"A Life of Unlearning" - a preacher's struggle with his homosexuality, church and faith

My recent post about a New Zealand pastor who told a gay Christian that he prayed he'd kill himself, made me think of Anthony Venn-Brown here in Australia who was an Assemblies of God preacher and came out as gay. I stumbled onto his book a few years back "A Life of Unlearning", telling his story of how he struggled with his sexuality growing up and in the church itself, eventually to lose everything he'd worked for when coming out to the church.

Of course I found the book immensely interesting, as for a while when I was young and vulnerable and stupid, I became one of those wacky Pentecostals, getting sucked into the United Pentecostal Church in New Zealand. During that time I was immersed in Bible-ness and extremely conservative church standards, obtained a Bachelors degree in theology recognised by the state of Minnesota, and upon returning to New Zealand became a licenced minister of the church for a short time (before I woke up to myself).

Anyway so I sent the link to the story of the NZ pastor to Anthony Venn-Brown thinking he may be interested. Turns out he knows the bloke over there in NZ, Jim. Small world. 

He also suggested as part of that Kiwi pastor hate story that I share a link to his book here in the blog, in this case one of those really modern type ebooks that are dirt cheap to buy. He's sent me the link. It's available at Amazon. Only $5 or so. Pretty amazing this internet stuff. Free delivery through the net I guess. Far out, books have come a long way in recent times. The description there too is very interesting,  with a forward by Micheal Kirby:

We are all living a life of unlearning: unlearning things we accepted as truth but created a persona so unlike who we really are. Eventually cracks appear and beliefs challenged. On the surface everything looked perfect. Anthony Venn-Brown was a happily married father-of-two and a popular preacher in Australia's growing mega-churches such as Hillsong. Behind the scenes he fought a constant battle to conform, believing his homosexuality made him unacceptable to God and others. After twenty-two years of struggle and torment, a chance meeting forced Anthony to make the toughest decision of his life; maintain the façade he had created or, be true to himself and lose it all. Tired of feeling torn and fragmented, he confessed and came out. The results of that confession took him on a lonely journey that made him who he is today. This sometimes brutally honest account highlights not only the costs of being true to yourself but that the rewards of resolution and integrity are worth the struggle.As Anthony's story is ultimately about being true to one's self, gay, straight, Christian and non-faith people have found relevance in this triumphant autobiography.

"Human stories, like the one in these pages, play a part in advancing understanding and acceptance. It is the story of a quest to find not only self-acceptance but one of the most powerful forces in nature—human love..” — Foreword by the Hon. Michael Kirby more here Amazon