'Being gay is very fun and God loves me for me', says OTN trustee with an amazing story to tell
Revd Augustine Tanner-Ihm is delighted to have found a place to begin his ordained ministry in the UK.
Augustine Tanner-Ihm is an African-American activist, writer, speaker who recently trained for Anglican ministry at Cranmer Hall, St. John’s College, Durham, and is now a curate at St James & Emmanuel, Manchester, and a Doctoral Student in Leadership, Culture, and Practical Theology at Bakke Graduate University. He was also the winner of the 2020 Church Times Theology Slam competition.
IN AN INTERVIEW with the Manchester Evening News this week, OTN trustee Augustine Tanner-Ihm, recently appointed as a curate at St James and Emmanuel Didsbury, shared his journey through poverty, racism, homophobia and conversion therapy.
Augustine, who is openly gay, started his new position at the Didsbury church in April this year and has already made a lasting impression on the local community. But it’s been a long journey for Augustine, 31, to get to this point.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Augustine told the newspaper that being an queer African-American Christian has come with plenty of struggles, including poverty, homelessness, racism, homophobia and so-called ‘conversion therapy’ in an attempt to change his sexual orientation.
In 2012, Augustine decided to come out as gay, after coming to terms with his sexuality internally for years.
In 2013, Augustine moved to the UK following an ‘overwhelming sense from the spirit of God’ that his calling was to priesthood in the Church of England.
After initially finding great difficulty in finding a church, he was eventually accepted into a church in the UK that would sponsor his visa.
Having recently come out, Augustine said he was open with the church about his sexuality. As part of their requirements, the church made him attend classes run by people practicing conversion therapy. Augustine said:
It was a horrible, absolutely terrible, experience. It was very much of the mindset that being gay was bad but that it could be cured. The church was very adamant that I had to go to these classes. When I tell people about this, some will say ‘well, you were a consenting adult’, but I was in a really vulnerable position at the time. I was 4,000 miles from home and they were holding onto my visa. It was a scary, terrible experience.
Having attended the classes for a year, Augustine’s visa expired and he had to go back home to America. During this time, he said:
I started reading widely and started praying and I realised that being gay is actually really fun. I learnt that God cares about how we treat each other and not our sexual orientation.
But he still felt called to the UK, and returned after eight months, eventually heading to Durham University to train for ministry in the Church of England. While finishing his studies, he struggled to find a church that would take him on as a newly-ordained curate to complete his training, One church even rejected him via email for a job after admitting - in their own words - that their parishioners were 'monochrome white working class' and it would perhaps not be a good fit.
After months of uncertainty about the future of his ministry in the UK, St James and Emmanuel church in Didsbury approached Augustine and, with their sponsorship, he was granted a visa to live and work here.
Since 2018, St James and Emmanuel church has become known for hosting Didsbury Pride, an annual celebration of the LGBT+ community. The event came following the tragic death by suicide of a young church member, 14-year-old Lizzie Lowe, who took her own life on 10th September 2014 because she believed her Christian family and community would not accept her because of her sexuality. This led St James and Emmanuel, the church where Lizzie and her family were members, ‘onto a path of radical inclusion that none of us would have been brave enough to follow had it not been for the enormity of the event that set the process in motion’, said St James and Emmanuel’s vicar, Nick Bundock.
Augustine said about Didsbury Pride:
People are often surprised that it’s held at a church. I think people are quite dubious at first and maybe think we’re part of a really weird cult. But it’s a really family-friendly event, it’s a lot of fun, it’s really great. Everyone has such a good time.
In Manchester, Augustine has found his calling and has been able to fully embrace who he is as a person. Augustine hopes events like Didsbury Pride and the church embracing him as a vicar will help change perceptions of Christianity and the LGBT+ community. He said:
People ask me if it was harder coming out gay to the Christian community or coming out Christian to the gay community, and it’s actually really hard. I think intersectionality is really important.
I’ve realised that me being queer, Black, Christian and American are all important parts of my identity. They make up who I am.