Jason: The Pentecostal Survivor Who Kept His Faith

There is a fear that sits underneath many parents' hardest decisions: that if they don't help "fix" their child, they will lose them, to the world and to God. Jason's story turns that fear on its head. The attempt to fix him is what nearly did the damage. His faith was never the thing at risk. Today he says he is still, in his own words, "100% a believing Pentecostal." A child does not have to be changed to keep a lifelong relationship with God. Sometimes the change effort is the only real threat to that relationship.

An exorcism at twelve

Jason grew up in a large, born-again Pentecostal family, in a church world where homosexuality was understood not as an identity but as a demonic affliction. So when he was twelve, his uncle, a Pentecostal minister, tried to cast it out of him. Standing over the boy with a Bible, he demanded that the "demon of homosexuality" leave.

What makes this a story of relational harm, rather than simple villainy, is that the person inflicting it was family, and Jason believes his uncle acted out of love. That is precisely how this kind of harm usually arrives, not from strangers, but from the trusted adults closest to a child. Jason even hoped it would work. Part of him was excited at the thought of finally becoming, as he put it, "healthy and normal."

The research is unambiguous about what that hope costs. When a child's family or faith community tries to change them, the child often experiences it as rejection, and that rejection carries measurable danger. Young LGBTQ adults who faced high family rejection were 8.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide. Broader research ties conversion efforts to elevated psychological distress, and the Trevor Project finds affected youth more than twice as likely to attempt suicide. Among the documented harms cataloged by the NCLR's report on conversion therapy, drawing on the American Psychological Association, is a specific one worth naming here: loss of faith.

The book that changed its own author

Jason did not walk away from religion. He ran deeper into it. In his early twenties, convinced that his church's teaching had to be right, he set out to write a scripture-based book proving that a person could successfully change their sexual orientation. He immersed himself in the Bible to build the case.

The case collapsed. The more closely he studied, the clearer it became that the anti-LGBTQ reading he had assumed was there simply wasn't holding up. The book he finished was not the book he set out to write.

"I meant to write a book to help people come out of being gay. But by the time I ended it was about God being completely fine with who you are!"

— Jason

Faith that outlasted the harm

This is the part of Jason's story that matters most for any parent afraid of what accepting their child might do to that child's soul. The trauma of the exorcism, the years of believing he was defective, the exhausting attempt to change, none of it destroyed his religion. He came through it still devout.

"I'm still 100% a believing Pentecostal. It breaks my heart when so much of the gay community distances themselves from the church or God."

— Jason

His experience lines up with what researchers have found about faith and identity. Studies show that it is the conflict between a young person's faith and their identity, the message that the two cannot coexist, that drives higher rates of distress and suicidality, and that pushes people out of religious life altogether. In other words, the danger to a child's faith is not the child's orientation. It is the demand that they choose. Jason was handed that demand at twelve and kept his faith anyway. Many are not so resilient.

What Jason's story tells parents

Relational harm is delivered by the people a child trusts most, which is exactly why parents and pastors hold so much power to prevent it. The same closeness that made the exorcism wound so deep is the closeness that can protect. The Trevor Project finds that even one accepting adult lowers a young person's odds of a suicide attempt by 40%.

You do not have to choose between your child's faith and who they are. Jason kept both, not because anyone fixed him, but because, eventually, he was met with the truth that he was already loved as he was. His faith didn't survive in spite of that acceptance. It survived because he finally found it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does conversion therapy only happen in a clinic? No. As documented throughout the NCLR report, efforts to change a person's orientation frequently occur outside any therapist's office, in pastoral counseling, prayer groups, religious camps, and, in extreme cases, exorcisms or "deliverances" like the one Jason experienced.

Does trying to change a child threaten their faith? Often, yes. Loss of faith is a recognized harm of conversion practices, and research links faith-identity conflict to higher suicide risk and to people leaving religion entirely. Jason kept his faith, but he is candid that many do not.

Can a person be LGBTQ and keep a strong faith? Yes. Jason remains a devoted Pentecostal believer. His hope is that as more churches become welcoming, fewer LGBTQ people will feel forced to choose between their faith and themselves.