Customer Reviews

Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families and Friends

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Chris' book is an excellent prayer guide. I found it very user friendly. Its not focused on any particular issue (e.g. AIDS or coming out). It tends to be more mainstream Protestant in content. Excellent book to assist in your daily meditations.

On the whole I find its contents inspiring my prayer and meditation. I find it a great pity that, coming from a protestant (I'm a catholic myself) it doesn't explore to the full the "theology of the cross" wich is such a precious jewel of reformed church that the roman church has been redescovering. On the contrary, it sounds at times as inspired by a "theology of glory", an old pecadillo of catholicism if it gets dominant. On reading this book one is aware of the profound suffering of homosexual people (hence why call us "gay" totally depasses my compreension) but one is even more aware that the author is struggling for a right to exist in the city of Man and the city of God, as if it was not our duty do change and as if conversion (litterally turning oneself toward something new) wasn't our main calling as christians. But on the whole I acknowlege the author has a strongly positive attitude and I thank him for it as I am impressed by his earnest will to get intimate with God. Also the author seems to place within the setting of evangelical values the awareness of a need to be healed...and this seems crucial for any man or woman seeking God, homosexual people not less (at least) than all the rest of mankind. Anyway this is certainly a good and usefull reading. Thanks for it

"Coming Out to God" was written when what is now "queer theology" was in its infancy. This book very much borrows from traditional Catholic and Protestant prayers. It's the Book of Common Prayer with a slightly LGBT slant. There are ceremonies of union, prayers for civil rights and self-acceptance, but there's a surprising lack of poetry. It's almost as if the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours were turned into Mad Libs, then rewritten to be more inclusive. There's a blandness to it that's disappointing.

When "Coming out to God" was penned, one of the few inclusive churches in existence was the Metropolitan Community Church, which blends Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal sensibilities. So, the book is very traditional. LGBT theology has become more complex now. There's Gay Perspective: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us About the Nature of God and the Universe,The Search for a Woman-Centered Spirituality (The Cutting Edge : Lesbian Life and Literature),encompassing the traditions of Buddhism, Earth-centered faiths, something more coherent than a borrowed and slightly more inclusive Christianity. Andrew Harvey, a mystic, was a pioneer in queer theology with his The Return of the Mother,The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism,and The Essential Gay Mystics. Harvey has managed to weave together Rumi, devotion to the Sacred Heart, Marian apparitions, and Ramakrishna in his theological musings.

"Coming out to God" is more of interest as a foundational work of queer theology,it's a historical relic. It's better for study than as a devotional.