Johnson: Truth frees minister to walk a different path

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 4, 2006 at midnight

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We should talk today about another Colorado Springs minister, one who also came face to face with the reality of homosexuality and gave up his ministry over it. But this one never thought twice about blaming a hotel concierge.

The Rev. Benjamin L. Reynolds, 45, is now a man totally at peace with himself, his place in the world and his sexuality.

Benjamin Reynolds, the pastor for 16 years at Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, celebrated his final service last Sunday, a month after telling his congregation that he is gay.

"I am so empowered by my decision," he said during an interview Friday. "I just wanted to be clear about who I am, to be clear with those I love in my truth."

He would not comment directly about Pastor Ted Haggard, leader of both the National Association of Evangelicals and the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who stepped down from both on Thursday amid allegations he had a three-year relationship with a former male escort.

"I was saddened to hear the news and have been in prayer over it ever since," Benjamin Reynolds said. "That's all I'll say."

But he described his own coming to terms as "45 years of struggling. And it wasn't simply because of my sexuality, but because of this different path in ministry I wanted in my life."

Yet how should he tell his congregation?

Lying was never an option. After all, this was a group of people to whom he had first preached when he was 14 years old.

"I knew when I was 6 years old that I was called to preach," Benjamin Reynolds said.

He was 13 when he first approached the pastor he ultimately would succeed, begging him to allow him to speak to the congregation.

Rather than laugh at the boy, the pastor counseled and taught him for better than six months before licensing him to take the Sunday pulpit.

"Trust me," he said, "I have been pastor here since 1992, and you can get lost in how people view you. It's reverend this, reverend that. Particularly in the black community, the pastoral role is a very different thing.

"They want you to be the pinnacle of society, to dress well, to speak well, to be everything that their dreams are. They do not want to see you do or be something they view as wrong."

He remembers the pain of not being able to honestly counsel young members of the congregation who would come to him as they wrestled with their own sexuality.

"How could I minister to them when I was not being honest with myself?"

The only option, Benjamin Reynolds said he finally concluded, was honesty.

"But getting there," he said, "was a process. I struggled hard to get there."

He had always been otherwise honest in his dealings with his congregation, he said. And, yes, he had heard the whispers about his sexuality, but no one ever directly asked.

"Never directly to me," he said. "Oh, but in the beauty shops and the barbershops, the question was everywhere."

And then Referendum I, the domestic partnership initiative on Tuesday's ballot, arrived. Benjamin Reynolds threw himself into campaigning for its passage.

He knew he had long antagonized a number of people within the 500-member congregation over his vocal support of gay and lesbian issues, how he had openly welcomed both into the church.

He knew that with his adamant support for Ref I, being honest about who he was could no longer be avoided.

"You know, I love my church. It allowed me to be the preacher I am today. In my heart, I will always be indebted.

"But I got tired. You know, I wanted a partner. I was very lonely. And telling them was so hard because I knew it could do damage to the church."

He asked his congregation that day where God was in the referendum. God, he told them, is about humanity. He then repeated a line he has given at multiple pro Ref I rallies:

"If we negate that these are people, people with faces, then we have negated the gospel of Jesus Christ."

His activism, he said, empowered him.

"I felt I needed to put a face on the referendum and on homosexuality. Many in my congregation to this day cannot associate a face with it.

"So I gave them a face, one they love. I will admit, though, there are days I wonder if that means now they don't love me."

He plans now to seek ordination in the United Church of Christ ("I need somewhere to go to church"), and pursue a doctorate in theology.

"I am in an empowering place now," Benjamin Reynolds said. "My ministry hasn't ended. It now will just take a different path."

Pressed again about his opinion of Ted Haggard, he said:

"We have to be careful how we say others are wrong. To in some way slight someone only invites it into our own houses. You have to be careful. My call is to be compassionate in every way. Christ has called each of us to love."

We are saying our goodbyes when he stopped me.

"You know," he said, "if I had known how liberating it was to tell my truth, I'd have done it 30 years ago."

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

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