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# SERIES: FROM COUNTERFEIT LIGHT TO CHRIST ## ROSARIO CHAMPAGNE BUTTERFIELD — EPISODE 22, PART 2: THE AWAKENING AND RENUNCIATION --- ### What Began Challenging Their Beliefs Rosario Butterfield did not come to Christ through a dramatic vision or a bolt from heaven. Her conversion came through **ordinary means** — a pastor, a Bible, and simple hospitality. **1. An Unlikely Friendship with a Pastor** In 1997, Rosario was researching a book designed to expose the "religious right." When Syracuse University allowed Promise Keepers to rent its premises, she wrote an op-ed for the local newspaper protesting the decision. The article generated a torrent of hate mail — but one letter stood out. It came from **Pastor Ken Smith**, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor who lived nearby. Unlike the others, his tone was kind and measured. Rosario responded, and a friendship began. **2. Hospitality That Disarmed Her** Ken and his wife Floy did what most Christians wouldn't do. They **broke the two cardinal rules** for dealing with "heathens" like her: they didn't share the gospel with her, and they didn't invite her to church. Instead, they invited her to dinner. They welcomed her into their home. They didn't act as though she was polluting them. Ken told her early on: *"There's a difference between acceptance and approval. If you can live with that difference, I can live with that difference."* **3. A Palpable Difference Between Two Houses** Rosario couldn't help but notice a stark contrast between her home and the Smiths' home. Her house was **"filled with anxiety and constant frenetic political activism."** At Ken's house, they talked about hard things — but then they would open the Bible, pray, and **"leave it at the cross."** Then they would laugh, feast, and have fun. She was intrigued. She wanted to understand why Bible-believing Christians believed what they did. **4. Reading the Bible for Research — Then for Truth** Using her PhD training, Rosario began reading the Bible like she would any book, examining its authority. She read it with pen in hand and notebook in lap — **often for up to five hours a day**. In two years, she read the Bible **seven times**. She came to the Bible with a long list of things she was mad about that she needed to work through. She tried to toss the Bible and all its teachings in the trash — **she really tried**. But she kept reading it. **5. The Bible Started to Take on a Life** Slowly and over time, the Bible began to take on a meaning and a life that startled her. Some of her well-worn paradigms no longer stuck. The Bible got bigger inside her than she was. She realized that if the God of the Bible is the creator of all things, **the text had the right to interrogate her heart and feelings** — not the other way around. --- ### The Turning Point **1. The Weight of Romans 1** Rosario had always "dodged" Romans 1, a passage that characterizes homosexuality as an outworking of the suppression of truth. But she couldn't avoid it forever. Reading it alongside a picture of a transgender friend's abandoned family caused her to rethink her belief that an LGBTQ lifestyle hurt no one. **For the first time in her life, she wondered if she was wrong.** **2. The Realization That She Had Been on the Wrong Side** Rosario was convicted of the sin of somehow thinking that she had been on the side of truth, justice, diversity, reparations, kindness, and compassion — **when it was really Jesus who was persecuted the whole time.** **3. The Question That Changed Everything** She wondered two things: *"Could I trust Him? And is it true?"* That was the turning point. That's when she decided that she needed to stop working with Ken Smith. She had to confront this God. She stopped reading the Bible for research and started reading it for **personal questions of truth, life, and death.** --- ### Their Encounter with Biblical Truth **1. The Bible as the Interrogator** Rosario came to understand that **the Bible actually has the right to interrogate her life, her culture, her heart, her feelings — and not the other way around.** She now testifies: *"The Bible knows you better than you know yourself."* **2. The Real Root of Her Sin** She now understands that her lesbianism was not the root of her sin — it was the **"evil fruit"** of a deeper unbelief in God. *"My sin was unbelief. My sin was refusing the free offer of the gospel."* **3. The Gospel's Power to Break Bondage** She cautions against a **"half-gospel"** that offers forgiveness for guilt without the power to break the bondage of sin. The gospel doesn't just forgive — **it transforms.** --- ### Their Conversion or Return to Christ **1. A Quiet but Radical Surrender** One Sunday morning — no different from any other — Rosario rose from the bed of her lesbian lover, and an hour later she sat in a pew at the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. She went there very conscious of the fact that she didn't fit in. But she had to confront this God. **2. Coming to Jesus with Nothing** She describes the moment of surrender during a church service where she realized she belonged to Christ: *"I came to Jesus alone, open-handed and naked. I had no dignity upon which to stand. There is only one thing to do when you meet the risen Jesus Christ. You fall on your face, and you repent of your sins."* **3. A "Train Wreck" and an "Alien Abduction"** Rosario found it difficult to describe her conversion. She settled on defining it as **a mix of an alien abduction and a train wreck.** Her conversion landed her into **"a complicated and comprehensive chaos."** **4. The Cost of Following Christ** She lost her career, her community, her identity, and her relationship. She came to Jesus with nothing. --- ### Their Public Renunciation **1. "I Lost Everything but the Dog"** Rosario is famous for this line: *"I lost everything but the dog."* Her conversion cost her everything — her tenure-track position, her academic reputation, her lesbian community, her partner, and her identity. **2. A New Identity in Christ** She walked away from her former identity as a lesbian feminist activist and embraced a new identity: a homemaker, a mother of four adopted children, and the wife of a Presbyterian pastor. **3. Speaking Boldly About Sin** Today, Rosario speaks boldly about sin and transformation. She states clearly: *"Homosexuality is a sinful deed of the flesh, not a permanent feature of any Christian's life."* **4. A Message to the Church** She challenges Christians to rethink their approach to the LGBTQ+ community — not with condemnation, but with hospitality and love. She now uses the hospitality skills she honed in her queer community to serve as a pastor's wife. --- ### The Central Reason She Rejected Her Former Worldview **1. She Encountered the Living God** At the heart of Rosario's rejection of her former worldview is one overwhelming truth: **she encountered the living God through the Bible — and He was real.** The Bible she once tried to toss in the trash became the very thing that saved her. **2. The Bible Has the Final Authority** She rejected the postmodern relativism of Queer Theory because she discovered that **truth is absolute and found in God's Word.** The Bible doesn't bend to culture — culture must bend to the Bible. **3. She Found Real Justice** She had spent her life fighting for justice — but she discovered that **true justice is found in Christ, not in political activism.** She realized that Jesus was the one who was persecuted all along. **4. She Found Real Peace** Her house had been filled with **anxiety and frenetic activism.** In Christ, she found peace — the ability to "leave it at the cross" and rest in God's sovereignty. **5. She Was Willing to Lose Everything** Rosario rejected her former life because **Jesus was worth more than everything she had.** She lost her career, her community, and her identity — but she gained Christ. --- ### Conclusion In Part 2 of Rosario Champagne Butterfield's testimony, we have traced her journey from the counterfeit light of secular humanism and queer theory to the true Light of Jesus Christ. We have seen what began challenging her beliefs — an unlikely friendship, radical hospitality, and the relentless power of Scripture. We have witnessed her turning point, her encounter with biblical truth, her radical conversion, and her costly public renunciation. And we have seen the central reason she rejected her former worldview: **she found the real thing.** The Bible she once tried to throw away became the anchor of her soul. The God she once mocked became her Savior. The community she once led became the world she left behind. Rosario's story is a powerful reminder that **no one is beyond the reach of God's grace** — and that the counterfeit light of this world is no match for the true Light of Christ. --- *"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes."* — Romans 1:16 (WEB) --- **Follow Rosario's ministry: @RosariaButterfield** **#FromCounterfeitLightToChrist #RosarioButterfield #UnlikelyConvert #Testimony #JesusSaves #QueerTheory #GabPro #Christian #WakeUp**

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