Former Lesbian Professor Says Leaving LGBT Community Had 'Horrible, Mangling Impact'

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Thursday, June 13, 2013

WASHINGTON – A former lesbian professor once contemptuous of Christianity has stated that leaving the LGBT community had a "horrible, mangling impact."

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, author and tenured professor at Syracuse University, told The Christian Post on Wednesday about the experiences of when she left lesbianism for Christianity. "When I came to Christ, one person's obedience…it had a horrible, mangling impact on my gay and lesbian community. It was a bloodbath," said Butterfield.

"I wrote this book called 'The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert' but I probably should have written a book titled 'What My Conversion Cost Other People.'"

Before converting, Butterfield had been living with a female partner and had friends within the LGBT community. She told CP that she "wished it could have" occurred differently, but was still thankful that God was "gracious to my weakness."

"I do believe that God's elect people are in all communities and because I believe that, I believe that we Christians need to be with them to claim the people that God has already set apart," said Butterfield. "So I am hopeful, but God has protected me because I am also weak."

Butterfield's remarks came as she was the guest speaker at a Family Research Council event titled "An Unlikely Convert: A Former Lesbian Professor's Journey to Faith." Before a packed audience at the FRC office and with extra security present at the building, Butterfield laid out how a Reformed Church pastor and his family witnessed to her, accepting her in spite of her lesbian identity.

"As a tenured lesbian professor at Syracuse University, Dr. Butterfield had no desire to become part of the heterosexist, patriarchal culture that she perceived to be the identity of Christianity," reads the FRC description on its site.

"Her thinking was challenged by the letter of a local pastor who inquired about her basic presuppositions and asked her questions no one had ever asked her before. What began as an academic exercise to find fault with the Scripture and expose the darker side of Christianity ended with answers…"

Since her conversion, Butterfield has become an author who has written about her transformation from a postmodern lesbian professor to a wife of a Reformed Presbyterian Church pastor and homeschooling mother. Her book Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith, whose paperback edition was released last year, has 242 customer reviews on Amazon.com, with 180 customers giving it a 5, the highest rating.