I admire any Christian author who is willing to take on the subjects of homosexuality or same-sex attraction, and especially those who choose to take a “traditional” rather than “progressive” view of it. The subject is so raw and so controversial that any serious discussion is likely to generate barrages of fire from within the church and without. This makes me particularly thankful for Jackie Hill Perry and her new book Gay Girl, Good God. You may know Perry from her albums, her spoken word performances, or her conference talks. Now you can get to know her in a whole new way—through this account of her life.
Her book is divided into three parts—the first tells who she was and the second who she became, while the third takes a close look at the issue of same-sex attraction. The first two, then, are primarily biographical while the remaining one is didactic. The first two tell how she awoke to her same-sex attraction and began to pursue it, while the remaining one describes the scriptural truths that made all the difference.
So who was Jackie Hill Perry? She was a sinner. She was a sinner like you and me who experienced particular traumas—fatherlessness and childhood sexual abuse—and who experienced a particular temptation to sin—same-sex attraction. Looking back, she knew it from a young age, but it wasn’t until her late teens that she came to grips with it and began to practice it. She became involved in lesbian relationships, taking on the part of the dominant, more masculine partner. She made this a core part of her self-identity, so that without it she wouldn’t even know who she was.
Yet she was haunted. She was haunted by the knowledge that God is. Haunted by the knowledge that he had a claim on her. Haunted by the knowledge that her life was not pleasing to him. Haunted by the knowledge that God was trying to get her attention. “[S]omeone had obviously been talking to God about me and it was the reason why God wouldn’t leave me alone. Obviously, whatever was being asked of Him, regarding me, was making my little sinful world spin. It was dizzying to live on now-a-days. Trying to stand up straight (or should I say, queer), made everything I loved, mainly myself and my girlfriend, blurry. Nothing was clear except God’s loud voice saying, ‘Come.’”
