Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. I shouldn't tell you this, but Eric hired someone who sounds just like him to host today's show. But since I'm the announcer, they told me, so I'm telling you, don't be phoned. The real Eric's in jail. Hey there folks, welcome to the program. I am really particularly excited to speak to my guest right now. Her name is Rosaria Butterfield. If you don't know of her, hold onto your hat because her story is amazing. She's been on the program in the past, but it's been a while. So before I get into the details, let me simply say, Rosaria, welcome to the program. Thank you, Eric. It's such a joy to be here with you. It's a joy for me. Now, your story is an amazing story, and I want to start there for people who don't know who you are because very few people have stories as dramatic as yours is. You have a new book out. We're going to be talking about that. It's called Five Lies of our Anti -Christian Age. This is red hot stuff. But your story is that you were a professor of English and women's studies at Syracuse University. You were in a same -sex relationship for years, and then something insane happened, and you became a Jesus freak and got married. You're a homeschool mother. You speak around the country. But your story is an extraordinary story, and I just want to touch on that before we get into this book for people who aren't familiar with it. I've given the highlight. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's the power of the gospel to change lives. I was a professor of English at Syracuse University. I was a coordinator of what was then called the Gay and Lesbian Studies Program. In many ways, I was hired and mentored and then tenured to make homosexuality look wholesome, which to my shame, pulled off. I wasn't just any old lesbian. I was the one you were not wanting to have to deal with. I wasn't just any old lesbian. No, not a guard variety one. No, I co -authored the university's Domestic Partnership Policy, steamrolled gay marriage. Listen, Eric, when I look at this world, my fingerprints are all over it, and I think about that every day. But I was working on a book on the religious right, basically just wanted to know why people like you hated people like me. Straightforward question. I didn't need any more friends. I didn't care if I had any more enemies. I just had a question. In the process, the Lord allowed me the amazing opportunity to get to know Ken Smith, who was the pastor of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. He was also my neighbor. And after about 500 meals at his house, probably a conservative number there, and reading through the Bible seven times with Ken, we weren't sitting around chatting about whatever. He didn't ask me how I felt. He didn't ask me if needed a gay bowling league in the church. He genuinely wanted me to know that he accepted me as a lesbian, but he didn't approve because God didn't approve. And so I just put that out there because I think people don't understand. I came to faith under the doctrine of the Christian faith, not this garbage that you see out there right now. The idea was that I would change, that God would capture my heart, and I would desire Him, and that I would change and no longer be gay. And so really, when I committed my life to Jesus, it wasn't because I stopped feeling like a lesbian or I was just kind of zapped. It was that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was true, and it was a truth that I had no interpretive authority over. And that's when the there's so much to talk about. Now, you wrote a memoir called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, and I recommend it. And one of the joys of talking to you and to Beckett Cook and to so many others that I've spoken to over the years is to hear the stories of people who were in that world, who are not anymore in that world, because we live in a world that has a narrative, and that narrative doesn't like to hear stories like yours or Beckett Cook's. They say, no, no, no, that can't happen. That doesn't happen. Those people are nuts. Well, it does happen. I have friends to whom it has happened. And it's an amazing thing when you hear the stories of transformation and suddenly you're confronted with the idea that this is possible. I lived in a world where I was told this is not possible, this cannot happen, and yet here's a story, here's a story. And, you know, you go into details in your story. But one of the reasons, as I said, it's a joy to have you on is just because there's so few places where you can hear stories like yours that give people hope that maybe my life can be different or my friend who's going through this or my friend who's going through this. So just imagine that that was one of your motivations for telling your story.