I’m Gay But I Know Jesus

Melody Rachel has a story to tell, she is same-sex attracted and that is inconsistent with her fundamental evangelical Christian upbringing.

So she left New Zealand, left the church and started dating women. But in time, that left a God-shaped hole in her life.

In that hole however she continues to talk to God and comes to a number of important realisations including that God talks back, that being lesbian is not a sin, that using people is a sin, that sorrow is not the same as despair and that it wouldn’t be called faith if we were all certain. 

Part confession, part stand-up and part prayer this performance could be further enlivened by a more structured audience interaction in the fashion of some of the touring greats who follow their presentations with half time question and answer partly scripted and partly extemporised. 

There is doubtless deep material that could be drawn from Melody’s experience that would shed the twin luminosity of laughter and learning on the suggested contradictions between sexuality and faith which of course may not be contradictions at all.

The way more frequent mentions of mildew over homosexuality in the bible is just the start of where a longer and funnier script might go.

Reviewed by Susanne Dahn