[Mark goes to a gay rodeo committee meeting upstairs from the bar. See the previous two quotes for background.] The meeting started with introductions, everyone giving their names and vocations. [...]
When it came to my turn, I tried to avoid the inevitable conflict and lied to them by saying I was a spiritual something-or-other, hoping the queer cowboys would smile, nod, and ignore me. But one of the cowboys asked what my religion was. So I came out of my closet and told him I was a Bible-thumping, old-school Christian preacher, causing some of the guys to laugh, thinking I was kidding. [...]
[After the meeting] One of the guys asked if I was actually a real pastor and began explaining how his lover and many of his friends had died of AIDS. Actually, he began discipling me, articulating with great pain the loneliness and death that filled his community and explaining why he feared death. [...] I sought to relate the gospel to his life: sin causes death, but Jesus is God who became a man and died -- when he was about the same age as this man -- in order to rise from death, forgive sin, and give eternal life to those who repent of sin and trust in him.
[After the meeting] One of the guys asked if I was actually a real pastor and began explaining how his lover and many of his friends had died of AIDS. Actually, he began discipling me, articulating with great pain the loneliness and death that filled his community and explaining why he feared death. [...] I sought to relate the gospel to his life: sin causes death, but Jesus is God who became a man and died -- when he was about the same age as this man -- in order to rise from death, forgive sin, and give eternal life to those who repent of sin and trust in him.
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