A Tale of Two Clerics Q & As with Roy Clements - Part 1

This is the first of my interviews with Dr. Roy Clements. Until 30 September 1999, Roy was heralded as one of the greatest evangelical teachers of his generation. But that day the Times reported he was gay and "leaving his wife for another man". He was instantly cancelled. For more background to his story please see my previous blog linked here.

Your “Formative” Years 1946 to 1979

You were born in 1946, straight after World War Two, growing up in an East End of London rebuilding after the Blitz.  In those days it wasn’t just the evangelical church that had a problem with “homosexuality”, the whole of society did. Throughout your childhood being an active male “homosexual” remained a serious criminal offence. It was only in 1967 (the year I was born and you graduated) when it was decriminalised for men over 21 - when you yourself reached 21. And there was no further legal emancipation or recognition for gay people until decades later. And, whilst society’s attitudes were gradually changing, up to 1983 most of the UK public still considered all same-sex sexual relationships to be wrong.

1.     Many traditionalists say that what causes people to be gay are problems with their relationships with parents as they’re growing up. Can tell us something about your own childhood and relationship with your parents?

My childhood was exceptionally happy. Although my family was poor, my parents were devoted to one another and to their children. My father was a hard-working engineer working for a small firm manufacturing drawing-instruments. My mother was an intelligent woman who had not been allowed to achieve the education of which she was capable by a domineering father. Recognising my academic potential, she was determined that I would suffer no such lack of parental encouragement. 

2.     Looking back, do you recall anything about yourself from your childhood that might have suggested you were gay? Or did anything happen to you in your childhood that might explain why you turned out gay?

I had no awareness of what homosexuality was until my university years. Looking back, I think my unmarried paternal uncle might have been a closet gay. And it was certainly from him I inherited my interest in science. I was a bit of a bookish ‘loner’ at school, with little interest in sport. But I can identify nothing about my personality or early experience that augured the gay man I eventually became in mid-life. In terms of sexual activity, I was a very late developer, being focussed entirely on my academic work until after graduation. My reading consisted exclusively of science and (after my conversion) conservative Christian literature. I personally knew no one who admitted to being gay, and I cannot remember ever talking about the subject. If I had been asked after I became a Christian, I’m sure I would have parroted the teaching of the very few IVP books that mentioned it at that time, namely that ‘homosexual’ described a sinful action not an intrinsic orientation. The question ‘Am I a homosexual?’ therefore never arose. 

3.     Many gay men and women say that from their early adolescence they were first aware of same-sex romantic or sexual attraction and an absence of that sort of attraction to the opposite sex. (The subjects of my earlier blogs, Vicky Beeching and Brandi Carlile, both describe this). What, if any, attraction did you experience towards either sex as a teenager?

I was a late developer; I was completely uninterested in sex at school. And even at university, though I discovered that I was quite attractive to girls, I made no attempt capitalise on my popularity by finding a girlfriend. My first romantic experience was with a girl just after I graduated. As for relationships with the male sex, I was totally oblivious to what it meant to be gay. I was aware of a physical attraction to one or two other male students, but I just did not recognise this as sexual, though I now think it undoubtedly was. As I say, as far as sex went, I was a very naif late developer!

4.     Please briefly describe what led you to your faith in Jesus and what he came to mean to you.

From the age of 9, I had been a self-declared atheist, much to my mother’s embarrassment. She was a nominal Anglican, and I think she found my atheism lacking in social respectability. I was sent to an Anglican Sunday School, from which I played truant, using my ‘penny for the collection’ to buy chewing gum. She even asked my primary school headmaster to try to change my mind about God’s existence. An utterly unsuccessful interview!

It was not until my later years at grammar school that she found an ally in her mission. A former London City Missionary called George Hogg had come to our part of Stratford as minister of Gurney Road Strict Baptist Church. He made a practice of knocking on the doors of his self-defined ‘parish’, and when my mother thus met him, she at once asked him to return when her notoriously atheistic son was at home. His opening gambit with me was remarkably clever. Quickly discerning my adolescent scientific atheism, he suggested that if I really wanted to prove the Christians at my school were wrong, I should read the Bible. In this way I could gather evidence of its internal contradictions, historical errors and general scientific ignorance to floor them in debate. I thought this was a remarkably good idea! I asked him where he thought I should begin my study? His reply was ‘the Gospel of John’! I knew no better and so accepted his advice.

To cut a long story short, I found myself hypnotised by the Jesus I encountered there. For at least two years I remained adamantly in denial about the inner conviction that was growing in my mind and heart as a result of my private Bible study. But secretly I began to borrow books by C. S. Lewis from the school library. Eventually, rather as Lewis himself describes in his autobiography, I gave in – a ‘most reluctant convert’. It was not so much a decision as a surrender. My life was radically transformed as a result, and from being the bȇte noir of my RE teacher, I became a passionate advocate for the Christian faith in my sixth-form class. Imagine my delight when I got to university and discovered the Christian Union!

5.     How did (and does) your understanding of the world as a scientist fit in with your Christian beliefs?

Initially of course, science was my first line of defence as an atheist. But as I learned more, this began to crumble. I began to see that the much-discussed relationship between science and faith was much more like a parallel journey than a collision.  I discovered there were some very eminent scientists who were also evangelical Christians. I realised that the literary genre of Genesis chapter one was crucial to its interpretation. And whatever that genre was, in the absence of human observers, it could not be read as either a scientific description or a historical report. I began to realise that the hypothesis of faith in God might actually deepen my appreciation of science rather than contradict it. Creation was a far more intellectually satisfying explanation of the amazing complexity of the universe and of human life than random interactions between elementary particles. There have been some very celebrated scientific atheists, of course, but I discovered that the intellectual roots of atheism were actually embedded in the social sciences and philosophy rather than physics and chemistry.  

6.     You describe yourself both then and now as an evangelical – a word now much used and abused! What do you mean by that term?

I agree the word ‘evangelical’ seems to mean different things to different people these days. But for me, it has always come down to a shared commitment to the authority of the Bible in defining the content of a person’s faith. If evangelicals differ, therefore, (and they certainly do!) it can only be because they interpret the Bible in different ways. As a result, I believed (and still do) that shared Bible study provides a common platform for meaningful debate and an unbroken experience of spiritual fellowship in spite of intellectual disagreements. 

7.      During this period what was your understanding of “homosexuality”? What did you think caused it? And what was your understanding then of what the Bible taught about “homosexuality” and same-sex relationships?

I gave no serious thought to the subject of homosexuality until after my university years. My senior evangelical Christian mentors treated it as a sin to which some were particularly tempted. As to why they were morally vulnerable in this way, I don’t think I had a firm opinion. Homosexuals had chosen to behave in a way the Bible forbad, like thieves and murderers.

8.     How did you meet Jane, your ex-wife? What sort of feelings did you have for her when you met? How did your feelings for her develop leading up to your marriage? Why did you marry her?

Jane was the sister of a good friend of mine at Nottingham University. We met when she visited him at university, and again after graduation when I was invited by her mother to speak at her church youth group. She was a very good-looking girl, but her main attraction for me was that she enjoyed something I had always envied – a Christian family. In the period after graduation when I returned to London for my PhD studies at Imperial College, I began deliberately to look for a girl to marry. This seemed to me the responsible ‘Christian’ thing to do. As my sense of calling to Christian ministry developed, I felt an evangelical Christian wife would be indispensable. I knew, though I had little or no active sexual experience, that I did not have the gift of chastity. I thought that what I felt for Jane was what others meant by ‘being in love’. Actually it fell far short of that. I did my best, as a considerate husband, to meet her sexual needs. And I think, for a long while I was successful. But as far as my own sexual needs were concerned, I realise now, with hindsight and great regret, that my sexual experience with Jane was closer to narcissistic masturbation than true inter-personal love. I lacked any of the sexual/romantic desire for intimacy with her that I later experienced for the man I fell in love with.