Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing Jeff Chu speak at Newhouse. Chu is a journalist who is most famous for his book, Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America. Chu explained not only his journey throughout America, but also his career as a journalist.
Jeff Chu began his story by explaining why he wrote the book. Raised in a Southern Babtist family, Chu’s parents were extremely religious and homophobic. When Chu came out of the closet, all of his conservative friends told him that maybe if he prayed a little harder or maybe just thought about women more, he would be able to “cure” his homosexuality. On the other hand, his liberal friends told him that he must abandon his faith and that he shouldn’t believe in something that hates him just because of who he is. Chu explained that he wrote the book because he needed a book like his when he first came out.
Chu then began to talk about his journey. One of Chu’s favorite parts was being invited into people’s homes and sitting at their kitchen table while the other person told their story. Through his travels, Chu met a young man named Gideon. Gideon was a closeted gay who was also deeply religious. Gideon opened up to Chu and even used his real name in Chu’s book.
After that, Chu talked about his current job as a journalist. He talked about working for a website called Beacon where journalists around the world posted articles. This gives the reader a whole new outlook on often many unknown issues. He likes Beacon much more than working in New York because people there lived in the “New York bubble.” Working at Beacon, he is free to write about what he wants to write about. He also told us how difficult it is because he needs to be constantly working on stories. He finished his most recent story on the taxicab from the airport to his hotel in Syracuse.
Reading from his book, Chu told his story about his stay in Topeka, Kansas with the Westbro Baptist Church. From what I could tell, Chu found his experience in Topeka laughable calling the Westbro Baptist Church “media whores” and telling us that he wished he could get a picture of the sign they made about him saying “God Hates Chinamen.”
Through the question-and-answer session at the end, we learned many more things about Jeff Chu. Chu is still religious, his mom finally decided to meet his husband, and Chu does believe that his version of Jesus really loves him.
I went into this interview thinking that I would not like Jeff Chu. From what I had read about him, I assumed that he was simply exploiting the fact that he was gay to make money. After hearing his story, I was wrong. He seemed genuinely confused about his place in religion and forced himself to find it out for himself rather than listening to what his friends and family said. I can honestly say that I respect Jeff Chu and wouldn’t mind picking up a copy of his book.