Outlove Quotes

“Ex-gay leaders had a narrative that explained stories like Kevin’s: that’s what happens when you choose to give in to your flesh, they would say. The gay lifestyle is full of drugs and binge sex with strangers. They never said people like Kevin were driven to destructive behaviors because of shame-based cycles of repression and religious prohibition. No, people like Kevin who embraced the lifestyle embodied the ethics and ideals of the LGBTQ community. Ex-gay leaders denied the existence of a loving, committed same-sex relationship. According to leaders in my community, true love was only possible among heterosexual Christians.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“You can't be loved when you aren't known.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“I started to wonder if I had actually been involved in a cult, especially at Living Hope. How could I have believed teaching that altogether denied medical research and the traumatic stories of ex-gay survivors? How was I so blind to the outright misogyny, the homophobia, the authoritarian nature of the whole enterprise”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“I couldn’t believe I had given the entirety of my teens and twenties to a movement that was more concerned with power and self-protection than caring for the most vulnerable. I now understand what so many people of color and folks from all kinds of marginalized groups have been saying for so long: this has been a trend throughout white evangelicalism’s history.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“I wondered if Evangelicals’ objection to LGBTQ people, and maybe their doctrine more broadly, was never about theological beliefs but about power and cultural dominance.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“My theological beliefs were based on the authority of Evangelical leaders. Of course, Evangelicals say the Bible is their authority, but it’s interpreted in thousands of different ways. When people say the Bible is their ultimate authority, each person has a different understanding of what the text means, which is largely shaped by the theologians and pastors they trust. I wasn’t aware that I was reading the Bible with an interpretive lens because Evangelicals claimed to have absolute, objective truth. They didn’t acknowledge their positionality, how their context shaped their understanding of the text, or how they read into the Bible just as much as they read from the Bible. In Protestant communities, the issue of authority ultimately falls back on the individual because we choose to believe the teachings of one theologian over another, one pastor over another.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“After too many empty promises, Christopher realized he needed a new strategy. He wasn’t trying to stick it to the college when he called public attention to injustices on campus; he’d simply given up on the idea of partnering with Wheaton leadership for change from within.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“I wanted someone to acknowledge how shitty it was for people to debate about LGBTQ people as if it were a sport.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“He might have grown up in a world that wanted him straight or dead, but he survived to see a day when crowds cheered for queers like him.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“Does it really hurt the cause of Christianity if gay people are protected from discrimination when it comes to housing and public accommodations? Seriously, if you fight against LGBTQ rights across the board, it’s hard to believe you care about us. You would be wise to find ways to stand with the queer community, for the sake of your own credibility and the integrity of your message, if nothing else.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“If you want to convince people you’re not just out to protect yourselves and that you’re ready to move beyond the culture wars, maybe you could try advocating for the rights of LGBTQ people to be protected from basic discrimination.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“We were wrong, I thought to myself. I knew it in my gut, but I didn’t know how to process it. In a community that denied personal experience as a source of wisdom, we were always told, “Don’t let your experience influence your theology; don’t trust your feelings.” I didn’t know how to tease out the dogmatic teachings from the truth, but I was very clear on one thing: I refused to believe God was “glorified” by the ruin of queer kids’ lives.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority with the express purpose of mobilizing conservative Christians to rally behind a Republican political platform. Two years before that, James Dobson started Focus on the Family with the mission of “nurturing and defending the God-ordained institution of the family.”1 My mom looked to leaders on the Christian Right for moral guidance and answers to the many questions she brought to Christianity. They told her what was right and what was wrong, who was good and who was bad. The enemies were the feminists, the gays, the liberals, and the people who wanted to keep prayer out of public schools.”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story

“And was it really me who was home, or was it the image of myself I presented in order to fit into a religious system that either couldn’t or wouldn’t make room for queer people who told the truth about themselves?”
― Julie Rodgers, Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story