The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith

by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

That night, I prayed, and asked God if the gospel message was for someone like me, too. I viscerally felt the living presence of God as I prayed. Jesus seemed present and alive. I knew that I was not alone in my room. I prayed that if Jesus was truly a real and risen God, that he would change my heart. And if he was real and if I was his, I prayed that he would give me the strength of mind to follow him and the character to become a godly woman. I prayed for the strength of character to repent for a sin that at that time didn’t feel like sin at all—it felt like life, plain and simple. I prayed that if my life was actually his life, that he would take it back and make it what he wanted it to be. I asked him to take it all: my sexuality, my profession, my community, my tastes, my books, and my tomorrows.

I learned the first rule of repentance: that repentance requires greater intimacy with God than with our sin.

I didn’t understand why homosexuality was a sin, why something in the particular manifestation of same-gender love was wrong in itself. But I did know that pride was a sin, and so I decided to start there.