Last week, I introduced a series on my journey of faith, and I compared the arc of my spiritual saga to the familiar story-form of a typical Rom-Com. Here’s a brief excerpt to give you some context for what I’m sharing today:

“In the first act of a Rom-Com, the boy sees the girl from a distance but struggles to find a safe way to approach. Then often by accident, he meets the girl and courtship ensues (with varying degrees of difficulty). Then something happens, and the couple parts ways unhappily (boy loses girl). Finally, after some sort of epiphany (an aha moment usually on the part of the boy), the couple joyously reconciles and lives happily ever after.”

I stated that my journey of faith followed a similar pattern to this “Boy-Meets-Girl” story, but called mine “Boy Meets God.” Last week I only got as far as the “view from a distance.”

This week I’m sharing the part of my story that parallels the “Boy-Meets-Girl” early courtship chapter. 

In a Rom-Com, this stage resembles a montage of wistful moments on beaches and in restaurants, followed by a series of bumps in the road that foreshadow a brewing crisis.

This stage in my spiritual journey looked and felt much more like a rollercoaster ride…

…because I joined my first cult. 

My first year at the University of Minnesota new friends encouraged me to find a church and recommended one nearby called Campus Church.

At Campus Church, I found a friendly community, a charismatic pastor, comfortable housing in one of the church-owned houses on Fraternity Row—and eventually, my first boyfriend.

This was the mid-70s, and most gay people were still closeted. I had only divulged my sexual orientation to one other person before I met Mark (my new boyfriend). 

Because of the time and place we lived, Mark and I tried to keep our relationship secret. It would be a decade or two later that the culture softened toward gay love, and even longer for most Christian churches.

However, falling in love with Mark didn’t turn me away from the divine—it opened me to it. In his embrace, I felt a completeness I’d never known, as if pieces of myself I’d kept hidden were finally allowed to exist. And with that wholeness came an unexpected grace, a spiritual settling that felt like coming home.

We enjoyed our bliss in secret for a couple months, but eventually word got out to some of our housemates. One evening several of our “brothers and sisters” staged an intervention to confront Mark and me about our relationship.

Even though I felt God accepted us as we were, it was clear that God’s children weren’t having it.

They signed us both up for a “pray away the gay” program called Outpost. That’s when the real “rollercoaster” began. 

Outpost met weekly in a small group. And it was as cringe-worthy as you might imagine. There were two leaders and neither had any counseling or psychological credential. People joined and dropped out in a steady stream. We soon realized guys were “hooking up” after meeting at Outpost meetings. 

The worst part was listening to all sorts of self-flagellation and other emotions that probably should have been expressed to a trained therapist. Mark and I began referring to the meetings as “our drama classes.”

Mark dropped out of Outpost after a couple months. At the urging of a couple of my closest friends, I stayed in the ‘program’ for two years.

During my time in this program, I began looking around for anyone that might share my sense that something was “off” about how these folks and the church at large viewed being gay.

By this time, I had studied my Bible quite extensively, and I noticed people constantly quoted verses of scripture out of context. 

On impulse, I sought out a classical languages professor at the University and told him everything—my confusion, my intuition that people were misinterpreting scripture. He listened patiently, then offered to tutor me in Biblical Greek. He was careful not to tell me his own views, but he showed me a passage in Acts (17:10-12) where the Bereans were commended for studying scripture themselves to discern truth. ‘Do the same,’ he said.

To an outsider, my life might have looked stable—college student, church community, a relationship. But inside, I was on a roller coaster.

I felt highs of being in love and lows of my relationship being attacked by my friends and church family. I felt ecstatic joy of a spiritual life moving in me, and desperate confusion that no one around me shared my sense of God’s acceptance of me as I was.

I wanted to be okay with myself. I wanted to belong and fit in. 

I was a teenager. 

The crux of the similarities between cults and coasters comes down to one fact: both stimulate the production of brain chemicals that lead to addictive behavior (dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol, and norepinephrine). These are also the chemicals that wreak havoc with teenage minds.

Looking back, I’m so glad I made it through that fraught time of life. It would be many years before I got off that emotional rollercoaster.

Next week: the long descent into doubt—and the painful work of letting go.

Shine,