Re: That TWU Chapel Podcast...

There’s no single LGBTQIA2S+ “lifestyle.”

In a recent @twuchapel podcast titled “Wifely Submission Rightly Understood | 1 Peter 3:1-6” released Wednesday, January 19th, Rev. Dr. James Ellis III (TWU Chaplain) shares a quote from Rosaria Butterfield, a popular ex-gay Christian, from her book “Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ”: “If God is the creator of all things, and if the Bible has his seal of truth and power then the Bible has the right to interrogate my life and my culture and not the other way around.”

In the podcast, Rev. Ellis III shares how Butterfield “[lived] as a lesbian” until 1999 when “she was converted to Christ and in submission to the Gospel, she relinquished her former lifestyle.”

As a reminder, Rosaria Butterfield is the same person who wrote in May 2020 for @DesiringGod that the COVID-19 pandemic can be viewed as an "answered prayer" as it was one of the first times in decades without public gay pride marches and that Christians should be “praising God for this disruption.” 🙃

Being LGBTQIA2S+ has nothing to do with a “lifestyle”––it is a holistic experience of sexuality and gender that impacts every part of one’s life. Comments like these from Rev. Ellis III further reinforce ignorance and harmful stigmas in the TWU community which actively hurt queer youth.

People like Rosaria Butterfield are frequently used by conservative Christians like Dr. Husbands and Rev. Dr. James Ellis III as props for their own agenda to shame and condemn LGBTQIA2S+ folks in and out of the church.

Let’s do better, @trinitywestern.