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In love with Adam, Eve and the Church

What’s it like to be bisexual and a devout Christian? Aden Jay Christian wrote a book on it and now he shares his experiences with Malavika Velayanikal.

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There are two things Aden Jay Christian, 30, is absolutely sure of: his faith in Jesus Christ and his bisexuality. Unfortunately, organised religion and queer sexuality haven’t yet learnt to coexist peacefully and therefore, Aden’s life is far from easy. The church he worked for threw him out; his best friend branded him possessed and even tried to exorcise the demon from his soul.

Aden was born to Hindu parents in a small town in Tamil Nadu. His father was the local don. His mother — “a very strong, independent woman”, in his words ­— sent Aden, then named Ajay, to a boarding school run by Christian missionaries in Kodaikanal. His first encounter with homosexuality was there. It was also where he discovered Christianity. “I was 17 when I became a Christian,” said Aden. “My mother wouldn’t accept it then or now, but I found my God.”

When his father died, Aden abandoned his undergraduate degree in computer applications and returned home. He started working as a soft skills trainer and set up his own institute. On an internet chat room, he met a Canadian woman, Claire, who like him was a devout Christian. The two of them ended up in a committed relationship and she came to India for him. “I was in love with her. But I was also in a relationship with my friend, Hari,” said Aden. “Being with a man felt so natural and I was confused.”

When you are young and do not conform to the heterosexuality norm, you are made to believe that you are wrong and are threatened with dire consequences. “The Church talks about homosexuality as a sin. We are taught that heterosexuality is based on love and homosexuality on lust. How could that be when I truly loved this man? I worried,” said Aden.

There was a clear contradiction between what Aden’s religion dictated and what he felt. “So I turned to God. When I listened to people at church, I felt condemned. But when I prayed I felt at peace. It took me a while to accept that I wasn’t wrong, and when I did, I was at peace. My relationship with God is now ten times stronger,” he said.
Aden moved to Bangalore when his relationship with Hari turned messy and they were forced to break up. He started working with a software company and joined a church choir.

“When the pastor of the church found out about my sexuality, he made fun of me in front of everyone during a sermon, which went viral online. That experience showed me what I was dealing with,” recalled Aden.

At a friend’s suggestion, Aden decided to write a book based on his experiences. “I trudged through the book for seven months, barely writing, and almost gave up on it,” he said.

“But then God seemed to want me to write it because the words just began to flow out of me somehow and I managed to complete the entire manuscript in the next 17 days.”

He approached several publishers, but nobody was ready to publish it. “Some of them wanted me to make a lot of changes, but I didn’t want to.” Finally he roped in his high school English teacher to edit it for him and self-published his memoir, titled The Pink Leviathan.

“After reading the book, my best friend walked away from me. She called me from London with a group of Christians. They were doing a ‘deliverance prayer’ to exorcise the devil in me! Incredible as it may sound, they were praying that ‘In the name of Jesus, we command the demon of homosexuality to leave Aden’,” he laughed.

Aden now works with a non-traditional Pentacostal church. He sings with the choir and teaches the Bible. “When I joined this church, I told the pastor that I am bisexual. He asked me: Do you love God? I said, yes. He said, that is all that matters. This church does not judge people. We love all. I know this is the church God had in mind.”

So is there no contradiction between his work with the church and his sexuality anymore? “Look at it this way,” suggested Aden. “Earlier, the church used the Bible to put women down. They said women were to be submissive to men. They do not say so anymore. Once upon a time, the church opposed inter-racial marriages in the West and supported slavery. Not anymore. Similarly, today they are opposing homosexuality. Tomorrow they won’t. All this discrimination stems from ignorance and insecurities. I won’t listen to a group of people whose views change every few years... I know I am not going to go to hell for who I am. On the contrary, I think God loves me better because I am sure of who I am.”

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