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Were you involved in a relationship at that time you left?

Knapp: Around 2002, I was starting to contend with this new-found "issue" in my life. But I'd already decided to leave music before I knew I was going to contend with that. I don't want anyone to think that I ran out of town with my tail between my legs because I had something to hide.

Or that you were run out of town.

Knapp: Or that I was run out of town. Neither is true.

When you wrote The Way I Am, was that a veiled statement about being gay?

Knapp: That record means a lot more to me now than it did at the time. That whole record for me was an exercise in the carnal body of Christ manifested. One of the biggest decisions I was wrestling with then was, If I don't do Christian music, am I not a believer anymore?  

Jennifer Knapp

Why come back now? What has changed?

Knapp: At some point [last year] when I started to write again, I realized that the process was rather organic. I started playing at home, and my friends are going, "Oh wow, that's pretty good. What are you going to do with that?" I said, "What do you mean, what am I going to do with it? Nothing!" The return has been a lot like the way I started music in the first place. We're doing a four-day run of concerts right now, I'm in a van, I just spent half my afternoon driving, and if I'm lucky I get dinner before I play tonight. There's something about that process you've got to love. I just think it took me a lot longer to figure out if that passion was a safe one for me.

You spent about five of the last seven years in Australia, right?

Knapp: Yes. But I've been back in the States since September. During those seven years, I entertained myself for quite some time by traveling. I traveled all through Europe. I traveled through the U.S. for about a year. I was basically a transient for about four years.

Traveling alone or with your partner?

Knapp: With my partner.

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

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.

I understand. But I'm curious: Were you struggling with same-sex attraction when writing your first three albums? Those songs are so confessional, clearly coming from a place of a person who knows her need for grace and mercy.

Knapp: To be honest, it never occurred to me while writing those songs. I wasn't seeking out a same-sex relationship during that time.

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.

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