The juxtaposition of conviction and confusion at each stage of Julie Rodgers’ young life streams from the pages of her memoir. Her story is an extraordinary read not because of her truth, which is sadly all too familiar, but because of her willingness to share her journey in all its messiness. The vulnerability and strength to share the good, the bad, and the very ugly is a testament to the person she now is.
Outlove will be of interest to anyone who grew up amongst religion whilst discovering their sexual orientation. Or those who are still trying to make peace with their sexual identity alongside the teachings of their faith.
I first came across Julie’s story when watching the Netflix documentary Pray Away, which follows the survivors of conversion therapy: one of those survivors was Julie Rodgers.
Growing up a conservative Christian in a Baptist church, Rodgers came out to her mother at the age of 16. In a sustained effort to ‘save’ her daughter, Julie was ordered by her mother to attend Living Hope, eventually going on to become a speaker at Exodus International conferences; both organisations heavily involved in the evangelical ex-gay movement. As the pressure to follow God’s word, and renounce all homosexual desires and behaviour warred with Julie’s inner truth, she found herself spiraling into depression and self harm.
What follows is Julie’s journey to accepting and loving her true self. To re-learning everything she was led to believe by the cult like conservative churches she frequented in her teens and twenties. Julie’s journey is compelling; her writing having an honest and realness about it, wrapped in the determination to tell her story without the façade of pretending to know all the answers.
As one may expect the book often contains heavy and emotional descriptions of trauma, with an unsurprising focus on conversion therapy. At a time when battle lines are unequivocally drawn in the sand as to stances on conversion therapy and conservative religious teachings, it’s perhaps unusual to hear someone confess that they still mourn and miss their conservative family, friends and indeed faith leaders. Strange as it may sound, perhaps it is Julie’s honesty in this respect that makes her story all the more poignant. It highlights that leaving such a ministry, surviving conversion therapy, and embracing all of ones self is not simply the end of the road. There are hundreds of minutes and hours, of formative years of life to unpick and reconcile, to evaluate and reframe. I think I found that notion the most moving of all, the reality that surviving the initial experience, the religious indoctrination, is but one small part of healing a life irrefutably changed in the name of religion, power and politics.
“What do you do when you love a family that can’t or won’t love you back? They believed they loved me. But they had ingested years of religious teachings that said ‘love’ looks like refusal to acknowledge or accept the queer parts of their queer friends and family.”
Julie Rodgers, Outlove
And on that note, following Julie through three decades of her personal religious journey, also results in the creation of a timeline of the Church’s stance on homosexuality. As Julie transitions into adulthood, readers in turn garner an understanding of how the inner circles of evangelical organisations function, and what their true priorities are.
Outlove is a memoir which I hope everyone will consider picking up because inside is a courageous, inspiring, and gracious story. With conversion therapy and associated practices still legal in many parts of the world, Julie’s story is sadly timeless. But for those who are queer and still wish to have a relationship with God, her story is a powerful example that both of those things can exist in harmony, side by side.
“What we know with certainty is that every day, we are faced with choices about how to live among our neighbours. Imagine how we’ll remake the world if we all choose love.”
Julie Rodgers, Outlove
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