I aint gay no more

The phrase "I'm not gay no more" gained attention in when a man named Andrew Caldwell made a statement during a church service. Andrew Caldwell attended the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). But first, a recap: In his testimony, Caldwell exclaims: “I’m not gay no more! I am delivered! I don’t like mens no more! I said I like women! Women, women, women [mumbling]!

I said. He became a viral sensation, coining the phrase, "I don't like mens no more!" Andrew Caldwell lives in Missouri, but he reached out to NBC12 to clear the air about the video, his “gay conversion” experience and the backlash he has felt. Andrew Caldwell became an internet sensation last year when he got up to the microphone at a Church of God in Christ conference in St.

Louis and declared, “I’m not gay no more!” Today, Caldwell. Jimmy Kimmel got a chance to interview the star of the viral, " I'm Not Gay No More " video —the video in which a man stood up in the middle of church and started shouting that he was not gay. It was past midnight. I was with the guy I had liked for more than a year. We had just left a gay bar and, for some reason, started to talk about Christianity and homosexuality.

We were both Christians, but he and I held different views on this matter. He believed that it was not compatible with Christianity to act on gay desires, while I was convinced that God would bless same-sex relationships between Christians. Besides, if this is true, what do you have to lose? I was 13 when I realized I experienced gay desires.

I ain't gay but

When I was 17, I went onto the Internet to find out what Christianity had to say about homosexuality. I came across and accepted many arguments that interpreted Scripture in a way that condoned the pursuit of gay desires in a loving relationship. So when I started to look for romantic love, I did just that—I sought a loving, committed, and monogamous gay relationship.

But when God prompted me to pursue the truth on homosexuality, I decided that I would conduct an intellectually honest inquiry. I also figured that I ought not to get into a gay relationship as well, since that would compromise the integrity of my quest. Over the next seven years, even as I examined arguments in favor of the traditional reading of Scripture on homosexuality, I remained largely gay-affirming and was actively looking for a gay relationship.

In spite of that, God led me on a journey in which He showed me His heart on the matter and the beauty of His design for my sexuality. I discovered many loopholes in those claims. Besides being built on presuppositions that remained to be tested, there were leaps of logic that begged further questions, and the isolation of biblical verses from their proper context. The more I read, the more I realized these arguments were not watertight and the more I started to ask questions such as: If homosexuality is so good, why did God forbid homosexual behavior so consistently all throughout the Bible, in the Old and New Testaments?

Why did He not clearly hold up committed gay relationships as something to be aspired toward, just as He did with committed heterosexual marriages? How else would I find love? At the heart of my grappling, I had to address core questions of surrender and trust: Am I just holding on tightly to my own views out of fear or pride? Am I really open to seeking out and believing what God has to say about homosexuality?

If His will is indeed different from mine, am I willing to trust Him to provide for me in His ways? As I began to move away from gay-affirming theology, God used numerous occasions to solidify the conviction in my heart that homosexuality was not aligned to His will. One of these decisive moments was when He opened my eyes to the beautiful design of heterosexual marriage.

By this point, God had already led me to understand how the key differences between men and women led to a harmonious complementarity between the two sexes. So when He showed me that human marriage between a man and a woman was a powerful, compelling picture of the divine, complementary marriage between Jesus and the Church, it made sense to me.

I saw that the Word of God consistently referred to Jesus as the Bridegroom male Mark , John and the Church as His Bride female Matthew , Revelation ; , and that the consummation of history was described as the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God Revelation This sealed the conviction in my heart that God has created us male and female for very good reasons Genesis One of them is that He intends for marriage to be a union between a man and a woman so that the marital covenant can be lived out as a profound sacrament that embodies and expresses to the world the way Jesus loves the Church and the way the Church loves Jesus.

I remember having tears in my eyes when I learned this truth that day. Secondly, I knew that this truth meant that acting on my gay desires did not glorify God and it demanded a reorientation of my life. That was how God convinced me on the theological and intellectual fronts. What He did next was to address my emotional concerns.