Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, an autobiography by Rosaria Butterfield, was one of those books — the kind that opens eyes and hearts. This book has influenced much this author’s thinking about homosexuality and Christianity.

Butterfield was a longtime lesbian and an academic teaching English and women’s studies at Syracuse University. Her life was transformed by Christ. God used a pastor who asked her questions, engaged in academic debate with her, told her the truth about his belief and the Gospel, and — along with his wife — befriended her.

Butterfield’s book came out in 2012, right in the thick of the “born this way” propaganda that LGBTQ+ activists were pushing. Her revelations and honesty had people at even Christian campuses protesting her coming to speak. Even back then, the activists were dogmatic and bullying toward people who stopped living the gender-confused lifestyle.

This week, Butterfield posted a public confession on the evangelical website Reformation 21. She immediately addresses the fact that the idol of LGBTQ+ has divided the evangelical Church and that she used preferred pronouns as a way to be winsome and not immediately offend when talking to people still struggling with sexuality. Then she said this:

In 1999, Christ called me to repentance and belief, and I became a despised defector of the LGBTQ+ movement. But progressive sanctification came slowly, and I have failed many times during these past decades.

After I have learned lessons, I have earnestly tried to course-correct.

And that’s the problem.

My use of transgendered pronouns was not a mistake; it was sin.

Public sin requires public repentance, not course correction.

I have publicly sinned on the issue of transgender pronouns, which I have carelessly used in books and articles.

I have publicly sinned by advocating for the use of transgender pronouns in interviews and public Q&As.

She goes on to list why using transgender pronouns is, in fact, a sin. She lists eight biblically backed reasons (references added):

Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the ninth commandment and encourages people to sin against the tenth commandment. [Exodus 20:16-17]

Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the creation ordinance. [Genesis 5:2]

Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against image-bearing. [Genesis 1:26-28]

Using transgendered pronouns discourages a believer’s progressive sanctification and falsifies the gospel. [Colossians 3:5, Galatians 2:20]

Using transgendered pronouns cheapens redemption, and it tramples on the blood of Christ. [Romans 5]

Using transgendered pronouns fails to love my neighbor as myself. [Matthew 22: 36-40]

Using transgendered pronouns fails to offer genuine Christian hospitality and instead yields the definition of hospitality to liberal communitarianism, identity politics, and “human flourishing.”

Using transgendered pronouns isn’t a sin because the times have changed, and therefore, using transgendered pronouns isn’t sinful today but a morally acceptable option in 2012. Sin is sin. The Bible defines this as sin. Sin does not lose its evil because of our good intentions or the personal sensibilities of others. Changing cultural forces can bring sin into fresh light (as the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision did for me). But a renewed focus is no excuse for sin and no dodge for repentance, not for a real Christian.

Butterfield then says she repents of her sin in this area. It is a brave and excruciatingly beautiful public confession. Brave because this position is a deeply unpopular one in the world at large, and beautiful because it’s based on the truth written in the Bible.

LGBTQ+ ideology when juxtaposed with the teachings of the biblically based Christian Church is on a collision course, as Butterfield points out. She doesn’t come out and say it, but gender ideology and sexual sin are a religion. LGBTQ+ ideology is not based in truth, and yet acolytes are rabidly attempting to force everyone to go along with their version of “truth” — which is a confusing proposition in the first place because the ideology puts forward that everyone has their own truth. That’s another way of saying there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Cultural commentator Allie Beth Stuckey also underlines this sentiment in a social media post, saying: “Christians who lie by using trans pronouns in the name of ‘kindness’ believe they are more loving than God. That’s worshiping the god of self, not the God of Scripture.”

The God of Scripture is the only one who can create something from nothing, the only one with the authority and power to knit a person together in a mother’s womb, and the only one who created the male and female sex. We cannot outlove God.

The humility of Butterfield’s confession and repentance evokes this lovely hymn, “All Things New”:

Light after darkness, gain after loss,
Strength after weakness, crown after cross;
Sweet after bitter, hope after fears,
Home after wandering, praise after tears.

Alpha and Omega,
beginning and the end,
He is making all things new.
Springs of living water
shall wash away each tear,
He is making all things new.

That is what it feels like when the truth of Christ is proclaimed; when believers confess their sins and repent before the Lord. There is nothing and no one too broken whom God cannot make new once again.

Thank you, Rosaria Butterfield, for that reminder.