Trial of Faith

by John Donald Gustav-Wrathall
Originally published in Volume 40, Number 2 (Summer 2007)
On a recent visit to Utah, I was excited to attend church with my parents at their LDS ward. Regular attendance at my own ward in Minneapolis has become an important part of my life. But perhaps because of the unique role of family-centered piety in Mormonism, I always find special comfort in attending church with my parents. Furthermore, because of my many years of alienation from the LDS Church, my parents find it deeply gratifying that for the first time in twenty years, I want to go with them. Attendance at church as a family is perhaps an affirmation of the bonds we hope will endure between us in the eternities.
On this particular visit, we were treated in Sunday School to an outpouring of homophobic commentary from members of the class unlike anything any of us had ever heard before. Homosexuals were evidence of the collapse of society in the endtimes. The gay rights movement was an example of evil displaying itself shamelessly before the world. Homosexuals were among those “that call evil good, and good evil.” We sat helplessly as, for several minutes, one stereotype after another was rehearsed. My mother held my hand, trying to reassure me. The teacher finally drew the discussion to a close by commenting that we ought to have compassion for sinners.  After the class was dismissed, I could only whisper to my parents my great relief that my non-LDS partner had decided he would rather sleep late this particular morning than join us.
I can’t say that this episode did not hurt me.  Members of this ward know that my parents have a gay son.  I was introduced to the class as their son, visiting from distant Minneapolis. Were these comments made deliberately for my benefit? Or is the Church’s anti-gay-marriage campaign stirring ugly sentiments that until now remained latent?  Iwanted to leave.  If I could have left without drawing attention to myself I would have.  But at that moment, the Spirit was there quietly saying, “Don’t listen to that. You are in the right place. You are doing what you need to do. Your Heavenly Father is very pleased with you.”  The Spirit reassured me that the Lord would take care of me and that I simply needed to be patient.  So I did not regret the experience. I learned that my dignity does not depend on what others say and that the Holy Spirit will sustain me even through situations I would have imagined unbearable.
Over the past year or so, in response to a dramatic spiritual experience I had at the Sunstone Symposium of August 2005, I have been trying to define for myself a middle path between the polar extremes of, on the one hand, embracing the Church and rejecting the love I share with my partner and, on the other, rejecting the Church and embracing my sexuality.  If the Church is becoming increasingly polarized over this issue by the
current political debate, perhaps it is absurd to hope for such a middle road. Still, I believe that rejecting judgmental postures while enhancing openness, love, compassion, hope, and humility on all sides of this debate is more crucial now than it ever was before.
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