02 My Train Wreck Conversion

at this time I have the privilege of introducing a dear friend a woman that and I have had the privilege of knowing for several years now and we've been through a few things together in the Providence of God this conference was arranged before Rosaria was interviewed by Marvin o Lasky and Christianity today and but God works out this timing perfectly some of you are here today because you didn't know if dr. Butterfield several weeks ago but you do today Rosaria Butterfield has quite a story and I don't want to tell it because she will tell the story I will simply say that she's a beloved friend in Christ and you will want to meet her and you will want to learn from her and after she's done I will make a few closing remarks on just a couple of announcements right at the end but Rosaria please come forward and minister to us can you hear me okay good thank you thank you I'm so glad to be here with you not just tonight but through the rest of the conference tomorrow and I very much want to be available to answer whatever questions that you have so I realized we won't have a chance to do a question-and-answer tonight which is normally what will happen after I share my testimony so I want you just to write those questions down and bring them tomorrow I promise to leave lots of room to hear from you okay let me begin I had a normal childhood whatever that means my parents raised me in the Catholic faith and I attended predominantly Catholic schools my liberal Catholic all-girl high school discipled me in the life skills that I use today I learned there to read deeply and well to diagram a sentence before I tried to interpret it and to look out for the unloved and draw them in I had by all appearances a heterosexual adolescence in college I met my first boyfriend and it was a heady experience at the same time an undercurrent of longing inserted itself in my intense friendships with women I didn't make much of this at first the repetitious sensibility rooted and grew I simply preferred the company of women enhanced by feminist philosophy my homosocial preference morphed into homoerotic attraction I studied Freud I cheered that the DSM removed homosexuality from its list of disorders thus rendering homosexuality in the eyes of the world and the Academy normal with no prohibitions or constraints by the time I had graduated from Ohio State with my PhD in English and cultural theory I'm sorry cultural studies I left the Buckeye State with my lesbian partner we moved to New York for me to begin a tenure-track position and the English department at Syracuse University my life is a lesbian seemed normal I considered it an enlightened chosen path lesbianism felt cleaner and a more moral choice always preferring symmetry to a symmetry I believed that I had found my real self what happened to my Catholic training I believe now that it was all hogwash the name Jesus which had rolled off my tongue and a little girl's prayers then rolled off my back in college now made me recoil with anger as a professor of English and women's studies on the track to becoming a tenured radical I cared about morality justice and compassion fervent for the worldviews of Freud Hegel Marx and Darwin I strove to stand with the disempowered I valued morality my life at this time was happy meaningful and full I was not seeking the Lord My partner and I shared many vital interests AIDS activism children's health and literacy golden retriever rescue our Unitarian Universalist Church just to name a few it was hard to argue that my partner and I were anything but good citizens and caregivers the gay and lesbian community values hospitality and applies it with great skill sacrifice and integrity indeed I honed the hospitality gifts that I use today as a pastor's wife in the gay and lesbian community I began researching the religious Rite and their politics of hatred against people like me to do this I began reading the Bible while while looking for some Bible scholar to help me wade through this complex book I took note that the Bible was an engaging literary display of every genre and trope and type it had edgy poetry deep and complex philosophy and compelling narrative stories it also embodied a worldview that I hated sin repentance sodom and gomorrah absurd at this time the promise keepers came to town and they parked their little circus at the University on my war against stupid I wrote an article published in the local newspaper it was 1997 the article generated many rejoinders so many that I kept a Xerox box on each side of my desk one for hate mail and one for fan mail one letter that I received defied my filing system it was from Ken Smith the pastor of the Syracuse reformed Presbyterian Church it was a kind and inquiring letter Ken didn't argue with my article rather he asked me to defend the presuppositions that undergirded it in his letter he shared his love for the Bible his concern that college students were not reading the Bible as part of a literature curriculum and he described Jesus as someone who entered into history not someone who emerged from it I thought that was insane I was a historical materialist I believed that people proceed from history and are shaped for good or for ill by the culture that molds them I didn't know how to respond to this letter so I threw it away and later that night I fished it out of the department's recycling bin and put it back on my desk where it stared at me for a week confronting me with the worldview divided that demanded a response as a postmodern intellectual I operated from historical materialism but Christianity is ultimately a supernatural worldview Ken's letter punctured the integrity of my research project with him even knowing it if I was going to understand how this book the Bible got so many people off track and how this man Jesus persuaded so many people to follow him then I needed to understand Christianity as a supernatural idea at this point in my life the category of the supernatural was reserved for Stephen King novels and Stephen King was a big donor to the English department at Syracuse so that's not a you know that's not a throw away reference with the letter kin initiated two years of bringing the church to me a heathen oh I had seen my share of Bible verses on placards at gay pride marches that Christians who mocked me at gay pride day were happy that I and everyone I loved was going to hell was clear as the sky is blue but cleanse Ken's letter didn't mock it engaged and so when he invited me to dinner at his house to discuss these matters more fully I accepted my motives at the time were clear surely this would be good for my research but something else happened ken and his wife Flo and I became friends they entered my world they met my friends we did book exchanges we talked openly about sexuality and politics they did not act as though such conversations were polluting them they did not treat me like a blank slate when we ate together ken prayed in a way that I had never heard before his prayers were intimate and vulnerable he repented of sin he thanked God for all things Ken's God was holy and firm yet full of mercy Kenan Floy omitted two important steps in the rural book of how Christians should deal with a heathen like me they did not share the gospel with me and they did not invite me to church because of these omissions to the Christian rulebook as I came to learn it learn of it I knew that when Ken extended his hand to me and friendship it was safe to close my hand in his I started meeting with Kenan Floyd regularly reading the Bible in earnest with pen in hand and notebook in lap I read the way a glutton devours I was also on a research leave at the time and it's not uncommon for a professor on a research leave to be reading about five hours a day so a lot can happen if you read the Bible in big chunks like that even if you're reading it with with an eye to tear it apart slowly and over time the Bible started to take on a life and a meaning that startled me some of my well-worn paradigms no longer stuck I had to at least ponder the hermeneutical claim that this book was different from all the others because it was inspired by a holy God and inherently true and trustworthy and this led me to go through some of the presuppositional truth claims just to check the math of the meaning here and the logic claims they go like this number one if this was a book written by men who are inspired by the Holy Spirit then its admonitions about sin were not what I had presumed they were which was applied cultural phobia and why well because God's goodness unrestrained by time would have anticipated and guarded against the ill treatment of a people group and two if God is the creator of all things and if the Bible has his seal of truth and power then the Bible had the right to interrogate my life and my culture not the other way around even as a postmodern reader I understood the idea that authority can depend only on that which is higher than itself who is higher than God I wondered at a dinner gathering that my partner and I were hosting my transgendered friend Jay cornered me in the kitchen she put her large hand over mine and said Rosario this Bible reading is changing you what's going on I felt exposed I felt like I was going to throw up i sat in the chair and I said Jay what if it's true what if Jesus is real and risen what if we are all in trouble and Jay exhale deeply and sat down in the chair across from mine and her eyes looked wise as they always did and she said to me Rosaria I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years I prayed that God would heal me but he didn't if you want I'll pray for you and the next day when I returned home from work I found two large milk crates spilling over with theological boot books Jays books from Seminary she was giving them to me and in Calvin's Institute's in the margins of the exposition of the book of Romans and Jays handwriting was a warning quote watch Romans 1 this is where I will fall unquote this is what it says Romans 1:21 through 27 for even though they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks but they became futile in their speculations in their heart was darkened professing to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than creator and for this reason God gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is natural look at the verb clauses here did not honor God did not give thanks engaged in futile speculations became fools exchanged the inker - both for the corruptible God then gives us over to our lusts and when we look at the world through our lusts we dishonor our bodies and we worship the world this verse seemed to provide a haunting literary echo to Genesis 3 where Eve's desire to live independently of God's authority made perfect sense to me if I were Eve I would have done the same thing and at the same time Eve's seemingly innocent sin eating fruit serves as the leverage for the whole world to come tumbling down fierce and fast bloody and brilliant the two versus one in Genesis and one in Romans stood out as bookends of my life not just my life that's the rub Genesis 3 and won't Romans 1 stood out as the table of contents of what ails the world indeed Romans 1 does not end with highlighting homosexuality is the worst and most extreme example of the sin of failing to give God the glory for creating us here is where the passage finds its crescendo being filled with all unrighteousness wickedness greed evil full of envy murder strife deceit malice they are gossips slanderers haters of god insolent arrogant boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents without understanding untrustworthy unloving unmerciful and although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death they they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them I should say as the advisor to all of the gay and lesbian Studies groups on campus at that time this last verse really caught my attention homosexuality then is not the endpoint of the problem for God or for the world but it is presented here as one step in the journey homosexuality then seemed consequential not causal homosexuality then was not the root of all sinn perhaps not even the root of my sin this stopped me in my tracks and I tried to toss the Bible and its teachings in the trash I really tried but ken was my neighbor and my friend and he encouraged me to keep reading just to keep testing the waters after all it was just a book right why did I have to lose I kept reading it kept trying to understand it kept catching my wings and its daily embrace I was fighting the idea that the Bible is inspired and inerrant that is that its meaning and purpose has a holy and supernatural authority that has protected it over the years of its canonicity and that it is the repository of truth how could a smart cookie like me embrace these things I didn't even believe in truth I was a postmodernist I believed in truth claims I believed that the reader constructed the text that a text meaning found its power only in the readers interpretation of it without a reader a book is just paper and glue I told my students over and over again how could this one book lay claim to a birthright and progeny different from all the others don't get me wrong research is personal and agonizing to me every book I've written every word I've written has come with some kind of price so going through these night terrors and anxiety attacks over what I was reading was sort of normal I've sweated and cried over every word of most of my writing sadly even this writing I'm sorry to say and I still do often writing makes me literary literally sick but that this book was supernatural was becoming more and more evident to me and my hermeneutical bag of tricks had no system of containment for this as I was reading and discussing these things with Ken he pointed out to me that Jesus is the Word made flesh and that knowing Jesus demands embracing the Jesus of the Bible not the Jesus of someone's imagination the whole Bible even the places that took my life captive and after years and years of this and during this time I saw so many people go in and out of Kenan Floyd's house it was like a little LaBrie of sorts I mean people from all walks of life talking about all kinds of things you know I was not the only you know heathen leech you know at the table just trying to make sense of things and that was really that was really powerful to me as well but you know Ken stuck in there with me for years years and years and then after years and years something happened and it was very simple the Bible simply got to be bigger inside me than me it started to overflow into my world and I fought against it with everything I had and then one Sunday morning two years after I first met Kenan Floyd and two years after I started reading the Bible for my research I left the home that I shared with my partner in an hour later i sat in a pew at the syracuse reformed Presbyterian Church conspicuous of my appearance I reminded myself that I came there to meet God not to fit in ken was preaching through the Gospel of Matthew with its bewildering cast of characters and problems unsuspecting folks quote/unquote separated unto the gospel seeds choked by the world feeding thousands with some nameless kids bread and fish and then Jesus is cutting questions too impetuous Peter do you still lack understanding Matthew 15 16 followed by Pastor Ken's steel blue eyes and a long pause before he turned this question on us congregation did Christ ever say this to you this startled me this was my question this question was for me do I still lack understanding who is talking here the man behind the pulpit or the god man behind the foundation and redemption of his people and the image that crashed like waves in a raging sea of me and everyone I love suffering in Hell vomited into my consciousness and gripped me in its teeth not primarily because we were gay but because we were proud we were autonomous it was our hearts first our bodies next I got it I finally heard it I counted the costs and I still didn't like the math and this was my crucible and it is my crucible if the Bible is true I was dead and if the Bible is false then I'm the biggest fool on earth but God's promises rolled in like another round of waves in my world and one Lord's Day ken was preaching on John 7:17 if anyone wills to do God's will he shall know concerning the doctrine this verse exposed the quicksand in which my feet were stuck I was a thinker I was paid to read books and write about them I expected that in all areas of my life understanding came before obedience not the other way around I wanted God to show me on my terms why homosexuality was a sin I wanted to be the judge not the one being judged perhaps I thought like even the garden I wanted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that I could become and replace God and I wondered hadn't I already done this how didn't we all if my consciousness fell on Adam's sin as the Bible purports no wonder I couldn't think my way out of this this wasn't a game of thinking and matching of wits but could my heart echo God's call for obedience could I will to do his will just this once the stakes were so very high they always are but the verse promised understanding after obedience and I wrestled with the question did I really want to understand homosexuality from God's point of view or did I just want to argue with him I prayed that night that God would give me the willingness to obey before I understood I prayed long into the unfolding day when I got up and I looked in the mirror I looked the same but when I looked into the mirror of the Bible I wondered am ia lesbian or has this all been a case of mistaken identity if Jesus could split the world asunder divide the soul and the spirit judged the thoughts and intentions of the heart could he make my true identity prevail Who am I who will God have me to be I still felt like a lesbian in my heart and my body that that is I felt my real identity but what is my true identity the Bible makes clear that the real and the true have a troubled relationship this side of eternity many people in the Bible for many people their true identity and calling comes only after a long struggle with God with wilderness with dreams and hopes and plans the Bible makes clear that my future and my calling always echo an attribute of God obedience constrains it mirrors suffering as every selection implies a sacrifice what is bigger my lesbian identity or God's authority over me and who is this Jesus did I know him did I still lack understanding could I trust him and then one ordinary day I came to Jesus no altar calls in a reformed Presbyterian Church so no fanfare manipulation person sitting next to me might not have even known what was going on right we were singing from psalm 119 956 this is mine because forever all thy precepts I deserve and after I saying these words something shifted to weight bearing walls collapsed in my mind the first wall came crashing down because I had just sung condemnation unto myself I knew it this Bible was not mine I had scorned it and cursed it and despised it but I had been reading and rereading this book and the use of the helping verb here has and has become troubled me two years of laborious reading embodies the helping verb has it shows process journey pilgrimage and danger but I was not in Christ and therefore could not possibly keep these precepts not in word heart change or deed and here was the shattering of the second wall I had read the Bible many times through I had sat under Ken Smith's preaching I had sat at his table I had debated this with as many church members as he would let me have have at and the truth is I saw for myself that it had a holy author I saw for myself that it was a canonized collection of 66 books with a unified biblical revelation I heard for myself that when the words this is mine came out of my mouth in congregational singing that I was attesting to this one simple truth that the line of communication that God ordained for his people required this wrestling with scripture and that I truly wanted to both hear God's voice breathed into my life and I wanted God to hear my pleas the fog burned away the whole Bible each jot and tiddle was my open highway to a holy God my hands let go of the wheel of self-invention I came to Jesus alone open handed and naked I had no dignity upon which to stand and it was a crushing revelation it was Jesus I had been persecuting the whole time and in this war of worldviews canon Floy were there the church who had been praying for me for years it was there Jesus Jesus triumphed and I was a broken mess I lost everything but the dog of course there's only one thing to do when you meet the Living God you must fall on your face and repent of your sins and repentance is bittersweet business it is the posture of the Christian much like warrior one is the posture of the yogi repentance is our daily fruit our hourly washing our minute-by-minute wake-up call our reminder of God's creation Jesus's blood and the Holy Spirit's comfort repentance is the only no shame solution to a renewed Christian conscience because it proves the obvious that God was right all along but what about my community my habitus what does a happy to look like run by an ex-lesbian with a now-defunct PhD it was a mess so many people were hurt by my conversion that I probably should have written instead of secret thoughts the title of my book should have been what my obedience to God cost other people the body count was clear those I loved were now pressed and mangled by the consequences of Christ's call on my life I speak today about matters that happened over a decade ago God has taken me on a long journey and like most pilgrimages mine and genders more questions than answers one question that I get asked a lot and that I'll talk a little bit about here is why did I have to give up my girlfriend for Christ why couldn't I have both after all can't someone believe in Jesus and be gay so here's here's the problem with that salvation begins with God's sovereign initiation not with my intellectual assent to a worldview or a set of moral ideas or a desire to be happy it is a dangerous lie to say that Christians are people who merely believe in Jesus even the demons believe in Jesus after God's sovereign invitation after the holy spirit removes the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh we fall on our faces as we hear the still small voice of God we relinquish our lives to him as his sovereign grace commands this how do we hear God in an audible voice no God speaks to us through the language of the Bible it's amazing to me that in God's providence I was reading the Bible a lot more than I don't know it really a lot more than I'm reading it now and you know I often tell people that if I'm waiting for my dog - meow - let me remind me to let let her out in the morning I'm gonna be waiting a long time right right so when we want to hear God we have to be really steeped in his word and and in God's providence I was for all the wrong reasons we commit our lives to the Jesus of the Bible the Word made flesh who came to fulfill the whole law of God every jot and tittle we do not use our personal experience to verify the validity of God's commands the Christian faith is not a pragmatists paradigm we die to the old man or woman and become alive in Christ or we do not know him he is the Potter we are the clay we work with God to grow in a likeness of Jesus by drinking deeply of the means of grace Bible reading Psalm singing worship taking the sacraments church membership fellowship of the saints in so doing we take our rightful place as sons and daughters of the Covenant we do not look to ourselves see if we measure up you know feelings are an interesting problem they really are it wasn't until the 18th century that anyone believed that feelings were a form of epistemology truth-telling no seriously and so one of the challenges we have today is we read the Bible and of course the Bible is not written from a German romantic worldview and yet we are so steeped in it we can't imagine not validating our personal experience as a truth claim but we need to really think about that for a minute because at least according to the Bible it wasn't meant to be an epistemology so you know that was one of the many sticking points that I that I came across but when I when I came to the Lord I certainly didn't feel any differently not at first but we do not look to ourselves to see if we measure up you know in the reason we don't is because we don't measure up we look to Christ when he died and rose again he gave sin a mortal blow Thomas Brooks compares our sin to a tree that has been cut to the root the tree may pop a few leaves but it's inevitable fate is death so - we see our sin it is it no longer comes at us with full potency it is a snake with its jaw wired sin may sucker punch us but never deliver a crushing blow if you are in Christ then you celebrate sanctification and that is how Christ heals us from the legacy of our sin whether it's sexual sin or other kinds of sin by giving us daily victory over it by never divorcing us even when we fail and are weak and by giving himself to us as an example Christ did not die all at once on the cross it was not an instantaneous death and the slaying of our sin is also gradual that doesn't mean it's not real or inevitable God separates us unto the gospel ultimately to vo his son and us and recognizing that God gave us our will we must put that on the altar also we use God's vocabulary and God's dictionary we call sin sin no matter what our personal feelings or experiences and you know no one's sin feels like sin we always domesticate our sin we know we read in Genesis 4 when God says to Cain sin is lurking at the door it's desire is for you but you will have mastery over it we think that's about somebody else's problem we don't like to see our sin as predatory and so we domesticate it but you know elephants don't domesticate well and nobody in our life buys it really and it's not nice to buy it's not a kindness to buy it we call grace grace and we drink deeply from its well we are God's image bearers and we encourage other image bearers to spend more time looking at the original than at its reflection am i healed yes my life bears the fruit am I changed yes from the root have I forgotten from where I came never

Channel: RPTSeminary

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Keywords: RPTS, christian, presbyterian, reformed, seminary, theology, Rosaria Butterfield, conversion, testimony, biblical womanhood

Id: jVTTsD9o1IM

Length: 36min 5sec (2165 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2013