A Tale of Two Singers – Part Three “Undivided” Vicky Full version

Vicky Beeching's Story

Despite still being very unwell, Vicky kindly checked and approved this blog .Thank you, Vicky! For a summary version of this piece please click here

Vicky Beeching’s story is one the Church would do well to learn from. It shows us how when the Church rejects LGBTQ+ folk’s sexuality and need for a same-sex life-partner, we breach Jesus’s ultimate law of love (Mark 3:4) by doing deep harm and destroying life. By stark contrast, Brandi Carlile's story shows that when the Church affirms queer people and their chosen life-partners it does great good and preserves life in abundance.  (See link here )

Until 14 August 2014, Vicky Beeching had been a “poster girl for evangelical Christianity”. Nearly all evangelical Christians used to sing her great songs. But that day everything changed. Aged still only 35, she announced, “I’m gay. God loves me the way I am.”  And so that day they stopped singing her songs.

Just four years earlier in 2010, we’d heard Vicky headlining the Big Top at Spring Harvest. She’d just released her most successful, rockiest album, Eternity Invades.  Beautiful, powerful music - Vicky's velvet voice lead us in worship to our God: Break our Hearts, Yesterday, Today and Forever,  and Glory to God. Sincere, intelligent words of worship from someone leaning heavily into and onto her Saviour. Still only 30, Vicky seemed to be confidently striding towards her musical mountain top.

But none of us in that audience knew she’d already started suffering from serious autoimmune disease and her brand new album would be her last. Also hidden from us was the likely trigger for those diseases – an evangelical teaching that no one at Spring Harvest seemed to question then – not even Steve Chalke!

Vicky was born just two years before Brandi Carlile. Like Brandi, growing up Vicky was a natural tomboy who loved running through fields and rivers, and never wanted to wear dresses! Both were clearly also very bright young girls. From early childhood they shared two other things: faith in Jesus and musical talent - both God-gifted with golden voices.

But their family backgrounds were quite different. Brandi’s was impoverished, chaotic, almost nomadic. Vicky’s was blanketed in a comfortable, secure, loving home. Brandi’s family faith heritage was a patchwork of different beliefs and unbeliefs. Vicky was the granddaughter of missionaries, birthed into a faithful, vibrant, loving church family, steeped in charismatic evangelical certainty. Brandi’s childhood was a struggle with illness and anxiety, Vicky’s was happy and “care free”.

Their contrasting backgrounds should have given Vicky much better life-chances than Brandi. And their education results certainly pointed that way. “Perfect pupil” Vicky was always top of the class and graduated from Oxford with a Masters degree in Theology. Brandi didn’t even graduate from high school.

Yet by their early 40s things had turned out quite differently. Brandi had gone from the sickly, anxious, poor child to the highly successful, happily married mother of two. Vicky had gone from the healthy, happy, secure child to the seriously ill, unemployed, single woman. Brandi on her mountain top, Vicky stuck in her dark valley.

And the cause of those surprising outcomes? Two very different church teachings about gay sexuality that each had lived their lives by.

I know God has done, is doing and will do great things through Vicky. But how much more might He have done but for the damage inflicted by the false teaching I and my fellow evangelicals had embraced?

Like Brandi, by her early teens, Vicky had discovered two things: she was musically gifted, and she was gay - quietly dazzled by the beauty of other girls. At 14, she fell deeply in love with a friend—but it was a love she could never dare act upon or even speak about. Because the Bible, as she and her church read it, taught her such feelings were sinful – part of the “abomination” of “homosexuality”. So she buried these feelings deep where no one could find them. And that first bitter teenage taste of romantic love set a painful pattern for her next 20 years - secretly falling in love with women she could never touch.

Throughout her teens Vicky desperately sought to “pray away the gay” and be “healed” straight. Despite being an evangelical, she even tried confession to a Catholic priest. Then, aged 16, she sought “release” from her “homosexuality” at a Christian summer camp. One evening, she heard a young red-headed woman bravely share how God had “set her free from the sin of homosexuality.” This gave Vicky the hope and courage to step forward. Several people fervently prayed for Vicky’s exorcism - to be “released” from her own gay “demons”.

But nothing changed, even after she tried fasting too. Vicky was stuck; blessed with a bright mind and beautiful voice but “cursed” to be gay.

And unlike Brandi Carlile, Vicky was no rebel. She sought to be the “perfect pupil”; not just at school but in her whole life as a follower of Jesus. God’s “truth” about “homosexuality” didn’t change just because her own sexuality didn’t change.

So, Vicky threw herself into her studies and her music, which took her to Wycliffe College, Oxford University to study theology and to lead worship at Oxford Vineyard Church. She there tried dating very eligible Christian men, but failed to generate any romantic spark. Then she saw something that confirmed the impossibility of her sexuality changing. One evening, while visiting one of the other Oxford colleges, she watched two women locked in a romantic embrace.

She was shocked to discover one of them was the very same red-head who’d boldly testified Jesus had “freed” from her “homosexuality”. She was now that college’s LGBTQ student rep!

Vicky’s theology studies gave her new tools to better understand Scripture. She recognised how the church had changed its biblical interpretations when new evidence and situations arose, e.g. with evolution, astronomy, slavery and women. She even discovered a clear scriptural case for accepting gay people’s sexuality and relationships. But any notion that God might embrace her own gay sexuality she had to keep double-locked in her mind’s attic. Because this would cut her off from the wonderful work she now felt God calling her to -  an evangelical songwriter and worship leader. The “morality” clauses that went with a Christian music contract made any admission of gay sexuality a complete no-go. She could embrace her glorious mission or her gay sexuality; not both.

After a short musician’s internship at her Vineyard church, she was awarded a UK Christian record contract. Soon after, she was talent-spotted and signed up to a US Christian music label. She relocated to the States, the land of music-loving mega churches.

For seven years, she pursued a successful career as a Christian music artist and worship leader. She played to congregations of thousands at mega churches and conferences, releasing two EPs and three full studio albums. It was wonderful yet often tortuous. As a Brit in a foreign country, Vicky describes a lonely, rootless life: punishing performance schedules, constant flights, poor sleep, high stress and surprisingly little income. It would have been demanding enough even without her secret struggles. And one great comfort that helped many of her fellow Christian musicians was denied her - the support of a Christian spouse. Vicky yearned for this but the only people she fell in love with were strictly off-limits – other women.

Unsurprisingly, as an attractive, talented young woman, Vicky wasn’t short of potential male suitors. One fellow musician fell deeply in love with her. She dared not tell him the real reason for her lack of romantic interest. With no convincing explanation for his rejection, his obsessive love turned very nasty with threats to rape and kill her and injunctions taken out against him. How much pain and suffering would they both have avoided if church teaching had affirmed same-sex orientation and marriage?

Listening now to some of Vicky’s song lyrics I believe you can hear a hidden depth to the words we were deaf to - the sense of shame and impurity over her gay sexuality conflicting with the traditionalist teaching she’d been emersed in, a longing for Jesus to miraculously change her sexuality or make her so dedicated to Him as her divine lover that she had no need for a human one. She threw herself into the warmth of God’s arms to escape the cold loneliness of her place in the human world:

"Father, You are my shelter, my place to rest and hide..." (Shelter)

"Search me, O God, search me and find any way in me

that does not reflect your purity..." (Search Me)

"Brokenness has brought me to my knees

Face to face with all that's dark in me

I can barely see You through my shame

Jesus come and wash me white again…” (Undivided Heart)

But like most of us, Vicky wasn’t gifted with celibacy. God had wired her for life with an intimate human companion. And in Vicky’s case He’d also wired her gay, so that companion needed to be another woman. Hence her continued secretly falling in love with other women. Her musical contemporary Brandi Carlile had just the same need. But Brandi accepted and embraced how God had made her and wasn’t going to let a false Church teaching stop her. So, ultimately, Brandi was able to find happiness with her wife, Catherine, whilst still having an intimate relationship with God.

But to pursue her own career, Vicky had to force herself to live against her own nature, hiding her sexuality, and throwing herself into her mission, closing herself off from others. Yet living this unnatural way was inevitably poisoning her from the inside.

2009 proved a turning point in Vicky’s life, just as it did in a very different way for Brandi Carlile – the year Brandi was baptised. For Vicky it was the year the poison finally broke out.

One episode graphically illustrates this. Vicky was heartbroken after she’d just witnessed a friend she’d secretly fallen in love marry her fiancé. Vicky says, “this inner struggle with my sexuality and the incessant cycle of broken-heartedness had brought me to the point of breakdown.” Standing at the edge of an underground platform, “I knew if I moved another inch forward, at just the right second, I could step out onto the tracks as the train thundered into the station. It could all be over.”  It would have been a literal illustration of how false Church teaching can destroy life. But at the last moment, something stopped her.

Not long afterwards, Vicky noticed a white scar on her forehead. She was diagnosed with scleroma, an autoimmune disorder which turned soft tissue into scar tissue. Doctors advised the condition was usually caused by severe psychological stress. Vicky had endured years of extreme stress from hiding her gay sexuality, illustrated by this near-suicide event. Now she saw the physical damage this had done, she realised she couldn’t go on living like this. She moved back to the UK to get NHS treatment. She also recognised that to avoid crashing herself she would have to crash her musical career by finally revealing her sexuality. She resolved to do this in five years’ time, which she did on 14 August 2014.

Her revelation brought an end to her music career, but God re-purposed her life for good - through Vicky sharing her story as a gay Christian and through five years of award-winning LGBTQ campaigning work. This culminated in Vicky’s bravely honest 2018 autobiography, Undivided.

Vicky explains there how she chose the title from her song Undivided Heart:  “Originally the words had been a prayer that I’d be set free from my gay orientation. But since coming out, I’d made my peace with the song and had come to see it in a new way – as a song about wholeness, about holding on to both my faith and my sexuality …. The title .. summed up where my journey had finally brought me after all these years – a place of wholeness where I could be myself, totally undivided.”

She was now also freed to explore the joyful possibility of an intimate partnership with another woman - to find her own wife. However, the deep damage of traditionalist teaching meant she struggled with physical intimacy. Happily, she did find love with another woman, but sadly it didn’t last.

Some of her family members have been able to fully accept her sexuality, but many of them still struggle with the theology. Sadly, the reaction of most of her wider evangelical church family was less welcoming - ranging from critically “loving the sinner but hating the sin” to condemning her to eternal damnation for her “abomination”.

But through Vicky’s testimony and campaigning work I believe God sent a huge message of love to all LGBTQ+ folk that positively changed many lives – that Jesus loves and accepts them as they are together with their committed same-sex relationships. Many queer Christians personally thanked Vicky for the transformational difference her brave voice had made to them. She also convinced many straight evangelical Christians to become affirming.

Sadly, the severe stress of Vicky coming out and what followed took its own toll on her already fragile health. Her scleroderma came back along with other autoimmune symptoms  - brain fog, intense fatigue, chronic pain, joint inflammation and dislocation. By the time of her autobiography she was already diagnosed with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her more truculent critics claimed this was God’s punishment for her “abominable sin”. But one of her doctors advised it was likely these conditions had been triggered by the extreme stress of her coming-out and the vitriolic church reaction which forced her career change. If it was the result of anyone’s “sin”, it was the evangelical church’s.

Sadly, the demands of the media work following her autobiography proved the final straw for Vicky’s health. This forced her to withdraw from all public work before 2020. Despite ongoing medical treatments, her conditions have only become more severe since, including a diagnosis of Ehlers-Danos syndrome. As Vicky said recently on Facebook, she has “spent 90% of the last five years stuck in one bedroom, often unable to stand up for longer than a few minutes at a time due to my various chronic illnesses.”

Following in the footsteps of the Suffering Servant, her Lord Jesus, Vicky paid a huge price for the great good she achieved for others (Isaiah 53). One day, like Him and all His followers, she will “see the light of life and be satisfied” when He returns as crowned King and there will be “no more crying or pain” (Revelation 21).

But neither the good that God achieves through suffering nor that future hope can justify what the Church has made Vicky or other gay Christians suffer - any more than it justified the Jewish leaders getting Jesus crucified. Despite what His followers may sometimes suffer, Jesus came so that people here and now would “have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) As part of that He came to bring physical healing to many (Matt 11:5,6) And Jesus and Paul were clear that for most of us, not gifted to live celibately, this abundant life now should include the good gift of doing life with a marriage partner (Matt.19:10-12; 1 Tim. 4:1-3). For gay people, like Vicky and Brandi, this can only work with a partner of the same sex.

When the Church affirms same-sex marriages, like Vicky and Catherine’s, overwhelmingly this meets Jesus’s scriptural truth test (Mark 3:4) – by doing great good and giving life - in all its fulness (John 10:10).

And when the Church rejects a gay person’s need for a same-sex life-partner, as happened with Vicky, overwhelming it fails that test of Christ's love by doing much harm and destroying life – in Vicky’s case her own body.

Let Vicky’s story be a wake-up call. Let it stir compassion, repentance, and change. Let it remind us that Jesus’ law of love is not optional—it is the measure by which all our theology must be tested. And let it inspire us to build a Church where every child of God—gay or straight—can live undivided.

I hope and pray that Vicky may yet know physical healing in this life, a return to her media or even musical career, and find her own wife.  I was heartened to hear recently that despite her chronic fatigue she felt inspired to play guitar again or even write a song.

In the meantime, Vicky still has loads of fantastic songs, full of intelligent, heart-felt words of worship. My church has started regularly using them in our services. Why not let your own church’s worship be blessed through Vicky's music?

If you’ve got Spotify have a listen here to my own Vicky playlist:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7mXWPeUmZxDwY4bWLSkVU7?si=lBFXQxo8S8CT_3SCpGt_tQ&pi=-zs_zaRZTUCDL 

And follow this link to Vicky’s autobiography, Undivided, Coming out, becoming whole and living free from shame: https://amzn.eu/d/0nN0mqW

I believe the ultimate test for correctly applying Scripture is the law of Christ's love - what does people good or harm. To understand why, I'm convinced, Scripture itself shows us this is the right test, please read my section, Tests - in summary or long version.

To explore further why, I believe, the evidence conclusively proves affirming same-sex marriage fulfils that test, please read my section, The Answers - in short, medium or long versions.

Image by permission of Brachers LLP