“I hope people will hear my heart and that I will still be loved. I’m still the same guy, with the same heart, who wants to love God and love people with everything I have. This is a part of me I have come to be able to accept, and now it is a part of me that you know as well. I trust God to help love do the rest.” ~ Trey Pearson

~

Upon catching wind of Trey Pearson, the lead singer of popular Christian rock band, Everyday Sunday, writing an open and candid letter to fans in which he comes out as gay, I quickly searched online for the original letter so I could read his words for myself.

Originally published on the Religion News Service (RNS) website, Trey shows the world a kind of vulnerability that is admirable in showing on a much smaller scale, much less one this large and publicized.

Read Trey’s open letter here. Trey’s writing is beautiful, eloquent, heartfelt, and it is delivered with a sense of hope for his personal and musical future.

However, next I found myself in the comments section—I was appalled by the negativity and hate that resided there, by what I assume is only the beginning of Trey’s ex-fan club of condoning “Christians.”

As a Christian myself, I believe that we should easily be able to acknowledge the fact that we are not perfect and that we are all sinners. Christianity says that God accepts us and will love us unconditionally—no matter how imperfect and broken we all are.

Some Christians accept this and hang their hats on the idea that God is love, devoting their lives as an attempt to show others the kind of love that God shows us. However, there are always the ones that insist upon giving Christianity a bad name, along with an extremely poor and misleading representation of our beliefs. And sadly, these “Christians” are always the ones who speak the loudest and have the most to say.

And this is exactly what I saw in the comments section of Trey’s letter—dozens of non-Christian responses, courtesy of the “Christian” people. Condemning him to hell, questioning his personal faith and beliefs, calling him a fraud—and of course, endless promises to never listen to a song by his band, Everyday Sunday, ever again.

Trey is not the first Christian singer to come out as gay: Ray Boltz, Anthony Williams and Vicky Beeching are a few other Christian singers who also felt they owed it to themselves and their fans to be honest about their sexuality. Upon coming out, each of these singers received variations of the same repercussions—Christian stations ceased to play their music, and they were no longer invited to churches or festivals to perform, each having a career cut short, being punished by their honesty and transparency.

Very aware of what this bold admission to a predominately conservative community could do to his career, Trey articulates that above all, he just wants to love God and love people—and that he is leaving it in the hands of God to help love do the rest for all of his fans. He hopes to help other Christians who may suffer with guilt of their sexuality know that they can be gay and Christian. (Gasp!)

Trey says, in his open letter to fans: “There is absolutely no conflict with who I am and following Jesus. God wants me to be healthy, authentic, whole, integrated and my true self.” 

Trey is currently working alongside his bandmates on a new album that is set to release in the fall, and is he scheduled to perform at his first gay pride festival gig this year. If the gay pride festival can so openly and excitedly welcome Trey into their community, why can’t we Christians do the same by welcoming gays into our community?

We are all people. We are all real. So why bring others down when they try to show some transparency?

“But if this honesty with myself about who I am, and who I was made by God to be, doesn’t constitute as the peace that passes all understanding, then I don’t know what does.” ~ TP

Love conquers all.

.

Relephant:

Author: Emily Cutshaw

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: WikiMedia Commons