A safe space in a dangerous time - OTN trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm’s conversion therapy experience
Open Table Network trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm
OUR NEWEST trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm reflects on his experience of conversion therapy - the attempt to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity - and coming to an Open Table community for the first time.
When I was 23 years old I was excited to serve Christ and the Church after years of academic study at Bible College and seminary. Those days were incredibly different as I worked 44 hours a week, studying full-time and serving at my local church in Chicago. It was draining and extremely scary trying to balance everything while fronting a smile. In December 2012, my younger brother lost his battle with mental distress, leaving behind a baby son and a girlfriend.
This experience caused me to process my own mental health issues. The next few months I decided to come out publicly as gay in my conservative evangelical university. This scared me, but I was ready to be real and true to myself and others. Because I maintained a traditional conservative theological position, many of the responses were good. But there were many friends and professors at this university that were upset, and called me a heretic.
Over the next few months I applied for roles at churches and non-profit Christian organizations, with many failures because my openness about my sexuality was an issue. At the same time, I felt this overwhelming sense from the spirit of God that my calling was to priesthood in the Church of England. While I began to try to look for a Church in England parish to do a placement or internship, I found the process difficult because of visas ,and because no-one knew me.
Therefore, after many attempts to intern at an Anglican Church, I applied to a large Charismatic Free Church in Liverpool. At first it was warm and welcoming -and then the issue of homosexuality came up. I told them about my sexuality, and my pastoral line-manager told me God wanted me to have a wife and children. This was something I didn’t personally agree with theologically, even from a conservative perspective.
As they were sponsoring my visa, it was clear to me in order to stay in the UK, I was required to attend a Friday night community called L.I.F.E. ministry. After a few sessions, I realized that the point of this ministry was to turn your desires into heterosexual ones - a practice known as conversion therapy. There was testimony after testimony about how people changed. I challenged much of their theology because it didn’t make any sense, psychologically or theologically. But I was over 4,000 miles away from home and felt isolated and alone. I didn’t feel safe and I didn’t know what to do. I was depressed and thoughts of death filled my heart and mind. During this time my host church understood I was not going to continue with this ministry, therefore they used spiritual language to attempt to get me to leave and fly home. But I loved the city of Liverpool and I made a good few friends in the city and knew It wasn’t my time to leave just yet. One conversation has stayed with me, and still triggers me. My pastoral mentor told me conversion therapy is like ‘giving you a pill to cure your terminal cancer, yet you’d rather just die from it.’
As I was spending Christmas alone, I looked for a community where I could be myself. And to my surprise, there was a ministry only a mile from my terraced house. I went into a derelict-looking Anglican Church and met the most diverse group of people, from all different backgrounds. I was extremely worried and shy, which are not words usually ascribed to my character. But I sat in my 1960’s looking chair with my fair trade tea and digestives while listening to the stories of these people - real people like me collectively sharing pain because of their sexuality or gender identity or expression. These were stories I could relate to. These were the stories of prophets. Queer prophets. People who, despite everything being thrown at them, still love the people that have only hated their very being. These people embraced me, not because of my status or my charm, but because I’m created in God’s image. I wasn’t a broken vase that was their project to fix. I was just Augustine. This Open Table was a table that was truly open for all people, regardless of the barriers we put up. There was room for this broken poor foreigner and there is room for you. Jesus opened wide his arms upon the cross and, with a love stronger than death, made for us all a perfect sacrifice, suffering the sins of shame, injustice and oppression so we might be liberated if we follow the example of his life and love. His love was open wide, for he died for us.
During the time I was receiving and rejecting conversion therapy, Open Table became a lifeline - a safe place for me to be fully myself, ask thought-provoking questions, and even disagree with people healthily. Conversion therapy was dangerous for me, and still causes some issues today, but Open Table helped create a safe space in a dangerous time in my life.