UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST:
Ray Boltz, a contemporary christian musician who sold over 4.5 million albums, has come out of the closet.
“I’d denied it ever since I was a kid," Boltz, 55, told the Washington Blade. "I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore … when I was going through all this darkness, I thought, ‘Just end this.’”
I am honestly crying while writing this. The courage it takes for anyone to come out is remarkable. But the brutality he will face from the Christianists for disclosing this will be close to unbearable. His songs will cease being played, he will be rejected at Churches and, as one commenter on Christianity Today put it:
That's their God for ya, Ray! Reject until you repent!
What can be said? We are known by the fruit we bear. So, being a great musician and exalting the Lord is not enough. Repentance is necessary. We read about a man who committed sexual sin in 1 Corinthians-the church was to reject him until he repented. Likewise, Ray should be ignored but welcomed back whenever he truly repents.
But I grew up listening to his music. "Watch the Lamb" and "Thank You" are songs that nearly every Evangelical Christian can recite.
I pray his courage allows others within his industry to come out as well. Lord knows there are more closeted gays in the conservative church than any where else!
Good on 'ya, Ray! Jesus is smiling even though some of those who claim his name are not.
Thank you, Ray, for living your truth. There are many lives that will be changed!
UPDATE: I should note that I was briefly a part of a children's christian singing group, Power Source, that was made famous for a time by a Ray Boltz song Dear Mr. Jesus
3 comments:
Hi John-Marc! Thank you so much for stopping by my blog... because I would not have otherwise found this post. Excellent! For every "christian" that rejects Ray, I pray there will be 2 more Christians who welcome him with open arms!
Wendy
As the ex-wife of a man who struggled for years, trying to reconcile who he truly was with who he was told he was supposed to be by the church, my hope is that somehow the "850-lb gorilla in the room" will FINALLY be addressed in the church in such a way that men will stop feeling like they have to live a lie. I can't even begin to tell you how many women I know like me whose lives and families have been devastated because these guys have been taught they had to repress their sexuality and follow the "acceptable" path of marrying a woman, bringing children into the world, etc., only for those repressed feelings to come boiling back up at a most inopportune time.
I would rather there be gay marriage in the church and openly happily content gay Christian artists than to have gone through what I did...to have married who I thought was the man of my dreams only to have him go off the deep end (read: deceptive, promiscuous behavior that endangered not only his life but mine, as well as him being to the point of suicide once I found out) 6 years and 1 child later.
This issue MUST be dealt with by the church. Not through REJECTION, either! Not only do the men who are suffering inside deserve better, our women & children do, too!
To the family member of Ray's that wrote me but asked that the comment not be published. Thank you so much for your kind words. Since I am respecting your wishes and not publishing the comment I have no way of seeing the email address of your comment. I would like to keep in touch so if you happen to read this, please write to me at jon-marc@live.com
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