Published: 21st of September, 2022

The following story is based on real events. Names, places, and circumstances have been altered slightly to protect privacy.

I first met Jack (not his real name) when he visited our church service in London. He was a brilliant youth around 17 years of age. He had come with his father, Pastor Joe, his mother, and his older brother on an evangelical mission to our town. What amazed me about Jack was how wonderfully he could have played the piano, guitar, and other musical instruments – and with such dexterity. On top of that, he wrote his own gospel songs and sang them beautifully in several languages.

Pastor Joe told us beautiful stories of how he came to know Jesus, and the miracles he had experienced in his life that led him to Christ. For this reason, he raised both of his boys in the house of the Lord. Jack and I quickly became Facebook friends united in our strong belief in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I would often accompany Jack’s deeply religious Facebook posts and interact with him so often that Facebook suggested we were close friends. One time, Jack did an amazing performance singing that he has “crucified his flesh” and he “is free.” Little did I know that that song was actually a cry for help. Jack was indeed fighting his flesh, but crucifying it was easier said than done.

By the time Jack was about 21 years old, he had gotten a job and become financially stable, and he no longer relied on his parents. And that’s when he started to show some different colors. After crying out for emotional help, he broke up with his longtime girlfriend. Then he started to fight for gay rights. At first, he said it had nothing to do with him but that gay people deserved to be happy. He started to twist bible verses to justify his argument. He argued that the bible verse which says that “a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman,” actually referred to pedophilia and not homosexuality – and he started to offer up technical translation explanations. About a year later, Jack couldn’t bear it any longer and declared himself a homosexual.

But at that point, Jack maintained that he was still with God, that he was still a Christian, and that Jesus never said anything against homosexuality. He fought to stay in the church with his beliefs, but needless to say, he met with opposition – basically people trying to convince him he’s wrong. His dad kept praying and interceding for him, but that didn’t seem to help.

In 2019, contrary to his dad’s admonishments, Jack attended an annual gay pride parade holding a placard that read, “trans lives matters.” He subsequently posted a photo of himself wearing a wig on Facebook and started to paint his Facebook wall with pro homosexual posts.

Facing opposition in his father’s church, Jack protested by getting together with a group of other homosexuals and they announced that they formed their own church where gay people are part of the family since they believe the bible does not condemn homosexuality. Needless to say, they were ridiculed and opposed. They continued for a short time, but the church simply fell apart. There simply wasn’t enough willpower to keep it going.

But an even stranger thing started to happen after that. Jack started to make posts ridiculing Christianity. He even posted that Jesus was sacrificed because a sacrifice was needed to bring peace during that era, and suggested that another modern Messiah was coming to save mankind who will be full of wisdom and knowledge.

Jack’s parents are still praying, and hope that he will eventually return to God, and that his story will inspire many gay men out of a life of homosexuality.

One day, Jack shared a years-old video of his younger self playing a guitar and singing gospel in church. He captioned it, “I feel sorry for this feminine boy. I’m a man now.” It turns out Jack was not able to crucify the flesh – something easier said than done. He is the pastor’s son who left God for man – literally.