If you haven’t heard of Rosaria Butterfield yet, I imagine you will soon. Her book, “The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert,” (Crown & Covenant Publications, 2012) is swiftly sweeping by word of mouth through Christian circles. To condense a long journey into a brief story, Butterfield was a tenured and successful professor at Syracuse University in New York, and a lesbian in a committed relationship with her partner, when she met a local pastor who wanted to get to know her. Over time, God took hold of her life and turned her world upside down. She’s now a pastor’s wife in North Carolina and a mom to four adopted children. She wrote down her story for her children to have, but never thought that it would ever resonate with others the way it is. I got the chance to talk to my friend Rosaria about what it’s like when Jesus calls you to give up everything and follow him. Tell us a bit about your background: where you grew up, what your family was like. I grew up in Chicago, Illinois, in an Italian community. I remember being very moved as a child early on by the gospel message and I enjoyed my time in Catholic school and my time in church. Then I left Chicago to go to college [at Ohio State]. My priest had been almost galvanizing to me in my faith; someone who I felt I could talk to about anything. He was arrested and then convicted of 34 counts of child molestation. I hadn’t been going to church in college. When my mom sent me this article, [where I learned these things,] I closed the book on any notion of a holy or overseeing God. When and why did you declare yourself a lesbian? I officially came out when I was 28. I was in a lesbian relationship at the time, but I had been teetering of the edge of the lesbian community for a while. In college, I had a boyfriend for the first time. I liked having a boyfriend because it gave me a lot of cover and social acceptance. But I had always had these very powerful and intense relationships with women. … Some people ask, “What happened to your Catholic training?” And I think what really happened was that the name of Jesus which had gently and sincerely rolled off my tongue in my little girl prayers … he just rolled off my back in college. In 1992, when I left Ohio State for Syracuse, truly the name of Jesus made me recoil with nothing short of pity and anger. In the book, you say that pride was your main sin. How do you think you started and then continued down that path of pride? I believe that sexuality is an expression of a set of values and worldview. … Pride was a cornerstone of how I functioned. Talking myself into the zone was how I got my work done. It … Continue reading The Secret Thoughts of a Once Lesbian, Now Christian