At Progressive Revival, and in honor of World AIDS Day, Diana Butler Bass bears witness to the compassion of her friend and “evangelical hero” Jeffrey Michael:
He was the first person I ever knew who had come out; the first person I ever knew who said he was “gay”; and the first person I knew who was seriously a gay Christian. He was kind, funny, caring, faithful, and thoughtful—with a blistering theological intellect and a profound trust in God’s presence in one’s life. He wanted to become an Episcopal priest (long before such things were openly discussed).
While we were students, he was in a car accident, nearly died, and suffered brain damage. But, miraculously enough, he pressed through intensive therapy and graduated with honors in religious studies.
But our friendship was not easy. Of the questioning friends, I was usually the last person to change my mind on any issue; I struggled with Jeffrey Michael’s confident sense of identity. I had been raised to believe that it was wrong to be gay—socially, morally, and biblically. Jeffrey Michael and I had blistering fights over scripture and theology. Although I was loath to admit it at the time, his arguments shook me to the core. And many days, it was easier to ignore him and escape to my own comfortable prejudices than to deeply engage the challenges he presented to my small world.
I tried not to listen, but I had heard. I heard his testimony of joy, of self-discovery, of pain, of fear—of all the complex emotions of a young gay man seeking to understand God and the world. After college, he became a nurse to AIDS patients and poured himself out to the “untouchables” of the 1980s as a sort of “Brother Teresa,” a priest without formal ordination, among those whom the church then wanted to forget. Eventually, he died with them: A priest who became a victim, the nurse who succumbed to the plague.
Read the full post here.