A Tale of Two Clerics "The Rise and Fall of Roy Clements" Roy's Story Part 3 1992-1999 The Longer Read

Introduction

These were the years when the internet and his brother, “smart phone”,  took their first baby steps before becoming the striding giants we know today. It was also the era of “Britpop” – Oasis, Blur, the Spice Girls, Euro 96 when England so nearly “brought football home”, and a time when Diana ruled as our “princess of Hearts” until that tragic day in August 1997.

It was a mixed time for the acceptance of same-sex relationships. 1992 finally consigned to history the WHO classification of  “homosexuality” as a mental illness. Between 1994 and 1999 Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Hungary, the Netherlands, France and Vermont, USA all gave legal blessing to same-sex unions. In 1997 43 million viewers watch the Ellen de Generes  come out as gay on prime time television. In the church, a few individual churches like Riverside Baptist Church broke with the mainstream to fully include their gay brothers and sisters. And in 1995 the United Church of Canada published Together in Faith: Inclusive Resources for same-sex covenants.

But here in the UK change came slowly. In 1994 the age of sexual consent for gay men was lowered from 21 to 18. But disappointingly, Tony Blair’s first new Labour government elected in 1997 kept in place the infamous “Section 28” prohibiting the "promotion" of homosexuality. And it did not follow the example of our European neighbours in legislating for same-sex civil unions. Meanwhile, in 1998 the Anglican Church’s bishops passed a resolution many saw as contradictory: condemning the “irrational fear of homosexuals" and encouraging the church to “listen to gay Christians”, but rejecting “homosexual practice” and same-sex unions as “incompatible with Scripture".

For Roy these years were turbulent times of both great success and great suffering. By 1992 he was well aware that he was gay. This had only been revealed to him through the shock epiphany of falling in love with another man six years earlier. Until then Roy had believed himself to be a happily married straight man and father of three. It was all part of the picture of the well-respected pastor blessed by God with an increasingly fruitful ministry.

But now Roy had discovered a fundamental flaw in that painting. He’d scratched beneath the top layer of paint to see the true original: he was a gay man with an intrinsic need for an intimate male life-partner. This put Roy in a fundamentally weak position: he had a basic human need that he dare not fulfil or even admit to or he would remove the foundations of his whole life and ministry. Hence the tortuous decision to end that forbidden relationship.

But amazingly, whilst the weakness of his situation brought him great pain, through that weakness God worked powerfully in him. He’d already had a fruitful ministry, but it only reached its full extent after he learned he was gay. Until that first gay heartbreak Roy had not published a single book in his own name, his first being Introducing Jesus in 1986.

Four more followed in the years up to 1992. But it was after 1992 that Roy’s teaching really flourished. Between 1993 and 1998 he published nine books. It seems to me no coincidence that nearly all those books were only written after 1993 when Roy had fallen in love for the second time; with Chris, his joy and his nemesis: the man who would be the great human love of Roy’s life but whose relationship with Roy finally brought about that great crash of his world.

The 1999 “obituary” to Roy’s career in the Christian Herald noted that during this same period Roy had become, “A regular speaker at major events such as Keswick, Spring Harvest, Word Alive, At Work Together and many other international conferences,” and “gained a reputation as possibly the UK’s most incisive Bible expositor. His books have been widely acclaimed, his sermon tapes frequently passed on. His resignation from ministry is a severe blow to the evangelical community in particular, where he was a consistent bridge between conservative and charismatic, with great respect from both camps.”

I believe two of the earlier books Roy wrote during this period reveal how God was working through Roy during this time.

In Songs Of Experience (1993), Roy taught us how to relate God with our emotions. Biblically, Roy used Psalms as his “touchstone”, taking us “inside the mind of the psalmist” who “seethed with intense emotions yet profoundly felt God's presence.” But, for Roy, it was the ecstasy and agony of that first gay heartbreak which had ended his “emotional constipation”. This flood of new emotions smashed through his intellectual dam, forcing him to bring those new emotions to his God. (See Part 2 where Roy discusses this experience.)

In The Strength of Weakness: How God Uses our Flaws to Achieve His Goals (1994), Roy explored how, rather than relying on their own strengths, Christian leaders can allow God to work through their inadequacies, finding spiritual strength in human fragility. Scripturally, Roy took his cue from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, including Paul’s own weakness - the “thorn in the flesh” which God refused to remove to keep him from “becoming conceited”.  For Roy, the great weakness in his life which God had used was his need for a love whose name he dared not speak – for another man. And by this time that man was Chris. The painful yet joyful feelings around that relationship forced Roy to lean more heavily on his God, deepening his relationship with Him.

That 1999 Christian Herald “obituary” had noted, “we’re reminded that leaders are ordinary fragile men and women.” But what I and most other evangelicals had then misunderstood was that Roy’s particular “fragility” was not in itself a sin, although almost inevitably it did lead to sin. It was the fragility of Roy unexpectedly finding himself in an excruciating impossible situation: a middle-aged man married to a woman suddenly discovering himself to be gay and in love with another man. Indeed, as we’ll see, in finding himself in that awful situation, over a few years Roy tried his hardest to carefully manage an exit that would do the least harm to everyone: his wife, his family, his church, Chris and himself. But then someone rammed a juggernaut into those plans and in one blow it all came tumbling down.

My Q & As with Roy

1.    When did you first share with anyone else that you thought evangelicals had misunderstood God’s mind about homosexuality?

After the discovery of my gay orientation, I struggled for several years to decide where I stood on the moral debate about homosexuality. Intellectual  integrity had always been of enormous importance to me. I was all too aware of the temptation to change my mind on the issue just to rationalise my own sinful desires. I came firmly to a revisionist conclusion around 1990 and the first people I confided in were a handful of gay Christians with whom I had discussed the matter or who had sought my advice as a pastor.

2      Before you’d met Chris, what thoughts did you have about your future? At what point, if any, would you have revealed your sexuality? Did you plan to stay married to Jane if possible?

Resolving the ethical question was immensely challenging because I realised from the start that it had huge implications for my future. Long before I met Chris I had decided I would have to leave Eden eventually. I could see no prospect of changing my church’s position on homosexuality. Quite the contrary; in the early ‘90s, under the influence of some leading Anglicans, the reformed evangelical community to which we belonged was moving rapidly towards treating the traditional Christian view on the matter as a ‘defining issue’ by which evangelicals as group distinguished themselves from liberals and Catholics. Dissent on my part would be very divisive and admission of my own gay orientation would cause enormous shock. I knew I did not have the gift of lifelong celibacy. So I had the choice of remaining silent and permanently ‘ in the closet’, or of ‘coming out’ and leaving the Christian ministry. I decided the latter course was the only one I could countenance in the longer term.

However, there were three practical matters that had to be considered, and all imposed delay.

First, I was anxious to minimise the collateral damage done to my church. I had seen how Eden had floundered during the pastor-less period that preceded my arrival. I did not want all the progress we had made, especially with students, to be dissipated by another long interregnum. So I set the wheels in motion to seek an associate who I was confident could succeed me without any damaging interruption when the time was right. Unfortunately, as I rather feared, it proved immensely difficult to find suitable candidates and gain the necessary approval of the church members for such an additional ministerial appointment.

There was also, of course, the effect of my ‘coming out’ on my family to consider. I recognised the moral duty attached to my marriage vow. I loved my children, the youngest of whom had only just started school. And I wanted, as Jane’s husband, to meet her needs the best I could. She had done nothing that could justify my divorcing her. But revealing myself to be gay would certainly give her grounds to divorce me in the eyes of many. I did not want her decision on that, when it became necessary, to be constrained by financial issues or by the age of our children. So I determined to make sure she had property and employment that would enable her to be independent if that was her wish. And I accepted the long wait until my youngest son had at least reached his mid- teens.

Finally, there were my own needs to consider. It would be disingenuous to claim that sexual frustration had no effect on me. Having experienced gay love and lost it, I felt an intense longing for an intimate male friend. As the years passed, I found it increasingly difficult to sustain the sexual side of my marriage. My wife was naturally disappointed in me and interpreted my problem as midlife male impotence. She insisted I go to the GP for a course of testosterone pills. But that of course made the real problem worse! I had met other married gay men who had decided to stay ‘in the closet’ and I knew the struggles they experienced there. I resigned myself to the fact that for a considerable period of time I would have to join their number.

3.     How did you come to meet Chris? And how did you come to fall in love with him?

Chris was a Malaysian undergraduate at Jesus College in the second year of his Economics degree. On the advice of friends in the Chinese Christian Fellowship, he sought my pastoral counsel in 1993 over the emotional conflict he was experiencing. He had known he was homosexual from childhood, but his conversion to Christianity had led to serious inner conflict. When I first met him he was severely depressed – perhaps even suicidal. I sent him to his GP for medication and instructed him to come and see me every week to talk through his anxiety. It was in the course of the resulting friendship that I fell in love with him.

4.    How would you describe the nature of your relationship with Chris at this point? Did it develop any physical dimension whilst you were still with Jane?

I was very conscious of the 20+ years disparity in our ages and initially I thought it impossible that my feelings for him would be reciprocated. When he did eventually express his love I was overwhelmed. A dam of suppressed desire inside me broke. Yes, there was physical expression of our love but with limits. I will say no more than that.

5.    What, if any, effect did this new romantic friendship have on your future plans and your relationship with Jane?

From my point of view, it had happened far too soon. I was candid with Chris that my commitment to my marriage and my church meant our love would have to be a closely guarded secret for a very long while. My relationship with Jane had for some time lacked any actively sexual component, but she seemed content with our situation and I was determined to make her as happy as I could until the right time for my ‘coming out’ became clear. As it turned out, that time did not arrive until 1999.

6.    What plans did you have for your career after Eden?

For a long while I avoided thinking about the issue. My preaching ministry was proving increasingly fruitful and personally fulfilling. I was loth to consider giving it up. In the late 90’s, however, I did identify one area where I felt, even as an openly gay Christian, I might still continue to use my gifts in God’s service: namely, the public understanding of science. It was a time when prominent scientists like Stephen Hawkings and Richard Dawkins were promoting atheism in the media. I felt the evangelical response to their challenge was pusillanimous and often ill-informed. I relished the prospect of getting involved in the scientific debate about God as a journalist and public speaker. But my academic focus had been on biblical hermeneutics for a long time. I felt I would need a year or two to study the advances in theoretical physics and biology that Hawkings and Dawkins were exploiting before I could hope to construct a Christian apologetic to counter their influence.

7.    Why did your romantic relationship with Chris initially come to an end and at whose instigation?

After graduating with a good degree, Chris very much wanted to stay in Cambridge so our friendship could continue to develop. He accepted my suggestion of doing economics research, earning his M.Phil. and aiming for a doctorate. But his heart was never really in academia; he was just marking time until I felt able to ‘come out’. Eventually, his patience just ran out. He met a gay businessman living near Cambridge who had none of the church and marital ties that were still limiting my freedom of action. He ended our relationship and moved in with him.

8.    Describe your feelings on splitting up with Chris.

I was utterly distraught. I had never experienced such intense emotional distress. I do not weep easily, but in private I howled for my loss.

9.    How did this affect your thinking for the future in terms of your career and your relationship with Jane?

I felt I had asked too much of Chris. He needed to find his future path and it was unreasonable to expect him to wait for me indefinitely. I had no confidence that I could win him back but I did believe in the permanence of our love. I decided I could not delay my ‘coming out’ much longer. The church had now found an associate pastor, so one of my major concerns had been met. I signalled to my elders that I planned to leave Eden in his capable hands on Easter Sunday 1999. I  was accepted at Westminster University to do a Masters degree by thesis in the Public Understanding of Science commencing in September 1999. The finance for this two years of study was generously provided by a Christian Trust associated with St Helens Church, Bishopsgate. I had been praying unceasingly about how and when I should make my gay orientation public. I felt strongly it should be after my departure from Eden, but as that time passed I still hesitated.

12.  How did your wife finally discover that you were gay?

In the providence of God, my hesitation was overruled by events. My wife and I had gone for a weekend away in the early Summer 1999. We discussed how the coming change in our circumstances would affect us. Out of the blue, she asked about Chris. She knew him well because for a couple of years he had acted as the live-in carer for her widowed mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s dementia. He had kindly volunteered to do this when he heard that the illness meant she could no longer safely live alone. When Jane asked her question, of course, he had left that caring role in order to join his new gay partner. Not unnaturally, Jane was curious about his new living arrangements. In the course of the conversation that followed, she for the first time asked about the nature of my own relationship with and feelings for Chris. I felt this was clearly the moment for which I had been praying.

13.  What was your response to her questions and what was her own immediate response to your answers?

I told her everything. As I fully expected, she was totally devastated.

14.  After over 25 years of marriage and three children I imagine this revelation must have come like a punch to the gut to her. What understanding do you have of the emotions and thoughts she went through at that time?

I felt the deepest compassion for Jane. She had done absolutely nothing wrong. Yet, as you say, she had been dealt this savage blow. I assured her that I had no intention of deserting her. But I also made clear that I intended to ‘come out’ at some point in the future. We returned home to Cambridge in a state of considerable uncertainty about how she wished to deal with the situation.

15.  Who did she consult about what she should do? What advice was she given and what proposals for your future did she put to you?

I had no direct influence on whom she consulted, though I did strongly recommend that she talked to someone. I later deduced from communications I received that two of her confidants were Sir Fred Catherwood  [Conservative MEP and President of the Evangelical Alliance] and John Stott [probably the leading British evangelical teacher of the time] . I assume it was at their suggestion that she put the following proposal to me.

She said she would consent to continue living with me but only if three conditions were met:

1.    I must agree to keep my homosexuality a permanent secret known only to her and our closest friends.

2.    I must agree to attend a course of therapy designed to cure my homosexual feelings.

3.    I must promise to have absolutely no more social contact with homosexuals. This ban specifically included Chris.

If I was unwilling to accept these terms, then I should leave her and be aware that the reason for our separation would be made public.

16.  What, if any, consultations or advice did you yourself have at that time?

I exchanged correspondence with John Stott, who was I think at that time having his Summer break in Pembrokeshire.

Fred Catherwood also asked to see me. They reinforced Jane’s proposal and Fred added his own rider. He offered to explain my withdrawal from public ministry to the media as due to a nervous breakdown requiring rest and medical treatment.

17.  How did you respond to her demands? What, if any, counter-proposals did you make?

I agreed to her condition 2, though I made plain that I was familiar with the kind of courses she had in mind and had absolutely no confidence in their efficacy.

In regard to her condition 1, I said that I felt I could not continue ‘in the closet’ indefinitely. However, in order to give her a chance to come to terms with what had clearly been an immense shock, I would agree to a further two years of silence. During this period, I would pursue my Masters at Westminster University and seek opportunities to develop my new life as a journalist focussing on science and religion. At the end of the two years, I reserved the right to make my gay orientation public and she would have to decide whether our marriage would continue.

A number of our close friends realised that something was seriously wrong. I was not prepared to endorse Fred Catherwood’s suggested ruse, so they would have to be told the truth and asked to keep the matter entirely confidential.

As for her condition 3, I said that I simply could not accept it. She would have to trust me enough to believe that my having gay friends was not a threat to our marriage. In particular, Chris remained my closest gay friend. He had his own partner but would always be special to me. I agreed not to see him often, but I could not promise to abandon him completely.

18.  What outcome were you ultimately hoping to achieve from your counter-proposals ? If she’d accepted these, realistically how do you think things would have turned out?

I knew of one or two married gay Christians who were not in the closet. They had come to some kind of accommodation or understanding with their wives. I guess I thought I owed Jane the chance to find a similar solution. But, if I’m honest, I knew her well enough to have profound doubts about the likelihood of that. She was very homophobic, and the Christian leaders she respected reinforced her prejudices. I could not imagine her ever being happily married to me as an ‘out’ gay man.

19.   How long did you have to wait for her response to your counter-proposals? What form did that response take?

These negotiations took place during the early Summer of 1999, after my final Easter sermon at Eden. As Jane was not prepared to live in the same house with me, I was lodging with a gay Christian postgraduate who kindly offered me a room.

After giving my verbal response to Jane’s proposal and my meeting with Fred Catherwood, I decided that close friends had to be told what was going on. I sent a private confidential letter to about twenty people who I felt should not be kept any longer in the dark, even if Jane accepted my suggested two-year counter-proposal. The response to this was swift and uncompromising. My entire story, including a large photograph, appeared on page 3 of The Times newspaper! Enquiries indicated that the Times had been given the information by The Evangelical Alliance.

The Times Story

Jeremy’ s comment:

I remember reading the story in the Times 27 years ago – Evangelical leader leaves his wife for another man - and “story” is very much the operative word here! (I couldn’t find a copy of the Times piece but copy below the Christianity Today article based on it).

When I read this I was still a very conservative evangelical who had much admired Roy’s ministry from when I was a student. I remember being very shocked and remarking how “Satan can get to even the best of us”. But my wife, Hannah, whom Roy had baptised 11 years earlier was less shocked and judgmental. She often has a “sixth sense” about people that I lack. From meeting Roy up close in baptism classes she’d always suspected he might be gay based on his gentle slightly feminine manner.

What neither of us knew was that the story as published was hugely inaccurate.  It painted a picture of a man suddenly deciding to leave his wife and four kids for another man, throwing her to the wolves without home or livelihood. The true facts, as Roy explained them above, couldn’t have been more different: Roy did not “leave his wife for another man”; she  made him leave when he admitted his feelings for another man. But that man was by then in a relationship with someone else. So Roy had no expectation of leaving his wife “for” him. And, as he explains below, financially he was the one who lost out: he had made sure she was financially secure without making any provision for himself. There were also only three children, only one of whom – a teenager- still lived at home.  As a lawyer I would have advised Roy that he had a cast iron case against the Times for libel for which the significant damages could have given him much better financial security! But being the gracious man he is, Roy would never have contemplated this.

20.   What were the immediate consequences of this very public outing?

The most troubling immediate consequence was that the tabloid press quickly jumped on the bandwagon, sensing no doubt a popular scandal. I was grateful that I had kept my current Cambridge address secret, for numerous reporters under a variety of aliases pursued my family and friends in a vain attempt to track me down.

I was given no opportunity to explain myself to our children. My daughter was 24, and had recently qualified as a doctor. My older son was 20. Both were making their way in the world as independent adults. Only my youngest was still at home – he was I think 14.

I subsequently learnt that my main publisher, IVP, had ordered all my books to be destroyed, and instructed booksellers to deface and return their stocks as ‘damaged goods’.

The Christian trust that had generously offered to finance my two-year Masters course withdrew its support. As a result I had to decline my offer from Westminster University and very urgently seek some other way to make a living in the future.

I had made sure that Jane owned a property in Cambridge, was free of debt, had her own car, and well-paid employment as a nurse/midwife. But my own finances were far less secure. I had just a car and a small amount of cash to my name.

21.  Looking back at it now, many would say the way Sir Fred and your wife treated you was very cruel: suddenly outing you so publicly (and inaccurately), and without even giving you the chance to explain yourself to your children. Did or do you blame your wife or Sir Fred for what they did?

I don’t blame Jane or any of those who advised her. They were, I am sure, obeying their consciences. No one should ever be blamed for doing that. 

22.   Others might say you had brought all this upon yourself through your own sin. Even those who hold an affirming view might say that regardless of your sexual orientation, you had entered a lifelong covenant with your wife. “What God has joined together, let not man separate”. To honour that covenant should you not have ended your relationship with Chris as soon as you recognised the romantic feelings developing between you? How would you respond to such criticism?

I fully accept that allowing myself to develop an intimate relationship with Chris was a breach of my marriage vow. In an earlier age, the path of duty and respectability would certainly have been to live in denial of my homosexuality and do the best job I could as Jane’s husband. In mitigation, I can only say that such moral high ground was beyond my reach.

When I married, I honestly had no idea I was gay. I believed what I am now convinced is a dangerous lie – that homosexuality is a choice about how a person behaves. It isn’t – it is the truth about what some of us are by nature. Those who discover they are gay in mid-life after marrying in ignorance are faced with a difficult moral dilemma. I felt I could not in good conscience go on indefinitely promoting the lie that was responsible for my reckless marriage. I had a responsibility to the gay community and to Chris, as well as to my family. I did not have the gift of lifelong celibacy. St Paul’s advice that it is ‘better to marry than to burn with lust’ (1 Corin7:9) applies just as much to those whose sex drive is gay-oriented as to the straight majority. I  felt I had to ‘come out’ and give myself at least the chance of a sexually fulfilling relationship. I hope I would have had the courage to do that, even if there had been no Chris in my life.

 Let me stress also that I did not plan to leave my wife or make any provision for that outcome. She refused to live with me as a man who identified as gay and eventually took the initiative to divorce me on the grounds of my ‘unreasonable behaviour’. That was her choice, and as I say, I in no way blame her for it. Neither do I exculpate myself. I confess to breaking my marital vow. I am truly sorry for the hurt that this sin caused my wife and children. But I feel that those Christian mentors who told me as a young man the dangerous lie about homosexuality share my guilt. Like them, I trust in the atoning sacrifice of Christ as my only hope. I am a ‘debtor to mercy alone’. Thank God! ‘My Saviour’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.’ (https://hymnary.org/text/a_debtor_to_mercy_alone)

A Happier Ending?

Thankfully, this was not the end of Roy’s story. As we’ll see in Part 4, in His mercy God had marked out a happier time for Roy. But it was far from a Disney picture perfect happiness. It was the happiness of a life finally lived out honestly as the person he truly was, shared with the life-partner with whom he could enjoy the full extent of human love. And for Roy as a gay man that had to be with another man. But it was a happiness mixed with much sadness and loss.