A Queer Understanding
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A Queer Understanding
Finding Faith Beyond Judgment: A Pastor's Journey to Authentic Christianity with Romell Parks-Weekly
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What happens when a pastor discovers the Bible doesn't actually condemn homosexuality? For Romel Parks-Weekly, this theological revelation changed everything. After founding a traditional church in 2002 while deeply suppressing his own sexuality, Romel's decision to write a book on homosexuality led him down a path of biblical study he hadn't expected.
This episode follows Romel's remarkable journey from a young boy who always knew he was different to a conflicted minister who married a woman despite knowing he was gay to the founder of The Sanctuary Church—a truly affirming space where all are welcome.
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Rommel Parks Weekly is the founder and spiritual leader of the Sanctuary Church. As a part of his work, he has also founded other ministries, including Parks Weekly Ministries and, most recently, the Faith Evolution Podcast. He also serves as an overseer in the Church of the Everlasting Kingdom. Rommel received his Master of Divinity degree from Eden Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Theology degree at Kairos University. During nearly 30 years in Christian ministry, he has published multiple transformative books, including Homosexianity, the Rebuttal and Homosexuality and the Death of the Church. He is a nationally recognized leader in the affirming Christian community, having spoken at conferences and seminars around the church. He is a nationally recognized leader in the affirming Christian community, having spoken at conferences and seminars around the country. Romel resides in St Louis, missouri, with his husband of 12 years, damian, and his son, cameron. Here's our conversation. Welcome, romel. How are you?
Speaker 2I'm very well. Thank you, Very glad to be here.
Speaker 1Great. Thank you for being on so, romel. You are the founder and spiritual leader of the Sanctuary Church. You are probably the third pastor we've had.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So I'm interested in what got you into ministry got you into ministry.
Speaker 2So, gosh, it started a while ago, back in 2002. The church, when I first launched it, was called New Revelation Christian Church. I wasn't affirming at the time. I still believed at the time that being gay was a sin, and so I was just doing ministry the way that I thought ministry was supposed to be done. And it wasn't until 2008 that I actually did a Bible study on the topic of homosexuality, having been married to a woman at the time pastoring the church, and then came to realize wait a minute, God actually doesn't have a problem with the fact that I'm gay. And what am I supposed to do with this? So, long story short, in 2012, we reorganized as the Sanctuary merged with a local church, another small local church, and became the Sanct sanctuary, and we've been going since then. So we date the church officially back to 2012, but it actually started in 2002 under a different direction.
Speaker 1Okay, and in 2002, you were. Was this your church? You were a minister at a church that had already been established.
Speaker 2I founded the New Revelation Christian Church. I found at that church as well.
Speaker 1Okay, so did you always know you had a calling to be a minister?
Speaker 2Not really. It's odd because I don't align, if you will, personality-wise, to what we typically think of when we think of a pastor or a leader, a minister, period. I'm an introvert. So the idea of getting in the pulpit and preaching the sermon I didn't even want people watching me when I was marching down with the choir on Sunday morning, so it was like, let alone leading the church, so it wasn't anything that I really desired, but I really did feel it's really hard to explain. I just felt this compulsion, this pull toward it. It's, yeah, it's hard to articulate because I didn't do it for a particular reason or have a particular agenda behind it. If anything, I didn't want to, but I just felt like I would not have that sense of fulfillment, like I was actually doing what I was here to do until I became a pastor.
Speaker 3Yeah, Right, what's a sanctuary versus a church? Because you mentioned that you turned to a sanctuary, so I'm trying to understand the differences between both.
Speaker 2So the sanctuary is a church, it's just the name of the church, and so we called it the sanctuary, because we wanted it to be a place that was a place of safety for people and a place for us to be able to gather together and engage in this journey without judgment, without all of the extra baggage that comes along with the traditional religious experience.
Speaker 1Okay, so I want to back up About when did you decide to go ahead and take this foray into ministry. What year was that?
Speaker 2So I was, I think, 1998. I preached my first sermon, so that's when I began in preaching ministry officially. Then I became an elder at the church that I was at in 2000. And then launched the sanctuary not the sanctuary launched the Revelation Christian Church in 2002. Gotcha.
Speaker 1So along those same lines when did you start feeling like you had same-sex attraction?
Speaker 2Oh gosh, if I had a memory of the womb, I would probably say the womb. Oh, really, to my earliest memory, to my earliest recollection, probably around first or second grade somewhere thereabouts. Very early. Of course I didn't have the language to identify what I was feeling, but I certainly knew that when other boys were Googling and gagaing over it was like so disinteresting to me.
Speaker 1You're like yo girls.
Speaker 2I remember one day they had brought I guess one of their fathers or something had a Playboy and they brought it and they were like, oh my God, look at this. And I was like, all right, I got to go home. So, yeah, I just wasn't interested. Yes, as far back as I can remember, wow, okay, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2So was your whole family into the church and, like you were, you grew up in the church, going to church and getting this message that being gay was wrong yeah, I did so, started out baptist, then, eventually, the church that I ultimately grew up in was Pentecostal, and so, if you know anything about Pentecostalism very rigid, very legalistic there you go. Yeah, there you go, very legalistic. And so, yeah, that was the context that I grew up in. It's interesting because we had a choir director this friend of mine even to this day but we had a choir director who was gay and, of course- Isn't that always the case?
Speaker 2It is indeed. Look, and I became a choir director too, right, but and it's like it's interesting because it's like they don't. They didn't mind using him for his gift, but just don't. It's like don't ask, don't tell. You don't want to talk about it, and the moment that you do, you're out of here and that's ultimately what happened. So, so yeah, it was that environment of don't ask, don't tell, and that was the environment that I grew up in.
Speaker 3Yeah, I grew up Pentecostal as well, so I definitely get it. But as far as I know there were no gay choir director in my church. It was in Jamaica, you know they probably were, but who knows. But most people in the choir were females. Back there I know you have men in the choir, but back then in the church that I grew up, all the choir, most of it was female.
Speaker 1So basically all of your life you knew that you like either, at least didn't like, girls. And then eventually, when you had the language, you realized you were attracted to boys and you had this in your head that this is wrong, God doesn't like this. And at the same time you were struggling with but I want to teach God's word, I want to speak and and maybe not lead a church, but at least spread the message. How did you reconcile that at all? Did you say, this is just a struggle that I'm having and I'm just going to ignore that and go on and lead a life that is traditionally Christian and representative of the Christian faith?
Speaker 2So the ministry part came a few years later. Earlier in my late teens, mid to late teens in trying to reconcile just being a Christian and these feelings I was having, as I guess most people did who had these fears you experiment and you have boyfriends, you date, you do your thing and of course, in the back of your head you're like at some point I got to stop this. Pretty much every relationship I had ended because I broke up with them, because I was trying once again to be delivered, and so going back and forth with that kind of merry-go-round trying again, failing, trying again, failing, and that kind of merry-go-round trying again, failing, trying again failing, and that kind of thing. And eventually I just got to the point where I knew that I was going to have to in order to this is we get to the part about ministry. I knew that I felt like if I was going to step out and do this thing in ministry, I was really going to have to like let that part of my life go once and for all. And I convinced myself that I would be able to do that, despite all the evidence to the contrary. But I tried, I attempted.
Speaker 2I got married eventually in 2003, so about a year after the church started, and it's just hard because internally there's so much going on. But then externally, you're trying to still present a certain thing, and it's not that you're necessarily at least in your head trying to be fake, but you're trying to suppress what's natural to you. You have these feelings, but what you do with them is what matters. At least that's what I told myself. And so I was trying to live a life that, intellectually and theologically, I thought was right, even though personally, emotionally, what my heart was longing for, I just kept denying myself. And ultimately, that can only last so long before it begins to really impact on your spiritual well-being, your mental well-being, all of that.
Marriage to a Woman and Inner Conflict
Speaker 1Mm. Hmm, so you got married in 2003. Did you reveal any of this to your wife, that you were struggling with same-sex attraction?
Speaker 2I actually did. Before we got married, I told her that I was bisexual. That's not true, but I didn't lie. I had convinced my own self because it was much easier to say that you're bi than to say that you're gay. So I told her that because this is what I had chose to believe at the time.
Speaker 1Right, because you wanted to say you were attracted to women as well, correct?
Speaker 2Correct, correct. And I think sexuality is a big spectrum. It's not. We're not in these nice cute boxes, and so is there a level of attraction that I experienced toward women. I usually put it around 90% gay, 10% straight. So there's a little sliver there, but it's not enough to try to hang a marriage on. But she did know, going in, that I had same-sex attractions as well.
Speaker 3Are you still friends now? Do you still have a relationship with?
Speaker 2her. We do not, we did initially, but she eventually moved away. Okay.
Speaker 3So you know I have to answer. I have to say if you're not comfortable you don't have to answer. I was going to say if you're uncomfortable you don't have to answer anything, so I'm just going to ask it. So, in terms of sexual relationship, did you really feel fulfilled having that type of relationship with a woman knowing that's not really what you want?
Speaker 2So before I answer that, I will say I try to be an open book, so any questions that you have, feel free to ask, and if my answer is too raw then you'll have to just edit that out.
Speaker 3Oh, they're raw, they're better.
Speaker 2To answer that, though, no, there was no sexual fulfillment. I mean, we had sex, there's sensation, you still ejaculate, but are you still fulfilled? And the answer for me was no. And it's interesting because when people are trying to tell gay people how to be gay, how to live their life in a godly way, they make it out to be just about sensation. When you get with a woman and you all have sex, you'll still get that. But if that's the case, I can just have sex with myself. If it's all about sensation, I don't need a second party at all. But the fact is our heart is longing for companionship and intimacy on a different level that sex with an incompatible person, be it myself or a woman, is just not going to provide. And so I would actually have sex, finish right and then go and masturbate to gay porn right afterward, just because, even though the sensation was there, the experience was there, there was still this emptiness that I felt through that experience, that I wanted to have some degree of actual fulfillment from that was not possible.
Speaker 3Don't love men, especially in the Black community, because it's not so much now as it was before, but in the Black community, and especially Black foreign community, their homosexuality is the biggest sin. You can be a murderer and you'll be forgiven. You can rape someone and you'll be forgiven, but if you are a gay man especially, you'll not be forgiven. So that brings up to the point where there are a lot of, a lot of don't know men which are going out there having sex with men coming home to their wives having sex, just because they are not fulfilled, but they cannot live their truth, and then it becomes a disgrace and so it's really something to talk about so, rel?
Speaker 1what was the tipping point? When did you say I cannot continue this internal battle. I have to be honest with myself, fully honest with myself and my wife, and tell her that I really am just attracted to men.
Speaker 2So my story is kind of odd because I don't know I hope that I wouldn't be, but I don't know if I'd still be married today to a woman had this not occurred In 2008,. I was hearing. What I thought at the time were like two different extreme positions on homosexuality. On one side, you have people saying, if you're gay, you're going to hell, and I'm like, well, I know that's not true. If you're gay, God hates you and this and that. And I knew that I was gay. But I also knew that I was trying to live the life that God wanted me to live, and so I knew I was saved. I knew I had a relationship with God. So I knew that was a lie.
Speaker 2But on the other extreme or at least what I thought was the extreme was people saying that God loves you and God affirms you and he accepts you as a gay person, he affirms your marriages. And I was like, well, that's not true either, right? And so I felt at the time that being gay wasn't a sin. But he chose to act on those desires and attractions. That's where the sin came in. So I thought, well, I'll just bring balance to this and I'll write a book about the topic, and so in beginning to try to write this book, I bought all kinds of books on both sides of the equation. I studied the scriptures about it. Now, this is actually the first time I actually did an in-depth Bible study on this topic. You would think how is that possible? But I just assumed that what I believed was right.
Speaker 1Yeah, you just accepted it, what everybody was telling you.
The Bible Study That Changed Everything
Speaker 2Yes, and I had done studies on all these other topics, but I'd never actually applied those same principles to this issue. And when I did that, what I began to uncover, I was like that's not, that can't be right, right. And ultimately it was a theological shift that broke me free from this, this thing, and that's why I say, if it wasn't for that, for me actually coming to believe that God affirmed me, I'd hate to think that I'd still be trying this even to this day, but I honestly don't know. But that's what it was coming to realize theologically, biblically, that actually God was not opposed to my being gay. That's what was the tipping point.
Speaker 3How did the church take it?
Speaker 2Not well. So I actually came out at our church business meeting in 2008 and let the congregation know that we would be heading toward a path of becoming an affirming church. And no one attacked me, no one did anything like that In the moment. They were very loving and warm and didn't say that they accepted the fact that I was gay, but they were still loving and I appreciated that. But of course, over time, when people start actually making their decisions, they pretty much all left the church for the most part. So, yeah, we pretty much had to build it back up from ground zero, because most of the people did leave.
Speaker 1And I assume you told your wife first before you told the church.
Speaker 2Yeah, A couple of months before that, I had the conversation with her and I told her that the truth right, that I did this study and if now believing that it's not a sin, I don't know what to do with that. But I don't think that it's good for us to live a lie and keep lying to ourselves. And the first thing she said was well, that answers a lot, Because she knew some things that were in our marriage that didn't seem right. Why aren't we intimate that often and things like that. And then she came around. We were sitting on opposite sides of the bed, we were having this conversation and then she got up and she walked around to the other side of the bed and she hugged me as she said I'm not mad at you Now that right there. I mean, I don't even have the words to describe the grace that provided me.
Speaker 2So that was an amazing moment in my life and I'll never forget the grace that she had in that conversation.
Speaker 3Wow, do y'all have children?
Speaker 2We did not. We did not and I honestly, when I think about it, because we did try and I wonder how much more difficult would that have made that process for me. So I'm grateful on the other side that it didn't wind up happening, but I know that in many situations it does happen.
Speaker 1Yeah, we actually had a guest maybe a year or so ago. Was he a pastor? Yeah, and he had this. I don't remember whether he told his wife at the time that they got together. I know some of our other guests have and he came out.
Speaker 1They had two children. They had two sons. He came out. He's now married to a man and does he have custody, or are they just Shared custody? Yes, and it wound up working out. So you never know what's going to happen, but what's meant for you is meant for you, right?
Speaker 2And I really take my hat off to him because that just adds another layer of complexity on top of an already difficult situation.
Speaker 3How did your family take it and her family?
Speaker 2So she wasn't. She didn't have a very strong relationship with her family, so that really wasn't a factor Mine. So my mother knew that I was gay when I was like 17, because one of my exes outed me to her and so she did that. And even during my marriage, because I knew that I was gay when I was like 17, because one of my exes outed me to her and so she knew that. And even during my marriage, because I knew that my mother had convinced herself that I was straight now because I married a woman. And so every now and then, like maybe once a year, I would just randomly say to her I'm still gay, right, Just to like remind her, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to talk about it. It was difficult for her to process it because she was a part of my church as well and she was heartbroken because she felt like I'm losing my daughter-in-law, I'm losing my church, because she felt like she was going to have to leave the church because I can't be a part of this and that's the direction they're going in.
Speaker 2But when I asked the congregation, when I came out, I said I know that I'm coming out now. I really would have preferred to have done this Bible study with you all first, but my wife just kind of wanted to get it over with and so there was no way I was going to ask her to just keep holding on for a few more months. It was already difficult. I didn't want to ask anything else of her, so I kind of did it in the reverse order. But what I did was I asked my congregation do one thing for me, and that is attend this Bible study. I said because you don't know what you don't agree with if you don't hear it first. And I said if after that, if you still feel like you need to leave, I will send you with my blessing. All I ask is come to the Bible class.
Coming Out and Creating The Sanctuary
Speaker 2None of them really did. I think like two people did. That was it. And my mother was one of the ones who did, but she wrestled for a while with it. But actually her journey, her process is just like so amazing. Now she never did actually leave the church and now she's like the biggest ally. Really she is 1,000% affirming Her journey has been wonderful.
Speaker 3It really has, that's amazing and you're currently married, correct.
Speaker 2I am yes.
Speaker 3How did you meet your husband?
Speaker 2We met online on Facebook, and he did, and so I moved him up from Birmingham Alabama.
Speaker 3We met on Facebook too.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, really, yeah, we did In a.
Speaker 3Facebook group.
Speaker 1Yeah, it wasn't a dating group, it was just like a community group area for queer people. So at this point you have been married for 12 years and you are now a father I am.
Speaker 2We have our adopted son. We got him on day one when he was born and he just had a birthday a month ago. Oh wow, in fact one month ago today, that's amazing.
Speaker 1So you haven't had any opportunities or issues that come with when children are older and they start having questions. But how do you think you might tackle that? Or what supports do you have in place or research that you plan to do to kind of help? I mean, you may be in a place that you're in St Louis, you may be in a place I don't know how affirming they are where that's the norm, but you may be in a place where or at a time that's the norm, but you may be in a place where or at a time, I mean with this administration. I mean I'm sure there's a lot that's going on in people's opinion. You're very vocal about these things. So have you thought about how you might address challenges that your son may have with having two fathers?
Speaker 2So we have a wonderful support system in terms of our families. Both of our families mine and my husband's our mothers are involved in our lives and love. They absolutely adore their grandbaby, so we have a great support system in that regard. The church and we have a couple of adoptive parents at our church as well, and so we have people who have been down the process, have gone through that process of adoption. They were able to help us during that part of the journey. We are actually our intention is to homeschool, and so obviously one of the concerns would be the administration or teachers. How would they be able to deal with us being a gay parent or, especially if it's a private school, things like that, and so that's not really something that we have to really concern ourselves with, because that's not the route that we plan to go, but just in terms of being a part of the community that we're a part of.
Family Life and Raising a Son
Speaker 2My husband is the president of the Black Pride St Louis organization, and so there's a support system there, and so he'll be raised in an environment he is being raised, I should say, in an environment where this really is the norm. This is life as we know it. It's just loving people and embracing people for who they are. Loving people and embracing people for who they are. And our goal is to kind of let him explore and ask questions. I'm very big on being an open book and being honest and so as he asks questions, obviously I'll try to present them in an age appropriate manner. But I plan to be honest about any questions that he has and be honest about the world that he lives in and what he can expect from that world. And, yeah, just kind of keep those lines of communication open and what he can expect from that world.
Speaker 1And, yeah, just kind of keep those lines of communication open. So I know you're an author and one of the names of one of your books has really stood out to me. I'd like to hear just like a little bit about what it's about Homosexianity. Is that right? Okay? So what is that book about and what inspired it?
Speaker 2So Homosexianity is actually the first book that I wrote on the topic. So that was the book that I thought was going to bring this wonderful balance to the question of homosexuality. So I still wrote the book. It just wound up being a very different book than I actually anticipated writing. And so in that book I walk everybody through the theology, going to each of the different passages that people often use to condemn gay people, lgbtq plus people. So I go through each of those passages. We talk about same-sex marriage and is that biblical? Go through all of that and then I also journey my own what my own experience was like in the last part of the book, the third part, and just share my personal story.
Speaker 1Okay, so that's a mashup of homosexuality and Christianity.
Speaker 2It is yes.
Speaker 1Okay, all right, and the rebuttal.
Speaker 2So the rebuttal was about gosh over 200, I think footnotes where I took like six different supposedly leading anti-gay theologians, anti-gay pastors, and ripped apart their arguments through their books and provide biblical responses to the arguments that they provide against homosexuality. So I think it's a great resource.
Speaker 1Yeah, that definitely would be definitely going to check that out. And homosexuality and the death of the church.
Speaker 2So this one is much less theological than the others. This is kind of just about the culture and where we are as a Christian church and the idea that homosexuality is probably going to be one of those issues that's going to force the church to really see itself and deal with itself. So my idea in the book is that the church is going to have to die in relation to how it exists now. But there's a passage that talks about how a seed cannot bring forth fruit unless it first goes into the ground and dies. So the idea is that the church itself is going to have to go into the ground and die and then it'll be able to bear fruit for what was always it was always intended to be.
Speaker 1Okay, where can we find these books?
Speaker 2All of them are on Amazon, both the paperback as well as a Kindle format.
Speaker 3Okay, great, I want to shift gears a little bit and a little bit in the political scene, because you're a pastor and you see what's going on with this current administration and in the country. As a pastor, are you seeing more people in the LGBTQ plus community trying to find a safe space, especially within your church, to know that they have a safe space somewhere of belonging that they have?
His Books on Faith and Homosexuality
Speaker 2a safe space, somewhere, of belonging. It's actually, I would say yes and no. The yes is certainly in the sense of there are people who have a root of faith. They were probably, like, raised in the church and this idea of I'm going to try this one more time, but you know this doesn't work. Now I'm done with Christianity, and so I certainly have members of my church who have had that experience, and even in terms of like, currently, right now I think that some people find it how do I say?
Speaker 2Encouraging to know that there are people of faith that are still standing out, using their voice to speak out against what's going on politically.
Speaker 2On the other end, though, I think that there are people who have become so turned off to Christianity because, in many ways, it seems like the evangelical wing are the only ones doing a lot of the talking, and the ones that are on the TV news and the ones that the world is giving a platform to, and so that's why it's important to me to be as vocal as I can be to let people know they do not represent Christianity.
Speaker 2In fact, what they're doing is not Christianity, it's just it's a social movement that's using Christianity as a way of manipulating people into that movement, but it's not what Christianity represents, and so, but unfortunately, there's collateral damage to that Right. Well, that kind of stuff is what justifies that misconception, and it is a misconception. Christianity began in a brown region of the world, right Brown and black region of the world. So, yeah, it's very frustrating because I see that so many people are being turned off to the faith on the basis of what these right-wing, quote-unquote Christians are doing, and so I do as much as I can to push back against that.
Christianity, Politics and Authentic Faith
Speaker 3Okay, I grew up Christian. I grew up very strong Christian, but I am a little bit more the atheist side because of what I've been through. And I don't hate people for their faith or whatever, but I know what I've been through and I know what I've seen and the people that you trust, sometimes most are the people that in the church you know and they are the ones that hurt you the most. So it pushes me away from believing any of that stuff. But I like what you're doing.
Speaker 2I appreciate that. I just I hate that you've had that experience. I really do, because, like I said, I believe the Christianity at its root means something totally different than how it's being misused and abused by so many people. And I made a post, I think, like two weeks ago, on Facebook, and I said I know the old saints used to say this, but I have to say it now you can't have my Jesus, right. You can try to come for my marriage, you can try to come for my family, you can try to come for this, you can try to come for that, and there's so many ways that the Christian church is trying to bastardize, right, but one thing they can't do is they cannot take my faith. They just can't. And so, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2But again, that's what makes it all the more important that people wonder why are you always so critical of the church? It's like every time you get on, you're saying something about the church. I love the church and that's why I criticize it so much, because I know that it has the capacity to be better and to do better. And I also don't like the fact that there are so many affirming churches that are just quietly doing their own thing within their own little silo. I'm like, no, no, these mega fools have a micro, a megaphone, and we have to have one too. So yeah. So in some ways I'm almost like the black sheep, even in the affirming church, because I try to be so I don't say militant, but so unapologetic about what I believe, and so all right yes, right, I love that.
Speaker 3I like I tell people I say I may have my different beliefs now, but the foundation that I got growing up in the church it actually helped me with being a caring person, but I also know that foundation was there. But then you have this nasty discriminatory lies and all of that and I'm like, yeah, I don't want to be a part of this. I don't believe none of what you told me anymore.
Speaker 2Yeah, I can certainly understand it. I can certainly understand it.
Speaker 1Well, Romel, I love what you're doing. I love that you are giving voice to the queer community within the church and showing that faith is not necessarily what right-wing folks have militarized it to be at the root God. Christianity is about love and not judging and forgiveness and all of these good things, and not about the way people have tried to weaponize it and trying to recruit people into the church and into Christianity by capitalizing on their prejudices. That's not what it's supposed to be about. So I love what you're doing.
Speaker 3All right, okay, listeners. There you have it. Rom to be about. So I love what you're doing. All right, okay, listeners. There you have it. Romel Parks Weekly. He's a gay affirming pastor, a husband, a father and the founder of the sanctuary church, and he's also an author. We really enjoy having you on Inquiry Understanding, bringing some useful information and, I'm sure, some ease to some people who really want to explore their faith but think it doesn't align with what they want to do. So thank you so much for being on a queer understanding and I wish you all the best.