I can remember  seeing Jennifer Knapp in concert in 2002 touring with Jars of Clay.  She seemed to be someone who had a lot of passion and was very raw.  There had been rumors for years that Jennifer Knapp had left the Christian music scene because she was in a same-sex relationship.  Until recently, they were just rumors. On the eve of her new album, Letting Go, Jennifer Knapp gave an interview with Christianity Today which revealed that she has been in a same-sex relationship for years now. Here are some excerpts from that interview.

Q. There were rumors that you left music because you were gay.

A. Knapp: That was a straw [in my decision], but there were many straws on the camel’s back at the time. I’m certainly in a same-sex relationship now, but when I suspended my work, that wasn’t even really a factor. I had some difficult decisions to make and what that meant for my life and deciding to invest in a same-sex relationship, but it would be completely unfair to say that’s why I left music.

Q. Have you been with the same partner for a long time?

A. Knapp: About eight years, but I don’t want to get into that. For whatever reason the rumor mill [about me being gay] has persisted for so long, I wanted to acknowledge; I don’t want to come off as somebody who’s shirking the truth in my life. At the same time, I’m intensely private. Even if I were married to a man and had six children, it would be my personal choice to not get that kind of conversation rolling.

During my college years, I received some admonishment about some relationships I’d had with women. Some people said, “You might want to renegotiate that,” even though those relationships weren’t sexual. Hindsight being 20/20, I guess it makes sense. But if you remove the social problem that homosexuality brings to the church—and the debate as to whether or not it should be called a “struggle,” because there are proponents on both sides—you remove the notion that I am living my life with a great deal of joy. It never occurred to me that I was in something that should be labeled as a “struggle.” The struggle I’ve had has been with the church, acknowledging me as a human being, trying to live the spiritual life that I’ve been called to, in whatever ramshackled, broken, frustrated way that I’ve always approached my faith. I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.

Thoughts

It seems that there is no place that speaks out against homosexuality than the evangelical church.  Recently there have been prominent evangelicals that have admitted to being in homosexual activity.  Names like Ray Boltz and Ted Haggard come to mind.  It does not take long talking with evangelicals to know that many of us know people personally who have come out of evangelical backgrounds and then enter into homosexual activity.  It would be a mistake to think that the Jennifer Knapp’s of the world are isolated cases.  This is an issue that is prominent in local churches.  One often does not see it coming.  Evangelicals often pronounce the sin of homosexuality as if it is a sin that people out there struggle with.  It is important to remember that there very well may be those struggling with such things in our local churches.

Here’s a youtube video of Jennifer Knapp’s song, “The Way I Am.”