3/7/98

The Editors of The Wesleyan Christian Advocate

Greetings in the Name of Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords!

Attached is yet another letter from me to the United Methodists of Georgia. You have graciously permitted two earlier letters to be published, and it is only through a deliberate rejection of a natural shyness that I approach you again with yet another letter. I do not really expect you to publish this, as I have had far more than my fair share of exposure of my ideas to our United Methodist brothers and sisters; and yet I feel compelled (by the Holy Spirit?!) at least to try and to impose upon you and your readers yet once again.

I thought you might appreciate a note about myself and why it is that I am "harping" on this "scripture-is-not-law" theme. I am 61 years old and the product of a Wesleyan household. My father, Edmund Daniel Rudisill, Jr., served many charges in the North Georgia Conference and was twice on the Bishop's cabinet. I grew up thinking it self evident that God was love and that he had chosen each of us to reflect that love in a very particular and even peculiar way. It was the delight of my teen years to feel such a devotion to Christ and to work consciously and deliberately and cheerfully for the furthering of his kingdom, both toward my own perfection and for the happiness of the world at large.

As a late teen I was askance to discover that I was "afflicted" with homosexual tendencies. After surrendering to those tendencies for about 20 years beginning with the age of 25, and after having plumbed the extremes that the selfish, pleasure-seeking and very promiscuous life could afford, I "bottomed out" (like the proverbial AA member) and turned back to my childhood vision. I returned to church (Grace Atlanta had been "provided" for this purpose) and sought to open my eyes to the graces of the opposite sex. Over a long period of time I became enchanted by one lovely "butterfly" from Nippon who finally consented to become my present wife, and I have lived blissfully with her for over ten years now. She was so impressed with my vision of Christ and in particular that of J. B. McNeil (then pastor at Grace) that she eagerly sought to join in the manifestation of the Wesleyan vision and became a Christian on profession of faith.

My wife and I left Grace due to an hysteria related to the so-called Gulf War of the early 1990's, and after searching amongst the churches of downtown Atlanta, settled on St. Mark as the one where we thought we could do the most good. St. Mark, without knowledge of my former homosexual background and without the least suggestion by us or even our knowledge, took advantage of a Gay Pride parade to invite all the world to come to St. Mark without demanding a particular code of conduct in advance. The gay world marched in, as you are probably aware, and St. Mark found its current mission and ministry. And while we are psychologically more attuned to Grace and its style, and a bit put off by the large crowds which have taken over St. Mark, my wife and I have remained loyal there and probably will continue to do so, for we are reluctant to leave a church without a very sound reason.

Now finally to my main point: while I am living evidence that a person can move from a real and felt homosexual orientation to a real and felt heterosexual orientation and find enormous contentment and even happiness in that life style, I find that I am no more able to justify the need for such a change in terms of the gospel of Christ than I can justify the need for left handed people to change to the right hand, although I am sure they could, with pain, if they really wanted to, and that they would finally become quite content in that new mode. For me to think otherwise would be to think that our Lord was only kidding or engaged in flippant banter in Matthew 7:12, and that Paul was engage in equally loose talk in Romans 14; for I would then have to think that good and evil were a matter of something other than the heart.

I feel that the Wesleyan conception in the United Methodists Church is beginning to succumb to the onslaught of fundamentalist-style jingoism and thereby about to lose all justification for its existence. It is for this reason that I have sought to express an alternative witness with regard to the homosexual community.* If you are interested in this, I invite you to review my web site and to examine in particular my essay on the Golden Rule and the one entitled "Essentials of Baptist Thought."

[* And by the way, there are witnesses at St. Mark who can attest to the fact that I have on appropriate occasions sincerely sought to convince homosexuals that the so-called straight life can be utterly delightful (though without ever wanting to suggest that there were any moral need for that life).]

It seems that I am what you get when you raise children in the conception of John Wesley by a family that thinks and loves more than it speaks (and where one of the children grows up as a homosexual). I remember saying once before, that I am my father's monument, and thus I am a monument to the sincerity with which he and my dearest mother, Modena Quimby, expressed the love of Christ in our family, and for which reason I shall always stand in awe that God chose my soul 1. to be raised by such a family, and then 2. to wander long in the far country, * and then 3. be rescued in time to meet, and be receptive to, my wife, a gift to which I have not the least, moral claim.

[* And not that the far country is identical with homosexuality by any means, but merely that my manifestation of homosexuality was thoroughly and unabashedly promiscuous and even rampant.]

Therefore I submit this letter to you for your consideration for publication (but will not be offended in the least if it is not published). I am sorry that I am not able to express my thoughts more clearly in this letter, and I know it is difficult, but I submit this letter in faith and pray for God to do with it what He will, for I know that all things work together for good for those who are called according to the purposes of God, unto Whose glorious Name be all praise now and forever!

Yours in Christ!