“Finally I just turned around and I said, ‘Are you guys Christians?’ And they just – they laid it out for me. They told me what they believe. They told me the gospel. ‘So what does your church in Hollywood believe about homosexuality?’ And they were just like, ‘Well, you know, we believe it’s a sin.’ And what’s interesting about that is, number one, I appreciated how kind of frank they were and honest.”

“After college. I ended up moving to LA to pursue acting and writing and kind of a creative – more of a creative field. I just came out to everyone. That’s when I fully embraced homosexuality as my identity.”
“After each relationship with a guy, and after it would end, I had total amnesia that it – how it all ended. And I would think, oh, the next guy is going to be perfect and the next guy is going to be amazing. And of course like two years later, (MAKES SOUND) it’s over, you know. There’s cheating, infidelity, and it’s over.”
“At this point in my life, I was very successful in my career as a set designer, production designer. I mean, I was doing covers for Vogue and for Harper’s Bazaar. I worked with a lot of pop stars like Katy Perry and Paris Hilton and Oprah. Like, everyone you can imagine – I worked with them. And I also started my own men’s fashion line that was successful. Our clothes were in, you know, L.A., New York, Paris.
“I went to all the shows. I went to all the after-parties. I was at this one after-party in Paris, and I remember, just everyone was there from the fashion world. I think Kanye was there that year, and I was kind of looking out over the crowd, it just struck me so profoundly. I was like, is that all there is to life? Just going to parties for the rest of my life, is this what it’s all about? And I really started to panic that night. I was overwhelmed with a sense of emptiness.”
“I got back to LA and got busy with work for about six months. I was at a coffee shop in Silver Lake with my best friend. And he was gay too. And we noticed, shockingly, that there was a table next to us with Bibles on the table. This was the first time I’d seen a Bible in public in Los Angeles ever. And by that point in my life, I was – I was a practical atheist.”
“Finally I just turned around and I said, ‘Are you guys Christians?’ And they just – they laid it out for me. They told me what they believe. They told me the gospel. ‘So what does your church in Hollywood believe about homosexuality?’ And they were just like, ‘Well, you know, we believe it’s a sin.’ And what’s interesting about that is, number one, I appreciated how kind of frank they were and honest.”
“They invited me to church the following Sunday. And I-I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to go to your church, but I’ll think about it.’ And then the following Sunday, I wake up and I’m like, ‘I guess I’m just going to go to this church today.’”
“The pastor comes out and he starts preaching on Romans chapter seven and something strange started happening. Everything he was saying, every word he was saying, every sentence he was saying started to resonate this truth in my mind, in my heart, and I didn’t know why. I was on the edge of my seat, literally on the edge of my seat.”
“It was the first time I had really heard the gospel and understood it… And before he left, he invited people to get prayed with on the side of the church.”
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Injustice can consume us; it can corrode us, our character, our trust, our very soul. It can dominate our thinking. It can sabotage our ability to trust God. And so in his kindness God offers more than binding up our hurt. He offers to take that awful pain, that deep injustice, and use it for good. Sin and Satan will not have the last word.There was an item on the news this week here in Ireland about a man charged with almost 100 counts of historic sexual offences. He was due to stand trial on Monday, but was killed in a car crash on Sunday. He smashed into a tree, no other vehicle was involved and the suspicion is, in light of the coming trial, that it was deliberate.
Hundreds of hours have been put into investigating the charges, preparing evidence, interviewing the witnesses. All that has ground to a halt. And far more significant is the emotional pain and anguish of victims reliving all the horrors of their past with the hope of some sort of justice and closure—all of that has been ripped from them, and the past left like an open wound.
News reports said that “as the victims learned of [his] death…they were distraught and angry he would not face justice.”
That’s understandable, it just doesn’t seem fair does it? It seems like an easy way out—if that is what he intended. And if it isn’t what he intended, it still seems that he got off easy, doesn’t it?
There is something hardwired deep inside us that longs for justice—as if the compass bearing of our hearts is configured to point to the true north of ultimate justice.
I don’t know anything about this case, but I do know many are in similar situations. They have suffered deep injustices; the people who perpetrated them have got off scot-free. Maybe the guilty are still alive, maybe they have been laid in the grave, but in either case they haven’t had to answer for what they did, and their escape taunts their victims. It seems grotesque—a double pain and insult.
Does the Bible offer any help?
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Written by James C. Pakala |
Sunday, January 15, 2023
We should improve by recognizing rather than completely ignoring certain other occasions of the Church Year. If this had been done historically, a huge benefit could have been the impeding of rampant secularism. Our culture makes much of Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Halloween, for example, but they are totally ignorant when it comes to Ascension or Pentecost, and do little regarding Easter apart from bunnies and eggs.

By “we” I basically mean those of us who as Christians are not in one of the ancient Churches (Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, various Orthodox, Roman, etc.) or in the Anglican or Lutheran traditions. There are 35,000 denominations in the world though obviously the number, whatever it is, constantly changes with splits, mergers, start-ups and terminations. Then there are the countless independents and mavericks. Although “we” as I use it here are fewer as individuals (in global statistics) than those in the Christian traditions I am excluding, we do account for almost all of the 35,000 denominations and all non-denominational churches. Why do I say we should improve? Although I am sure that we could do so in various ways, only one is my focus here.
As I write this it is early January but I am listening to glorious Christmas music on KFUO radio, a station of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. This is possible because for them Christmas does not end at midnight on December 25. It lasts until January 5, which in (pre-medieval) Europe came to commemorate the visit of the magi to Bethlehem. Incidentally, decades ago I read a fine commentary on Matthew that suggested perhaps there were fourteen magi and, along with their entourage, entering Jerusalem naturally got everyone’s attention in a big way. The idea of three, of course, stems simply from the mentioning of three gifts.
The independent church where I grew up sang a few of the eleven carols in The Service Hymnal (thankfully the Trinity Hymnal has 41) on the few Sundays preceding Christmas. Advent was never mentioned and no special services were held during the season (apart from an unrelated New Year’s Eve service). In the United States Christmas was not even a national holiday until 1870 (seven years after Thanksgiving). In seminary in the 1960s we had a Presbyterian who was appalled that there was a Christmas tree in the lobby and refused to have his own family even take note of the holiday (well, apart from his not having classes). Although his position was not unlike that of some—not all—of our forebearers, we pitied his wife and children at Christmas. The PCA church we attend has a wonderful Christmas Eve service and also observes Advent, although only somewhat recently did I learn that the Second Advent of our Lord is at least as much the focus of Advent as is His incarnation. That is the reason repentance is central (as reflected in three of the four wreath candles being purple).
We should improve by recognizing rather than completely ignoring certain other occasions of the Church Year. If this had been done historically, a huge benefit could have been the impeding of rampant secularism. Our culture makes much of Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Halloween, for example, but they are totally ignorant when it comes to Ascension or Pentecost, and do little regarding Easter apart from bunnies and eggs. Good Friday is not a holiday at all and some of our seminaries even held classes thereon at least until somewhat recently. At Army chaplain school I attended the Protestant service each morning, but catching wind that it was Ascension Thursday (marking 40 days after Easter) I went to the Catholic service where all the Scripture readings and everything pertained to our Lord’s Ascension. Asking a friend how the Protestant service was, I learned that after a couple of unrelated hymns the preacher’s focus was on how great it was that he became a chaplain.
James C. Pakala is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America; he is a Retired Chaplain, Army National Guard, and volunteer police chaplain.
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