Coming Out
Venn-Brown resigned as a minister in 1991 after coming out as a gay man. In 2004 he published his autobiography, A Life of Unlearning - Coming out of the church, One Man's Struggle.The book detailed his struggle to reconcile his homosexuality with his Christian beliefs. It won the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association Literary award in 2004. The revised edition, A Life of Unlearning - a Journey to Find the Truth was published in 2007. Anthony doesn't feel he will return to preaching, saying "30 years down the track someone who is gay or lesbian will be allowed to minister. I hope I'm there to see it, but I feel I've had my ministry. When I came back to God I felt like I had the essence of what it was all about. What I have now is real. I have learned to live non-judgementally, to live with integrity and I didn't have that as a preacher." Anthony Venn-Brown was one of the keynote speakers at the 2009 "Evangelical Network Conference" in Arizona.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Venn-Brown
Famous quotes related to coming out:
“Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)