An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith

For our Siblings’ Book Club this year, we almost selected Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a House Key, a book on the importance of hospitality in Christian witness, and I wish we had selected it. Since the book landed at something like 12th place of 10, I’ll have to read it on my own time (if I can find any).

In the meantime of waiting for that book to come in the mail, I selected the audio version of this from our library. Read by Rosaria herself, this is an in intimate (and sometimes “R-rated” as she says) testimony of how the Lord pursued her, saved her, and adopted her into his family.

Dr. Butterfield calls herself “an unlikely convert” because of her background as an intellectual, a professor with tenure at Syracuse University, a leader within and an advocate for the LGBTQ community, and a long-time lesbian herself. When she first began to hear the Lord’s knocking on her heart’s door, she was in the beginning stages of researching the Conservative Christian Right’s supposed war against LGBTQ identities. She was so looking forward to tearing the church apart, yet after publishing a short article, she received a thoughtful letter from a pastor in town challenging her to reassess her presuppositions. This letter eventually turned into a friendship, which in turn ended in Rosaria’s recognition of the Truths of Scripture and of Jesus. She eventually converted to Christianity—a change her former community viewed as the ultimate betrayal—and then began her pilgrimage along the difficult road of becoming “transformed by the renewing of the mind.”

Butterfield’s path from pride was not sudden and is, in fact, still ongoing. She acknowledges, however, that it was pride that formed the foundation of not only her lesbianism but all her sin. She had arrogantly stood opposed to the Creator God Who has graciously given us all things, and it was only by that grace that she was ever able to see it. She turned her back on the lifestyle yet kept her heart and arms open to the friends she had made there, if only they were willing. She satiated her thirst for God by pouring in his Word. She joined and became active in her Reformed Presbyterian church. Her teaching-focus shifted from Queer to Christian, and she slowly became a bridge between the two worlds.

Eventually she married, but, no longer able to have children of her own, she and her husband invested their hearts and energy into foster care and adoption. The tail end of this book, in fact, is a wonderful treatise on the importance of this wonderful mercy ministry, especially in that a family’s (or individual’s) decision to adopt best comes from a desire to rescue a child rather than a desire to fill some hole in one’s own life. This section reminded me of similar lessons taught by Francis Chan and Steven Curtis Chapman.

Overall, this was a wonderful testimony to listen to as I drove my motorcycle to and from work. It had its challenging points for the church, no matter the denomination, especially in terms of our love for the outcasts. While she never advocates for the acceptance of sinful lifestyles, she masterfully contrasts the friendliness of LBGTQ individuals to almost anyone different than they (often barring Christians, of course) to the stand-offish attitudes of most Christians to the unsaved world. She doesn’t blatantly ask “WWJD?” but the questions is on almost every page. Jesus dined with tax collectors and sinners. He knew how to love and welcome the sinner while drawing them out of their sin into Himself. Are we not to follow His example? Can’t we too love the sinner and help them overcome the sin?

The only thing that annoyed me about this book was Butterfield’s multiple-mention of her denomination’s use of the Psaltery in acapella “to the exclusion of anything manmade.” She offers her reasoning (John 17:17) yet completely ignores the fact that Jesus Himself sang hymns with his disciples, that the Psalms are filled with references to instruments, and that Paul charged the church to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” While this book is not a treatise on music, all I can say is, “She brought it up.” And if she wants to justify her position (several times) with Scripture, then she oughtn’t ignore the other passages that stand in stark contrast to her position. It weakens her intellectual claims and thus her position as an authority in these other areas. If she’s not willing to do her due diligence in this pet belief, then how can we trust her in the rest? 

OK. I got that off my chest.

I really enjoyed this book and will personally recommend it to others as it comes up in conversation. I can’t wait to read House Key and whatever else Butterfield may have written. I’m a fan.

©2021 E.T.