Today, we published a student testimony written by Dan Erikson, who is a senior at Gordon. Dan’s story discusses his experience with sexual assault at a young age, and his subsequent struggle with sexual confusion, a pornography addiction, same-sex attraction, homosexuality, and suicidal ideation. But he cried out to the Lord in the moments of his deepest pain, and he has since found freedom from sin and addiction in the truth of the Gospel and in the sacrificial love of Jesus. As Dan writes in his testimony, although he still faces struggles, he has decided to daily surrender the battle to Christ in obedience.

Now, he desires to share how the Lord met him and transformed his life. 

This is a powerful testimony of freedom and of Christ’s love. I am praying it will be a source of encouragement, not only to anyone on campus feeling trapped in addiction or sexual confusion, but to all of us as we learn to surrender ourselves to the Lord. We are all in desperate need of His grace, which He is joyfully and lovingly ready to extend. 

I also pray that Dan’s story helps start important conversations about what it looks like for us to come together in our struggles. How can we support one another with the Word, bear one another’s burdens, and identify when a brother or sister is hurting? May we be a community known for lifting one another up in truth and love. 

I know the issue of homosexuality and same-sex attraction is a sensitive one, and that we may not all share the same perspective. However, while the Gordon Review is committed to adhering to Gordon’s Board of Trustees Statement on Sexual Ethics, the purpose of this article is not to call out or condemn anyone. Its purpose is to proclaim that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! Because of Christ, we can have hope, and we can rest in the fact that this world—​in all the ways it has and will continue to fail us—is not our home. 

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” Revelation 12:10-11 (ESV).