that one is alone, abandoned, that there is no one else who understands. This sense of isolation and being unseen, cut off, is the very essence of what it means to feel lonely. However, one of things that has helped me personally to get up off the floor of my deepest moments of loneliness is the reminder that I am not the only person who has felt alone.