The Banner Over Us Is Still Love
by Sean McDivitt
*Knock, knock.*
I opened the door to find my pastor on the doorstep. He handed me a letter, signed by all members of the congregation, stating that they were breaking fellowship with me due to my decision to come out as gay.
I wasn’t surprised, or blindsided. In fact, I knew that pain before it arrived. I grieved as it approached, as it pierced fresh wounds, as it lingered, and, in some ways, as it lingers still. At times, the pain of that past can make honesty feel like bitterness.
Or bittersweetness.
“Give an honest answer to every honest question,” said Francis Schaeffer, one of the faith giants I had treasured. After 8 years since and well over a decade in the making, coming out remains perhaps the biggest step of honesty and consistency I have ever taken.
It’s not the kind of honesty I imagined for myself as I grew up homeschooled, reading my IBLP Wisdom Booklets or attending Children's Institute to stay under the paternal umbrella of protection. Nor the honesty I saw playing the piano on Sundays, leading Bible studies, and absorbing, by personal choice, Reformed theology. Nor the honesty I envisioned as I wrote choral arrangements and hymns at my Christian college, in law school, or at my first military assignment, to express my love for my God and his Word.
It is an honesty that some loved ones still label as “bannering rejection.”
But I can tell you: that step of honesty gave me the deepest breath of fresh air. I had yearned for it for so long with sorrow and fear, unwilling to believe its truth. And when I finally allowed it to burst forth, it brought a new lens and a crucible to stretch, recalibrate, and cultivate my faith, my witness, and my calling.
A few months before coming out, I explained to a fellow church member why I thought bandying about certain LGBTQ+ slurs was inconsistent with the love of Christ: "Because what if they were searching quietly in our midst? What if they found that the believers, instead of being selfless Good Samaritans bathing the wounds of the man beaten on the side of the road, were in fact crossing to the other side like the Levite? Too disgusted to tarnish their robes and see 'they/them' as living, breathing people we are blessed to walk upon this earth with?"
In some way or another, we all fail to live up to the ideals, values, or as some would call it, the fruits of the spirit, that we desire to emulate or that we expect true faith to bear within us. But for some reason and drenched in theological deplorability, embracing honesty in coming out was, and for so many still is, a Rubicon.
I crossed it because my journey's path led beyond it. I wouldn’t trade my life now—the relationships, the indelible scars, the profoundest blessings—to turn back.
As I personally observe Pride Month in June, I celebrate that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that each one of us reflects the image of the Divine, and that we do not have to ask the Potter why we have been made thus.
It’s a cause for me to banner loving my neighbor as I love myself and to rejoice when a sheep, lost in the ether of intentional or unrealized erasure, is found.
To not call unholy that which has been made holy, but to find joy and solace in perfect love that casts out fear.
To strive to live more consistently in grace, mercy, and redemption.
May it be so.
Sean McDivitt is a member of Religious Trauma Network’s Advisory Panel.
This article is not intended to treat or diagnose any condition. Sean is not a licensed therapist or clinician. Any advice or opinions given on this site are strictly individual observation and insights based on personal experiences and study. It should in no way take the place of professional assistance.