Book Description
As seen on 60 Minutes.Until Christmas Eve 1991, Mel White was regarded by the leaders of the religious right as one of their most talented and productive supporters.He penned speeches for Ollie North, was a ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, worked with Jim Bakker. What they didn't know is that Mel White--evangelical minister, committed Christian, family man--is gay.In this book, White details his twenty-five years of being counseled, exorcised, electric-shocked, prayed for, and nearly driven to suicide because his church said homosexuality was wrong.His salvation--to be openly gay and Christian--is much more than a unique coming-out story.

"Fascinating... harrowing... a remarkable and important story." --Dallas Morning News ... Read more

Customer Reviews (56)

Sad, but agenda-based, way too subjective.
I had first read about Mel White through the eyes of grace: his best friend Philip Yancey wrote a chapter about Mel in the book "What's So Amazing About Grace?"So I approached the book "Stranger" with a grace-filled attitude toward Mel.I truly felt sorrow for his terrible struggle against his homosexual urges and attractions.Eventually, I was practically convinced that Mel had tried his best to live as a straight man.However, I was troubled when I sensed that the book was more than simply a telling of his personal struggle.Rather, it became clear that Mel was driving a personal agenda against the religious right.From that point on, I thought the book lost all credibility.If he was only honestly sharing his struggles, I was all ears.But when he began to rip those who opposed him, I lost respect.Why are people of faith who hold a high view of sexual morality held in such contempt?

I was especially troubled when Mel was not particularly upset the first time he ventured out for an illicit sexual encounter with some unknown gay man.He had broken his vow of faithfulness to his wife, with hardly a passing reference in the subsequent paragraphs.While Mel may have done a thorough review of the theology of homosexuality from the Bible, I think he undervalued the importance of keeping the marriage bed undefiled and to flee from youthful lusts.And I know he read that God hates divorce.

White describes the great turmoil that gripped him as he concludes that he must be gay.However, Mel's conclusion that he must leave his wife and family and he must pursue these sexual urges is troubling to me at many levels.I am not unsympathetic to men who are already married and then find themselves to have same sex attractions.However, I believe these attractions occur on a wide spectrum of intensity.I do not accept that these longings can only be fulfilled by sexual activity with another man.Is there no ability to restrain oneself sexually?Placing homosexuals and heterosexuals in the same category, can we not behave in a manner that transcends our urges?As a healthy heterosexual male, I find it is possible to restrain myself against my urges to have sex with young attractive females.Must I accept that Mel was incapable of holding himself back from his urges?And returning to the marriage vow discussion, is "same sex attraction" an exception to "for better or for worse" and "keeping myself only unto thee, so long as we both shall live"?

I have homosexual friends who are "gay", but sexually celibate, as well as gay and married and planning on leaving their family to act-out. I am well aware of the heart-aches on both sides of the issues.

A must read
I picked this book up after reading "What's So Amazing About Grace" by Phil YancyWhat's So Amazing About Grace?in which he mentions Mel White, and I read that book after reading "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens.God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Kind of a surreal experience.Stranger at the Gate proves Hitchen's point that religion is child abuse but I doubt White would see it that way. None the less White tells harrowing stories about what he and others have done to themselves in the name of Christ.It's clear that Christians, most especially Evangelical (read Fundamentalist/Fantatical) can't think for themselves and don't care what damage they do to others as long as the march toward their world view continues.

Everyone should read this book, if you dislike Christians, if you are devout, if you are not heterosexual, if you are.If you can quote Leviticus YOU ABSOLUTELY need to read this book.You've got it wrong and Mel White will tell you why.If you refuse to read this book then you are just another narrow minded lemming...and that's really sad.

This book is a must read.

Well-Written Biography
The best sentence in this book is at the foot of page 193 in the paperback - "After years of trusting the people "in charge" to know what was right for me and for my life, I began to realize that I was the only one who could know for certain what was rally best for me."

Everything else in the book is an alibi and an excuse.

Mel White followed the tracks laid down by his grandparents, he looked for absolute certainties by joining in the ritualistic devotions of what Americans have made politico-religion until he found the strains too much. He was in the wrong occupation. He lived a lie because he wanted to live that lie; and to hide himself in the most orthodox part of US society until he finally flipped to the other extreme for relief from the perils of schizophrenia.

This is a biograhy not a prescriptive roadmap. The Bible is for many the essence of life, for others it is a history and a prescription. The Old Testament tells us what happened and the New Testament hopes to tell us what lies ahead. The fact is what Mel White calls homosexuality did not exist as a term until German and Hungarian psychologists coined the term to decribe activities, now it has been hardened into describing personalities.

The hedonism if Greek culture set against asceticism of Jewish culture produced the swirling influences in Christianity; but the plethora of books attempting to redefine Scripture as embracing homosexuality as mainstream are so weakly argued as to be incredible. The fact is that men have engaged in same-sex relations throughout history both within and outside the Church, and some accept the fact, some fight it, some live with a secret life, others cannot.

If Mel White is now happy, that is good for him. I simply do not believe the way ECUSA is behaving is the answer. I is becoming cultic and losing what Anglicanism was when men like Cranmer, Risdley, and Latimer died for it.

I find the extremists in the US deeply un-Christian, possibly even anti-Christian; but that is US domestic politics polarised since Roe v Wade where the Supreme Court continued a policy since the 1950s f ruling on religious matters and social mores. Accepting the Supreme Court as a Church of Absolute Right is also a failing.

Christianity is a matter of accounting for individual conscience and actions on Judgment Day. By that token Mel White, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and millions of other will be assessed and there is no court of appeal, nor an other advocate but oneself alone. That is why the sentence Mel White wrote on Page 193 is the very essence of his book.

famous evangelical embraces his gay identity
When the teenage son of one of my best friends (a pastor) announced he was gay, I knew I had to read Mel White's book. Today, White is one of the most important activists in the gay Christian community. How he came to that place is a fascinating story. Mel White hailed from two generations of stalwart Christians, and his entire life was lovingly and gladly given to their fundamentalist cause. Instead of using his scholarship to attend Stanford, he went to a Bible College, and I suspect enthusiastically so, such was his Christian ardor. As a film maker and ghost writer, he served most all the best known names of conservative Christianity--Francis Schaeffer, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson (to whom he sent money for their ministry to gays), Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, D. James Kennedy, and WA Criswell. His two children attended Maranatha Christian High School. "But from the beginning, I had only same-sex desires and fantasies. I didn't plan it. I didn't choose it. I didn't desire it. And no one forced it on me. I wasn't recruited, raped or abused. No one is to blame" (p. 29). That is to say, White did not have a voluntary preference to be gay. Rather, he had an entirely involuntary orientation to be gay, and he tried as vigorously as any human might struggle to sublimate and eradicate his homosexual orientation through counseling, therapy, electric shock treatments, endless prayer and exorcisms, and Valium. All of which, after about twenty five years of marriage, led to a near nervous breakdown. In a loving foreword, his wife of over two decades sets the table for her former husband's story. If you want a short, second hand account of Mel White's story, see the chapter on him in Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace.

Tough Stuff
This is tough to read. It is tough to absorb and digest. It is tough to get inside the skin of Mel White who is both thin-skinned and tough as nails. Gut-wrenching to see what our families and society put young persons through as they are seeking to understand their sexual orientation. They don't need rejection and judgment in this very tough journey. The appalling consequences of such rejection is sobering.

This writer is honest, and is prepared to expose his life and thinking to extremely close review in order to help himself and others. He deserves to be heard and read, specially by religious leaders who already claim to have reached conclusions. ... Read more