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When Christian music veteran Ray Boltz released a statement saying he was gay last fall, the announcement sent tidal waves of disbelief through the CCM world, shocking longtime listeners with his assertion, "If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I'm going to live." The news prompted hundreds of related articles, messageboard threads and forum discussions on the topic of homosexuality and the church.

B. David

Gospel/worship artist B. David, whose own history of homosexuality and spiritual downward spiral hit rock bottom in 1997—which he calls "the worst year of my life"—shares in Boltz' candidness, but not his convictions. "Some say, 'I was born this way,' and I don't deny that at all. We are all born into sin," he explains. "But we have a Savior.  There would be no reason for Jesus Christ if we were all OK."

Presenting an alternative perspective of change through his own testimony of grace, the now-married father of three suggests, "The only way to break through this stuff is for people to expose themselves openly in front of congregations and in their spheres of influence."

Realizing his own "sphere of influence" would greatly expand this year with the launch of his national recording debut, Life Journal, B. David remembers thinking, I'm starting to tell my testimony. People are really going to know who I am and what I am dealing with, alluding to the 6,000-plus congregants at Destiny Metropolitan Worship Church in Atlanta, where B. David serves as head worship leader. "But I have to be willing to [share my testimony] because my heart is for people to be free. My heart is for people to get more of God."

And where better to start sharing his story from than the very beginning.

B. David's home life became acutely dysfunctional after his mother and father divorced when he was just a toddler, and his father's remarriage spawned a physically and emotionally abusive relationship between B. David and his stepmother. "[The abuse] wouldn't happen all the time, but when it did, it was horrible," he tells Christian Music Today.

Unfortunately the abuse didn't stop there. Since both his dad and stepmother worked, and his older sister was involved in extracurricular activities after school, B. David's parents had arranged for him to be dropped off at his cousin's house every day after school, where his cousin routinely groped him and coerced him into oral sex. 

"I don't remember a time when something didn't happen between me and my cousin," B. David recalled, eliciting the harrowing scenes of sexual abuse that lasted for three years. "I remember thinking, Should I tell somebody? But I was afraid of what my parents might do to me, and I was also afraid of my cousin. I would say to myself, When I'm 15, I'm gonna run away. When I'm 14, I'm gonna' run away. When I'm 13 … I was plotting, [but] after awhile, I just got used to it."

Eventually, B. David got away from that situation and moved in with his mother. But with strings of boyfriends and an impending third marriage, his mother was just as unhealthy. Rather than devise another plan to run away, B. David discovered an alternative outlet for escape via his stepfather's stash of pornographic tapes, exposing the impressionable teen to the powerful vices of lust. 

Before long, B. David began experimenting sexually with other men. "I don't recall when gay feelings started. I just know they were enhanced through the sexual abuse," he says. "When you're a child, those things are really traumatic. I didn't understand the weight of it all. In a sense, I felt like maybe this is what I'm supposed to do."

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