The Open Letter From An Ex-Lesbian, Born-Again Christian To American Pastors
A woman describing herself as an ex-lesbian, born-again Christian has penned an open letter addressing pastors in America.
Writing for the religious publication, Charisma News, Linda Italiano claims a meeting with a pastor changed her sexuality after 30 years as an out gay woman.
‘When I walked out the pastor’s office, I had received the unchangeable truth. Homosexuality is a sin. God hates all sin. God loves me. Jesus died for me,’ she writes. ‘I will forever be grateful to my pastor for holding to the truth of God’s Word and pastors, I pray that your congregants will be the same.’
She then calls on other pastors across America to ‘boldly speak the truth in love’ if she asks them for help; that her ‘salvation depends on it.’
‘First, I need you to tell me in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is a sin. Show me what the Bible says and tell me that the Word of God is eternal and does not change with the times.’
‘Next, please let me know that Jesus’ death on the cross was enough to cover any sin I have committed, including that of homosexuality.’
‘I need you to tell me to repent. Please tell me that true Christianity calls for genuine repentance of sin, including homosexuality.’
She writes: ‘I am living proof! I have completely renounced the homosexual lifestyle, am a devoted follower of Christ and live in truth, victory and freedom every day of my life!’
For The Full Letter, read below:
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Dear Pastors,
There are things I urgently need for you to know. And there are things I desperately need you to tell me. I shudder to think where I’d be today if my pastor had not been bold enough to tell me the truth regarding homosexuality, a lifestyle in which I lived for more than 30 years. Pastors, please take time out of your busy schedule to read my humble plea.
First, I need you to tell me in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is a sin. Show me what the Bible says and tell me that the Word of God is eternal and does not change with the times. Please don’t tell me that you won’t address it or that you don’t have an opinion. Because if you don’t speak up, I am going to think that it’s all right and will be headed for an eternity in hell. Pastors, when I come to you seeking answers, I need you to boldly speak the truth in love. My very salvation depends upon it.
Next, please let me know that Jesus’ death on the cross was enough to cover any sin I have committed, including that of homosexuality. Please tell me that every sin, no matter how minor or major it seems, is an affront to God. If you don’t, I will feel like my sin, because it feels more embarrassing or shocking, is harder for God to forgive than the others and I will be left with the wrong impression that homosexuality is the unpardonable sin. It’s not.
And last, I need you to tell me to repent. Please tell me that true Christianity calls for genuine repentance of all sin, including homosexuality. And pastors, if I try to make excuses to live in my sin, stand firm because my eternal destiny hinges on it. And then, and this is so very important, tell me that God’s power, mercy and grace are more than enough for me to live in absolute freedom. If you don’t, I will think that homosexuality is the only sin for which God’s power isn’t enough. It is.
When I was looking for truth and answers, I walked into a church, just like yours, for the first time in years. I started attending regularly and started feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit in my heart as I learned what it meant to be a follower of Christ.
I mustered up the courage to speak with my pastor and share that I was homosexual, thinking it was an unchangeable fact. When I walked out of my pastor’s office, I had received the unchangeable truth: Homosexuality is a sin. God hates all sin. God loves me. Jesus died for me. I needed to repent from all sin. The cross was enough to forgive me of all sin. God’s power delivers me from all sin. Jesus is enough, even for those who struggle with homosexuality.
Pastors, speaking truth no matter how difficult, does not have to end with people running for the exits. I am living proof! I have completely renounced the homosexual lifestyle, am a devoted follower of Christ and live in truth, victory and freedom every day of my life!
I will forever be grateful to my pastor for holding to the truth of God’s Word, and pastors, I pray that your congregants will be the same.
With all gratefulness, humility and sincerity,
Linda Italiano, ex-lesbian and born-again Christian
About author
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27 Comments
ken
January 24, 07:37What a load of bull****!
Btw many will rush to criticize this as the popular phrase “internalized homophobia” but there’s many of us who secretly think like this confused lesbian
Moreso this is another reason why we need to hear stories from our lovely lesbian sisters. There is need to tell your truth, gurrrl!
Eddie
January 24, 07:57Kinda reminds me of Boo in Orange Is The New Black Season 3 when she wanted to denouce her lesbianism to that Christian Group representative…..that bitch is trippin’ lmao
Pink Panther
January 24, 08:02I don’t think Boo meant to do that, denounce her sexuality for the Christian group. I thought she only wanted to pretend to do that because of the benefits she felt the other crazy one was getting from them.
#Chestnut
January 24, 08:22I don’t know why I wish I could see a pix of her…I just want to see her face and look into her eyes…
Absalom
January 24, 09:10…And propose, right?
Dennis Macaulay
January 24, 08:33Every Aboki with him kettle!
*goes back to drinking coffee*
Santa Diaba
January 24, 08:37Lol. I know I am crass for this, but I think it’s way “easier” to “become an ex-lesbian” than to become an “ex-gay guy” ; the penis is a delicious organ, easy to get addicted to, hard to let go off. ???????
bruno
January 24, 08:54here we go again
Keredim
January 24, 10:45Yup, you are crass
kacee
January 26, 07:41Santa Diana so u are saying lesbian sex is delicious. Seems u dont know anything about lesbians so sharap ur mouth.
bruno
January 24, 09:24funny how all things this woman wants to be told are the things “gay christians” don’t want to hear.
this must be a quite fucked position to be in. your mind needs the crutch that is religion but your homosexuality is also undeniable and more or less permanent. so you pretty much have three choices.
1. you go through all sort of ridiculous intellectual gymnastics to “prove” that the bible isn’t really against what it said it’s against and live in your cozy bubble of self deceit 🙂
2. you accept that your homosexuality is a sin and is wrong and you constantly struggle with gay shame, self acceptance and internalized homophobia.
3. you become an ex-gay like the woman in the post.
so there you have it! pick one or better yet, keep dilly dallying from one to the other.
remember though, religion is a choice but sexual orientation isn’t.
Dimkpa
January 24, 10:21Well said.
Marc Francis of Chelsea
January 24, 12:40Or accept the fact that you are not living in sin by being homosexual. The same bible, which God did not write himself, is extremely prejudicial towards woman, bans mixing of fabrics, bans shellfish, bans facial hair, abhors adultery and fornication, says non-virgins before marriage should be stoned..etc. Yet, somehow it’s only homosexuality that seems to be the only one good Christian folks can actually believe in because “the flesh is too weak” to follow others.
Homosexuality is not just sex. It’s in your mind. It’s in the attraction and urge to be romantic with the same sex. Therefore abstaining from sex and still thinking lovey thoughts towards the same sex still makes you very gay. If you constantly think about committing mass murder, but you never do, you are still sinning because our omnipotent God can see your evil mind.
I believe that God knows I am not gay because I want to spite Him and that’s one option we should all embrace.
Dimkpa
January 24, 14:06From what you wrote I understand the following;
God did not write the Bible.
The Bible says homosexuality amongst other things is a sin.
Abstaining from sex while still having loving thoughts towards members of the same sex is still homosexuality and therefore still a sin.
It then baffles me how you can reconcile being gay and being a good Christian.
It is interesting that you mention God knows you’re not gay to spite him. Isn’t it the same God that created you? Why did he make you one way and then command you to be another way, leaving you with the unenviable task of trying to justify his mistake? Except of course you believe you weren’t born gay but chose to be so or acquired the trait through some yet unknown manner.
If by your assertion that God did not write the Bible you hope to absolve him of this apparent injustice and possibly imply that the Bible is not very accurate, how then do we separate the wheat from the chaff? What criteria do we use to determine the parts that actually reflect the mind of God and those that don’t?
For a book that purports to be the manual of truth, I think it should hold up to scrutiny in every respect. Once we start to pick and choose then it ceases to be irrefutable. What if I choose not to believe the whole story of creation or the existence of God since the Bible was written by men? If I claim it was all made up, how will you prove me wrong? What evidence outside the flawed Bible can be presented to justify the existence of the Christian God over that of Amadioha or Sango.
I understand we all have a right to believe what we want but I think it is masochistic to keep chasing after something that clearly condemns your very nature.
Marc Francis of Chelsea
January 24, 17:29I guess the point of my comment didn’t come across. I don’t necessarily relate the bible with being a fair book of spirituality. Why is there human life at all? God knows the beginning and the end, so why bother? Does free will impede or fulfil God’s vision of our lives since He already knows what choices we’ll make?
There are many questions that Christianity is not necessarily fit to answer. I believe in a Christian God. I however do not believe that He is the egotistic overLord that Christianity has made Him out to be. Saying I believe God knows I am not gay to spite him is what I believe because like I said, I believe in his omnipotence.
Listing everything I did was exactly to scrutinise the bible and show why I believe it is flawed.
Christianity and spirituality are not the same so the fact that I believe in a Christian God who I have a spiritual connection to through prayer. He created me, knows me and loves me as I am and that does not make me a masochist.
Dimkpa
January 24, 19:25I can’t argue with having some form of spirituality. I have heard of Deists who believe in some form of originator of the world through observations of nature and not necessarily the Christian God.
I can see that you have actually given this a lot of thought and I respect that. However I feel that I should point out again that if indeed you believe the Bible to be flawed, then your belief in the existence of a God is based on a questionable foundation.
I like the question you raised about freewill because it is one used by many Christians to justify the idea that God, who is supposedly omniscient and by that virtue knows how each of us will end up before we are born, is still justified in throwing people in hell because they choose their path themselves. What they fail to realise is that freewill is not freewill if you will be punished for it. The freedom in freewill should be the guarantee of no consequence no matter the path you take. Being punished for freewill puts God in the same category as Idi Amin who was allegedly said “Freedom of speech is fine but freedom after speech cannot be guaranteed”.
In addition on the question of omnipotence, I will just quote Richard Dawkins “If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.”
Marc Francis of Chelsea
January 25, 03:02Hence why I said I don’t believe God is the egotistic overlord Christians would like us to believe he is. I came to believe in God via the church, but more and more I find myself questioning what I learn in church. I’ve never doubted that God exists but the vitriol Christians exhale is a lot to bear sometimes. So rather than swallow it whole hearted and listen to “God loves me, not you,” I’d rather live justly according my perception of God as an all-knowing Father.
Omnipotence confuses the hell (no pun intended) out of me. It’s like directing a movie and knowing exactly where the actor would go off script and doing nothing to stop it. Even the Bible kind of contradicts itself on that because in the story of Job, God allows Satan to tempt him to give up his faith by murdering his family and stripping him of everything he cares about to see if he would. Yet wouldn’t an all-knowing God know what would happen before such a temptation?
Pink Panther
January 25, 12:37Being punished for freewill puts God in the same category as Idi Amin who was allegedly said “Freedom of speech is fine but freedom after speech cannot be guaranteed”.
This rendered me speechless. Dimkpa though. 🙂
Marc Francis of Chelsea
January 25, 14:33My point exactly PP. Christians have turned God to Idi Amin.
Chuck
January 24, 23:21co-sign! I’ve been saying this for a while
Delle
January 24, 09:27It’s more or less like this is what you ‘needed’ to hear to recoil because even though you’ve been out for 30 years, you weren’t comfortable being you.
This is what the IH factor causes, when religious beliefs clash with biological make-up, Lilian Italiano is born. Hunnay, the hard truth is this, ‘You are not ‘cured’ or whatever you say, right now you are living in ignorance and critical abstinence. Give yourself sometime, nature doesn’t lie. Now take care of yourself and don’t abstain from hugging or shaking women. Don’t.’
Keredim
January 24, 10:43You know how people spend most of their life being “straight”, suppressing their feelings for the same sex and so on?
Maybe this is the reverse and she needed the church to give her the push from gay to straight??
BRYANNNN
January 25, 16:00Obviously most females have bisexual tendencies, this is a case of someone trying to use religious backing to completely starve her desires for the feminine gender……….
Madam u tried very much, but this lies u told, woven in christian wrap is totally unacceptable…….
Again, what’s that thing with denouncing Lesbianism?????
You think a religious faith, you denounce and renounce anyhow???
Fingers crossed, we will see karma clapping back real soon
kacee
January 26, 08:14“Again, what’s that thing with denouncing Lesbianism?????
Really Bryannnn lesbianism? Google Michael Glatze, Donnie McClurkin, Alan Chambers, Stephen Bennet, Dean Bailey and so on. Gather your facts before you blab
Not today Satan not today.
*goes back to listening to Selena Gomez-Same old love*
kacee
January 26, 07:33Why am I so pissed mtchewwwwww, who fucking wrote the bible.
Tuto Dee
January 27, 12:09I don’t think this article should have been put here.
Pink Panther
January 27, 17:40Why’s that, Tuto?