Patrick Henry College | Rosaria Butterfield | Newsmakers Interview

so welcome everybody to apatriquen your college into our fourth news maker interview of this this semester are happy to have you here I'm gene veeth I'm the provost and an English professor here the interviews are conducted by dr. Marvin o Lasky who's the editor of world magazine which we'll be publishing the the interviews he's also on our faculty as a distinguished professor of journalism and public policy we appreciate his contributions to our school today we're really happy to have being interviewed dr. Rosario Butterfield she is she lived in Purcellville for 11 years so we're really happy to have her back she earned her PhD in English at Syracuse University and was a professor in the English department fellow English professor and in the department of women's studies where she wrote some significant scholarship in the field it's very big in my area in the English department in queer theory she became a Christian and has written a book that has got many people very excited very provocative work entitled the secret thoughts of an unlikely conversion converse re my English grammar was mixed up their secret thoughts of an unlikely convert so please welcome dr. Butterfield and dr. Lasky well I do want to start by holding up this book the secret thoughts an unlikely convert because it's been fairly rare in doing these interviews that we're inviting a person who I'd never met before and and hadn't been familiar with before in some way saw this book picked it up and it really it wasn't the it wasn't the cover that actually did it a lovely cover though it is with leaves and so forth I might have been more excited to read a book if it had a depiction of a motorcycle chase or something like that on the cover but just started reading this and this is a wonderful book I as you've seen in these interviews I don't do this very often but this is a book I definitely recommend reading extremely well-written and very thoughtful and what's let's ask about some of the things in this book starting with the very first sentence and the acknowledgments quote when I was 28 years old I boldly declared myself lesbian and quote did you feel heroic and doing so no I did not feel heroic in doing so I I felt I was simply telling the truth okay and tell us a little bit about that process to get you to that point at age 28 when you made that declaration well I was in graduate school and I had been highly influenced by peace activism and by desire to stand with the disempowered I like many of my compatriots in graduate school cared deeply about this world I care deeply about relationships I care deeply about morality and I even offered at least one article on the subject of morality and moral living I was steeped in worldviews that buttressed a sense of equality and the the high value of personal experience and then you know I just had wonderful relationships with many of my many of my female colleagues deeper relationships just resonating relationships and so for me coming out as a lesbian was as I don't know almost boring I mean the same way I might come out as somebody who you know loves her dog or feeds her cat in the morning it was just it was just one step in my in my day now you know it was bold insofar as it it it provided a sort of edge for me in the world and but I like edges and so it was really just my life it didn't seem very spectacular it didn't seem very extraordinary it just was okay second paragraph at the age of 36 I was one of the few tenured women at a large research university to Syracuse University so do you feel you had it you had it made at that point well the tenure process at a school like Syracuse is it's gothic to say I was describing it once to dr. friend who said oh it's like having to cut out your own spleen and eat it and I suppose that's true so you know no I mean after you finally get tenure you know you've you've written your book you have your six articles you have a research program you've had every colleague you know pick over your work you've had very little encouragement maybe in the eyes of the world you've arrived but tenure at a research university simply means you get to keep your job so if you don't get tenure you get fired so it doesn't have quite the same I don't know pizzazz it seems to have outside of the university so it's not so much the sense of excitement about it but the avoidance of death yes that's right which is a good thing to avoid in general okay and then you wrote a a critique of Promise Keepers I did because of its gender politics and so if I tell us about that well you know it was part of mestizos what it would it was just would stick in my throat like a you know a hairball I couldn't cough up you know it was not something that I felt warm and fuzzy about I I have always been on a campaign against stupid you know and and and I just I felt like it it was really taking people in this weird tract and the Bible I even though I hadn't read it at the time of course but I was sure that the Bible could not have gotten all these good people onto the wrong track for nothing and so when the Promise Keepers came to the University and you know and I don't know what happened maybe the health club was closed that afternoon or you know my parking space was you know busy or you know there was some you know egregious violation to my personal rights but I I'm kidding that was a joke but I I I just had to write something and so I wrote this article and it was it was funny you know because I had I'd been a writer and and like most university professors I cared a lot about what I wrote and and you know for other people in the world would read them and you know and you know nobody cared basically and then I wrote this article in the in the Syracuse Post and I just was flooded with responses and you write the responses tended to be of two kinds you had a tray for fan mail and a tray for hate mail and then you had a letter from a pastor Ken Smith which wasn't nasty it was just questioning and so you didn't know what tray to put it in right that's right I I couldn't I couldn't dispose of this letter I like tried to because I don't like a messy desk it's hard to think in clutter and so I tried to and then at the end of the day I'd find myself you know fishing it out of the department's recycling bin and putting it back on my desk and and it wasn't hateful it wasn't fan mail but it wasn't hate mail either and it had some questions that no one had ever asked me in my life and at the end of the letter the pastor said that I you know you know what I please give him a call and because the title of the church was the Syracuse reformed Presbyterian Church I presumed reformed meant you know enlightened you know and I think it does by the way we'll get to that before this day is done I thought about it and then a colleague of mine who is an anthropologist we were both working on two parallel research projects on the rise of the religious right and you know he's an anthropologist so he got to do things like go to The Promise Keeper rally and interview people and I'm English professors so I'm stuck home you know reading or attempting to read this book called the Bible which I had never really bothered to read before and this letter comes and my colleague John said well Rosaria let me spell this out good for your research call them back so I did so let me make sure I understand this you write a you're at a leading University in an English department the theory at least is that all kinds of ideas are discussed and debated and so forth but yet the questions he was asking you and maybe he can give a couple of examples of those questions were ones you had never encountered before that is correct what were some of the what were the couple of the questions do you recall absolutely one had to do with the nature of the Bible as as a library not just a book and if I had thought about the canonicity of the Bible and the fact that the Bible contained every genre that we that I use that I teach from and then there is another question so that was more of a question that appealed to my sense of no I never really did think about that canonicity it's it's it's both canonicity and genre are ideas that shape a text in the context of law and not just laws about you know stop signs out there and don't drive through them but how do I read this book the law of reading and so I had never really thought about that I also he asked questions about well actually about my well being and they were genuine they were genuine as it turns out he was a neighbor of mine and he was inquiring and kind and any then he asked a question about do I believe in God and and if so what do I think he thinks of all of this and some of those questions I had already thought we had dispensed with but he had written in such a gracious way and I I was intrigued by it okay and so he and his letter he invited you to give him a call and after a week or so you did so for research right absolutely okay and you write that when you went over when he invited you to dinner you went over to the house their house and there was no air conditioning I I read recently that a teachers union leader in Chicago is protesting the inhumane conditions that some teachers have to operate under because in some of the schools there's no air conditioner but this this was a this was a plus even though it might have been somewhat inhumane why was it important to be in have air-conditioning one of the things that I had presumed about especially evangelical Christians is that evangelical Christians were people who just felt entitled to have a kind of dominion over the earth that is hateful and violent and unhelpful unkind and so when I went to their house and and their house was a little bit like my house there was no air-conditioning because it's not necessarily good for the you know I was only and because it's expensive and and they had fans and they served a vegetarian meal which was also I really appreciated because I felt at that point that the eating of meat was a violent activity and I didn't want to be part of it and their their home and their culture actually didn't seem so different from mine so that put me at ease okay but there was prayer before the meal amazing prayer before it and tell us about that how did that impress you well I had heard lots of prayer before right because I was a protester as well so I I had heard you know I was the the the heathen that got to overhear the prayers of many many people at gay pride marches in the front of the Planned Parenthood so I was you know I was gonna going to hold my breath and we were gonna get through this and then I could have a chance to you know really get to some of my research and talk to this this family but it wasn't like that at all it was a very conversational prayer and it was a prayer that included asking God for forgiveness of sins and not just in a general way not and please Lord forgive me of my sins amen but in a very specific way and no sins of carelessness of speech Kenda go on it wasn't a terribly lengthy prayer but it had some details in it that really made me think about myself carelessness of speech okay yeah absolutely on forgetting to bring a meal to someone for it were sort of the basic everyday things but he he was noticing them and they were big enough to ask a holy God to forgive him for and I would I was really struck by that prayer right you right you're right I had never heard anyone pray to God as if God cared as if God listened and as if God answered so that was important and then also important and they they neglected to of the things that I guess come come in the standard instructional booklet namely I share the gospel and invite a person to church they didn't do either of those things and that was important that they did not do those things absolutely I trusted them because they did not do those things you're gay and lesbian friends they they don't know the PAS the power well no one who is unconverted knows the power of the gospel right the gospel is not just a set of ideas or a set of words it is a powerful path by which God calls out a people for himself and redeems us and heals us and while I certainly didn't know that I knew the script I knew the script and I had absolutely no interest in going to church I mean that was not I was like many research professors if I worked 75 hours a week that was a light week okay I did not have time for other people's cultural interests or agendas so I did not want to have that kind of relationship with them or any sort of relationship really where I was expected to change or to give up things that I dearly believed in and dearly held and so because we could talk and I felt that Ken and Floyd were not to me as if I were a blank slate you know okay here's someone who needs the gospel let's make sure that you know we get we get to these points before we you know let her leave our house they seemed more interested in having a long relationship with me and in fact how the way it turned out it was a very long it had it had it we continued to have a long and a good relationship but they knew that they needed to bring the church to me that I could not could not come to the church and they were willing to do that and you write that at one point you became a kind of church stalker you drove to the parking lot next to the church cold and watch people going in how many I know I know it's isn't that terrible I was I became a church stalker well well can you know we became friends we became genuine friends when when I wouldn't answer an email or didn't show up or they hadn't heard from me in a month you know ken would come over Floy would drop off a loaf of bread we had many things in common Floy and i both love to bake bread we in fact in some ways we like some of the same literature which was astounding and I was also starting you know to because I'm a researcher I was starting to read the Bible and I was reading the Bible the way that a glutton approaches you know a bag of Oreo cookies right because and again that's part of my training but but some pretty powerful powerful things happen when you read the Bible many many times in a year and when you read it from Genesis to Revelation and when you read it in multiple translations and and I know I was reading it as a heathen I absolutely was I was reading it with a hardened heart I was reading it in anger but I am a scrupulous researcher who researches with integrity it was my job to read this book and I was reading it and I was thinking about it because it's an amazing book to read in big chunks in a short time and and I really encourage Christians to do that I encourage you not to read the Bible as though you're reading your horoscope right it's not meant I don't think it's really meant to be to be read like that so I was reading this book and I did have some questions and I and I but I didn't really want to ask those questions because then you know what happens when you ask those questions is you get answers you might not want to hear so instead I would have my Starbucks coffee and my New York Times and I'd have maybe the article I was working on in my in my truck with a you know the gay and lesbian bumper stickers on the back and I'd park in the Cole muffler you know across from the church because that seems like I was not quite on holy ground and and I would watch these enormous families you know just pour out of these these 15-person passenger vans the kids they just kept coming and coming and coming and it was astounding it was really funny you know Wow for that I still think that some time and and it was your job to read the Bible it was why did you choose that job it was my my research I was working on a book on the religious right and I genuinely felt like I needed to read the book that had gotten all these well-meaning good intentions but naive and foolish people off track and so I felt strongly that I needed to read this I needed to read it for myself and you know but ultimately I am a researcher I'm obviously I'm not reading it in the original languages so I felt strongly that I needed to get some scholarly help as I was was reading through it and and so I was doing that and then you as you're reading you are reading some passages that are quite serious for example in Romans 1 you mentioned the Romans 1 verses 24 to 28 quote the most frightening line in scripture to anyone suffering from sexual sin and quote right tell us about how that hit you right well one of the things that I would do regularly and you know it's a funny thing because the gay and lesbian community is a community given to hospitality so in some ways you know I there's no question that I honed my hospitality gifts in that world and in that context and so every you know once a week I would open my home my partner and I would open our homes my hope my home that was the home in the University District and we would have anybody in from the gay and lesbian community who wanted to talk about you know whatever because professors and pastors right we could be you can really be off with your community because you only see them when they're trying to clean up so anytime that you are somebody who genuinely wants to aid and abet the the life of the people in your community and you only see them when they're cleaned up you're gonna miss a mark so once a week home was opened you know wine was poured pasta was served and people would just tell me what was going on and so at one of those one of those adventures I was going back in the kitchen to get you know something and and my friend my friend Jay I call her in the book she followed me Jay was at that point a transgendered woman which means that Jay was biologically male but had taken enough female hormones to be what's called chemically castrated and so Jay was on the path to being a transsexual but was in the you know in the middle there and so Jay followed me to the kitchen and she put her large hand on my hand and said Rosario it look stop before you go back out there something is changing you this Bible reading is changing you and you need to tell me what is going on with you because I am worried I am losing you and I I sat down and I remember being you know having that panic feeling you have when you you know you're not quite sure if you're going to throw up or just you're just not breathing or what it is and I said I'm I'm reading the Bible and I'm reading it a lot and what if it's you know what if it's true we are in big trouble if it's true and Jay said to me you know exhale deeply at that point I think she felt like she was gonna throw up to sat down in the chair and said I know it's true I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years and I prayed and God did not heal me but if you want I will pray for you and I have some books for you to read and so the next day when I came home from work I had to milk boxes of books just overflowing and one was a copy of kelvins institutes and in the margins and Jays handwriting right by the the exegesis of Romans one is a note I still have it today it says be careful this is where you will fall and Romans 1 of course tells us that that God will give some over to their lusts that and it and it made me think you know and again because like most research professors I had some obviously I had some bad habits and I had some good habits one of my good habits that I learned back then was how to really think through a research project right because and and you are I'm talking to many students and many faculty here and and home school moms and and you know that there's not time available to do all of your work so to do your work you have to just carve out that time like you're carving through stone and so I had been a hard worker I was a devoted reader and it really me that lust was a very interesting word and I needed to start thinking about it and it had something to do with how I spent my time and I think it does I think you know as a Christian we need to think about the means of grace those objective means that God gives us to be healed to be changed to be redeemed to be faithful not perfect and then the means that the world gives us and you almost want to think of this you know as as rushing waters and and which which body of water are you standing in and and and and I thought about it because I was thinking about it you know do I want to be changed no not really I like my life I like my girlfriend I like my house thank you very much I even like my wonderful career I don't want to be changed what does that mean I don't want to be changed and what does it mean that I am intentionally standing in that rushing water of the world I had my toe in that other world because of all that Bible reading what happened if I put my foot in what happened if I put my whole body in that's a really scary thought but lust and the various ways that we all are affected by that highway of the world that we stand in all the time that suddenly became a palpable idea something that had shape and form and so as I was reading the Bible I was also starting to read commentaries and and reading commentaries of my friend Jay who's whose handwriting was in the margins was like a like a flag on those icy ponds that you would see in Syracuse it looks like ice but if you walk on it you're gonna fall through and it's going to happen now or later and so that's how the Bible the commentaries and Jays handwriting functioned for me and so this is all swirling around in your head you you write that conversion put me in a complicated and comprehensive chaos comprehensive chaos now this is going on for a couple of years you're reading more you're thinking more you're in this chaotic situation and at a certain point you moved from the parking lot actually into the church and what did the church at that point do to be hospitable to a person who was involved in this comprehensive chaos and by extension I suppose what should biblically Orthodox churches do when someone comes in who was in this comprehensive chaos right the what struck me of course now looking back on this is that what this church had been doing was praying for me faithfully faithfully this church was praying for me ken was sharing with this church our friendship and our relationship and they were genuinely on their knees and they were praying for me and at first it was hard for them to pray for me because of course these are now my friends and and then they shared with me that that it's it's easier to simply be disgusted by a person like me then pray for me right because I came to church but then I also brought friends to church I brought Jay to church and and we are an acappella psalm singing church and Jay had probably one of the best bass voices there so that's an issue right I mean come on it's okay it is it's an issue I had a deacon in the church tell me that if he had known how how difficult all of this would be maybe might not have been praying so faithfully because you know I have a way of and I still do this I have a way of just bringing my mess with me you know and so love me love my dog love me love my suicidal student love me yet right so so the church went from being you know a kind of cleaned up homeschooling Church to suddenly a church with ministry with a lot of broken people and and one of the things that happened is that we developed this ability to love across our culture and especially with some of the ministries that the church became involved in I genuinely did have a suicidal student and I genuinely was unable to deal with this by myself and so my gay community and my church community would you know meet in the ICU you know we would meet in the yeah we would meet you know we would meet and and there'd be prayer and there'd be you know anti prayer but and there'd be you know do you need a cup of coffee and and it was really uncomfortable you know and and a friend of mine from the church said you know you're really uncomfortable and I said I am really uncomfortable this is really weird and and and and he said you are a bridge your bridge and and you know what bridges get walked on well that's true you know that's true so I had pressing questions and these these people who were at first stereotypes in my mind became friends to whom I could ask pressing questions and you know one of the questions that I wanted to ask because obviously I and I say this not to be lurid but I woke up one morning and I emerged right from a bed that I shared with a woman and I got in my truck with my bumper stickers and my butch haircut and I showed up at the reformed Presbyterian Church okay and that is really strange right there and and you never know the journey people take to get to church even the people who are very cleaned up right even the people without the butch haircuts and the and the you know hi I'm rehab the harlot you know how can how can you minister to me you know t-shirt on we we all are there and yet we take for granted sometimes the rigors of of getting you know of getting to church but but I had some really burning questions for people so I would go up to you know my homeschool mom friends and I would say okay look I have to give up the girlfriend what did you have to give up to be here and I want to hear it you know and don't tell me it was you know your math curriculum okay so I I'll pour my coffee on you I am really not wanting to hear that and I heard some amazing things and it made me realize that I did not have any more to give up than anybody else when I think about what it would be like to have to bury a child you know I had friends who would just sit me down and say Rosaria who you know what you better think about this whole giving your life to christ thing because I had no idea that Christ would ask me to bury my first child I had no idea I had no idea Christ would ask me to and then the list just went on and on and and everybody I inquired of had a story like that and I I would say so - I'm sorry I'm not I'm lecturing her now you can't really take the professor out of the university very well i dr. Lasky asked me a question and the question was what can you do and so one of the things you might do is think about how to answer that question honestly what did you give up and I learned that there are other people in my church who struggled with sexual sin I learned that there are other people my church he struggled with lust who struggled with faithlessness who and they told me that they they took the risk of no longer looking all cleaned up to me to tell me that and that was very helpful and so I think a good thing to think about is Christian what did you have to give up to be here how would you answer that honestly to someone makes you feel really quite raw to do that but I'm thankful that my friends did that for me what have a lot more questions to ask but I want to be sure to leave some time for people here to ask questions so let me just ask you one right now about what finally enabled you helped you encouraged you to make in a sense a a public decision both in terms of church and then in terms of year 1999 lecture opening up the fall semester at Syracuse it seems that my whole life is a life of sitting on the sidelines and not wanting to make public decisions including the public decision to say yes to be here in front of all of you and whoever else is behind those cameras so I you know I struggle with that I really do I will tell you that for me a Bible verse that was very powerful was John 7:17 he who wills to do God's will will know concerning the doctrine and you know I think that it's really interesting if you're reading the Bible to go through the Bible and circle the verbs verbs are very important I like verbs the order of verbs very important the order they're really humiliating to me do know I was a research professor my job was to think people paid me to think they paid me to know before I engage in something called the doing and I had spent a lot of time wanting to know why homosexuality was a sin why God why what's wrong with this what is wrong with the sin I did not want to do God's will and then trust that I would know concerning the doctrine and so I stood there on that ledge until I just couldn't stand there any longer and I trusted with about the integrity you know of an eyebrow hair right I mean this is not big trust but I did I trusted at that point that if I could maybe even pray that God would give me the willingness to do his will with a joyful heart maybe that's where I needed to start I don't know if you feel this way in your Bible reading but sometimes especially with epistles I'll get a verse and I'll think I can only do the first phrase of this verse today Lord thank you very much and you know that's okay and so that's what I did that's that's what the Lord called me to do at that moment was to just focus on those first maybe five words we'll to do his will and then the Lord graciously took me every step of the way after that and it was not pretty and I you know don't try this at home I don't know I do try this at home but be mindful of the fact that when the Lord calls someone to obedience out of a life of sin that's going to hurt a lot of people it just is a lot of people will be hurt by the obedience of one public sinner a lot of people were hurt by my obedience and in our flesh we want to try to stop the hurt instead of trust that God will use that hurt in the redemption the calling out of his people but I'm grateful that when I had that stirring that I was not in the church that minimized that you know I never heard anybody say you know God has a perfect plan for your life I know one said that to me you know they died they didn't say that they said Rosaria count the costs this is going to be brutal this is going to be bloody when I said look at all of these hurting people nobody says hey serves them right boy they are a bunch of sinners you know the church rolled up you know their sleeves and said okay how can we help how could we get to know your friends and I was I still am so grateful to be in the in the denomination that I'm in and in the churches that I'm in I'm married now to a pastor because as you can imagine I need babe you know daily biblical counsel right that's obvious I've made that clear so so can sketch to do that for me and for others and the Lord has always led me a very small step and then burned that bridge behind me I'm in the audience I see a friend of mine who is married to a dear friend of mine who's not taking care of my children and he prayed for me before I could pray for myself because I was on one of those prayer lists and so I Here I am and my question now is how how can I serve you Lord and and if if it's time now to go to your questions another good question is how can I serve you I don't want to leave here without knowing some of your prayer requests and I mean that because prayer is one of those means of grace that sustains us and knits us together and purifies our motives well there's a there's a lot more I have I have just filled with with very thought-provoking quotations from the book but at this point we do want to go to your questions and I may reserve a little bit of time at the end just to read some of the some of these things from the from the book but let's go to questions right now thank you very much for coming dr. Butterfield I was just thinking about when you talked about what you'd have to give up to join the church I think that kind of implies a question that's one of the raging debates over Christians and homosexuality that is that it's a choice and that was a choice that you could make to step away from something that a lot of people might have contended was an inherent part of who you were your nature your sexuality it's tied to your being so I was just wondering if you could share a little bit about your experience as somebody who filtered everything through that that experience as a choice rather than a part of who you were and what you'd say to people if you're ministering to them now saying look this is something I had to step away from even though it's a part of me for so long yeah that's a good question very very good question you know the gay and lesbian community very much like the church community it's pretty diverse on a whole lot of points and so you will find people in the community who will say I chose to be part of this community or you know I said there are people who would use a word like choice and then there are people who would say you know I was born this way I I remember at the age of six knowing that my feelings were not the same as everybody around me and I hid those and I buried them and and I've fought against this my whole life and I I don't believe God wants me to fight this God made me this way and I believe that this is how I should be and I should live a life with integrity as a gay person or a lesbian person and so so a gay community would have arranged one of the things I've noticed in life and especially a life of of Bible and Gorge meant and I still gorge on the Bible and I recommend it heartily to you in that way is that you will see that the Bible is quite able to manage all of these questions with compassion and integrity and decency and hope and love and one of the things we learn in the Bible pretty early on Genesis 3 is that we're all born that way whatever that way is the problem is that way is different and so then we get into this place in the in the world where we start pitting my personal experience against your personal experience you know and we might arrive at you know Jane Austen's famous clip that's for Jenny you know Jane said my sore throats heard more than yours do I have a child who's like that to my 10 year old sore throats absolutely always hurt more than everybody else's do and so I think in some way that's the problem with trying to figure out the Born This Way problem outside of the frame of the Bible you know that if we are simply pitting my personal experience against your personal experience then anything goes but if we're all born this way then we all have to give it up do we all have to give the same thing up no no do some people have to struggle more than others yes absolutely absolutely the blood of the martyrs there there should be nothing Christian's should not be squeamish about the fact that we're all born that way whatever that may be does that answer your question okay hi Rosario sorry this all took place quite recently but a few years ago and and our country is changing what would you say now I mean if we were to say try to reach out befriend love you know folks in the gay and lesbian community today would it be any different from your experience a few years back I should hope not I think these are timeless truths but I think we need to be willing to take some risks so for example Kenan Floy had me in their house and in their house we talked frankly about sexuality and politics we have to you have to think about whether those are conversations that might contaminate your world you know I don't you know and you have to be careful we have small children also you want to be mindful of how we talk about these things and at the same time I don't know that we're really doing our children a great benefit if we claim that this thing called a Christian life is really easy and I'm talking to a lot of college students here and and you may correct me if I'm wrong but but you are having struggles on some of these issues not necessarily homosexuality but life issues world issues about every nanosecond right and that's on a good day you know that's when you are who you are on top of this Christian world thing so I don't think we we've really been a great blessing to our children when we've sheltered them from you know some of these some of these things and and so I will tell you that my friends in Syracuse they had me you know into their homes and their children nurtured me and and taught me a lot about about life and and the the I hadn't mentioned this but the student that tried to commit suicide she tried to do that by but by setting herself on fire which is quite graphic and she was recovering for a while at my pastors home and then later at my home and one of the children from my church sat down and talked to her about fire safety you know which which was you know it was so wonderful because you know one of the things we need to do is laugh it's just is laugh and so you know bring it on and and as you're concerned about influence issues work that out but don't think that sin the big sin is the problem that other people are going to track in through our front door because that's really not what's going to kill you you're not gonna have to be that's my cell phone I'm really sorry I haven't read the book yet but in just some of the excerpts you you allude to a supernatural chaos and you know implying the work of the Holy Spirit in the midst of this process can you talk about what that looked like for you it looked you know terrible I lost my job I know I you know and I should say it was never fired from Syracuse I did not lose my job in that way so what I did was I gained a new job without a paycheck and so the Lord Paul pulled me in that direction but I did have to give up many things I think every home school mom should have a housekeeper and a secretary don't you think so so I sort of I worry I wonder why would I have that been and not now this would have been nice yes that was very it was very powerful and for me the the crux you know this was a crucible moment you know and we talk about the the comfort of the Holy Spirit you know before something is comforting you know something that has been an Anatomy to you when suddenly it is in your life it feels horrible right you know like just pull the first layer of skin off and then pour some salt you know just horrible so the you know I was completely out of sorts but that what I what really ministered to me was this idea of the Bible as an inspired text and as not just a texts a book with good ideas are a book with good moral values or a set of standards but an inspired text and and I could read it and be and and somehow sit at the feet of Jesus and Paul and Moses and I was not alone in this in this Christian journey this inspired text that the Lord Himself said on the cross it is finished I had nowhere else to go and I didn't have to find any other book to help me make sense of that it was all here and it in it fit together like a puzzle that I didn't quite understand yet and it was clear and frightening clear frightening ly clear at the same time so what what really spoke to my heart in the comfort of that was the notion of the Bible as an inspired text not just one book among many and maybe that really spoke to me because you know books are my best friend I mean maybe that's a very you know sort of the woman who reads too much problem but we are people of the word yes and the word is sufficient and that sufficiency in the you know if you look it up in the OED my favorite dictionary it is you know sufficiency doesn't mean just okay or just enough it's you know abundant it is overflowing with what we need so the fact that I was in good company you know suffering is made meaningful in good company and so Christian are you good company for the suffering suffering compassion they come from the same root I in light of that I think of second Corinthians 10 or 7:10 the talks about godly sorrow leading to repentance and in a worldly sour sorrow that leads to to death and I if you if you name the top 1 2 3 things that we as the body of Christ could be it as an effective bridge as you are today back again to the homosexual community well what would you just really in a simplistic way say you would have the church do as you have been able to do and our assume attempting to do today yeah I'm so glad you mentioned that first my husband was just preaching on something that he had said in the sermon a few weeks ago that conviction is not conversion and that was that really made me think again about just that crucible of of this Christian walk I think we should keep it quite simple I think we need to be willing to be friends with people who don't think just like we do and I think that we need to be willing to learn from people who aren't necessarily Christians I think that we are sometimes comfortable witnessing to people if we can be the people who have the goods right and and those people over there are the people we're going to give the goods to but I think you know we need to be willing to be in a reciprocal relationship with people who scare us and we need to be willing to really think through whether we're scared for good reasons or whether we just have been telling each other a lot of ghost stories you know I I do get and especially more recently than in the past a number of emails and questions from people especially around the holidays you know I don't want my lesbian sister coming home from the holidays you know what my children think you know make sure that your boundaries are the boundaries that God will have you draw with people and be willing to to witness in a way that allows you to take some risks too you know that's what that's what friendship is about right and maybe our churches maybe we should rehearse this in our churches you know if you feel like I don't know I'm not ready to take this show on the road you know a good thing to think about and even in your church culture is yeah a good community shares both its resources and its needs but we are so cleaned up we just want to share our need our resources we don't really want to say please pray for me and my lust or you know please pray for me and my bitterness I've never forgiven so-and-so I'm struggling with covetousness I you know we do we really share honestly with one another so we might want to begin by by sharing really thinking about how we might share both our resources and our needs and then we might want to think about are we afraid to have gay and lesbian friends because they will do what what are they gonna do what's gonna happen you know tell me about it bring it on you know let's think it out you might have to talk to your children good that's good your children will be better off if you will talk to them about hard things right because there are a lot of people here who are struggling with hard things and we would like to know that it's safe to say I am struggling with hard things I look all cleaned up don't buy it does that answer your question how do you think that Christians in the public square politicians and other Christian spokesmen do when addressing the issues of homosexuality and politics and so on do you feel they do a pretty good job could they improve in some areas what's your assessment well I'm not good with general questions so if you have a specific question in mind you can feel free to recast it I mean I will suggest that the real the real encounter is not going to happen I believe in the public square and I'm you know like I think probably many people here I'm concerned at the way it does seem like this conversation has you know it's often running and and we seem to have no real control over it anymore we seem as Christians hard-hearted outdated outmoded if we speak out against gay marriage we're bigots you know and I think part of why is that we've lost the relevance war right I think for we've just we have and we need to go back to regaining a sense of Christian relevance and we will do that by being good neighbors by being good friends by engaging with people in the private sector of things but I can't answer the general question because I don't know sure I didn't have any particular example I know I think that you actually answered a pretty okay thank you well let me seize this opportunity to read several sentences that are provocative and and I believe Rosaria is going to be able to stay on that's a while and there can be some discussion about this or some of these things I'm going to read now or other things and just quote some of this tenured to a field I could no longer believe in was I willing to be considered stupid by those who didn't know Jesus we don't see God making fun of homosexuality regarding it as a different unusual or exotic sin I didn't choose Christ nobody chooses Christ Christ chooses you or you're dead after Christ chooses you you respond because you must period it's not a pretty story I know I told my audience why over 50 percent of Christian marriages end in divorce because Christians act as though marriage redeems sin marriage does not redeem sin only Jesus himself can do that the audience seemed a little shocked to hear this and then you say about your husband Ken who you married in 2001 just quoting from Jane Austen reader I marry him so any last question now I hear one over here hi thank you so much for coming and speaking with us today I actually do have a specific question okay concerning that um you know there seems to be two approaches in my experience with dealing with those within the LGBT community one is ignoring maybe even possibly hatred and the and the other seems to be this kind of lukewarm approach of well I'm just gonna be a good person around them and I've had the opportunity to coach and be friends with in this community and I'm not always sure when is the time to be bold and I was just wondering if you could speak to that yeah that's a great that's a great question that's a great question when is it ever a time to be bold you know because that's not just a question about how you share the gospel with your with your gay friends I you know I think one thing we have to be careful to not do is is where our ministry like a good deed you know oh this is my good deed fellas this is Mike you're right you know you have to be really careful about that and so you know God God has set a part of people for himself he has and when people asked me when I became a Christian I tell the truth I tell the Bible story I be I became a Christian before the foundations of the world I woke up to that right in April of 1999 but when did I become a Christian when did God set me apart you know before the foundations of the world and so we we witness to people with a recognition of that right you are you are the Holy Spirit tells Paul in the book of Acts you know I have many people in this in this community we should not act as though this is not gonna work out I'm gonna go jump off a cliff now with my words now this my friendship is gonna be ruined and that's that I I just don't think we have to do that I think anytime we're bold with people we want to be mindful then we're gonna be stepping on some toes and and I think it helps if we love those love that person whose toes were stepping on important that we love Jesus more but that's true in all of our relationships our husband our children you know all of it so I think that it's always important to get to the who is Jesus question you know that yes yes the church has has hurt you yes there are hypocrites in the church yes your brother has acted as though homosexuality is the worst of all sins and no the Bible does not say that it is yes you are right in your feelings and now who is Jesus can you see Jesus rising above the pain of your personal experience can you who is he because if we debate you know the politics and the culture and the how you feel it it's it's you know it's forever but who is this Jesus who has called you to give up so much who is this Jesus who was humiliated by being born a human in human form who was this Jesus who was humiliated on the cross who is this Jesus who can understand all that you struggle even you even me who is this Jesus who sits at the right hand of God the Father and and prays for his people even even worships with us and as we worship Him who is this Jesus who makes sense of our suffering who is this Jesus who calls us to give up everything and hold nothing back who is this Jesus that's where we have to go with our gay friends with ourselves it's always the same place it's always hard it's always feels like you're throwing yourself off some kind of cliff right I thought I had faith but that's the whole point that our Christian life is an unfolding a daily sanctification a daily committing daily confession of our sins - to the Lord himself and to one another and if we're really doing that daily we're ready to say who is that Jesus because it's not foreign territory if we said well I asked that's a good question I asked that nineteen 72 and I remember I remember that was a good question then well forget it then you're not in a posture to help right so we need to get in the game and we need to remember that what humbles us is not going to hurt us Jesus was humiliated and and so so will we be and he redeems that did I answer your question okay so thanks so much is so helpful so inspiring and really appreciate it thank you Rosaria thank you Thank You Marvin and thank you for coming now on Monday I hope you come back our guests will be yes Steve Forbes meantime let's give our give give Marvin Rosario

Channel: Patrick Henry College

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Keywords: Rosaria, Butterfield, patrick henry college, newsmakers, classical christian, classical christian liberal arts, Marvin Olasky, WORLD Magazine, Newsmakers, Patrick Henry College, Liberal Arts, Christian Liberal Arts, Classical education, Christian College, Private Christian College, Great Christian College, Rosaria butterfield, interivew, christian, liberal professor, becoming christian, lesbian, Patrick, Henry, College, rosaria butterfield testimony, rosaria butterfield interview, phc

Id: kQ_YI6INTQU

Length: 65min 23sec (3923 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 11 2013