Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God. A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope 

Book Details

• Authors: Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan

• Reviewer: Bob Kellemen

• Publisher: WaterBrook (May 2011) (240 Pages)

• Category: Homosexuality

• ISBN: 978-0307729354

• Retail Price: $14.99

A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope

We are all drawn to stories of redemption. For many Christians, Luke 15 and the Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most moving narratives in all of Scripture. Out of a Far Country is a true-life parable that reads like a modern rendition of the prodigal son, with the addition of a prodigal mother. Co-authors Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan share their powerful stories in which they were both lost, both found redemption, and both found their ultimate identity in Christ.

Christopher and Angela Yuan’s mother-son narrative in Out of a Far Country is especially poignant because Christopher’s redemption includes his sexuality. Mother and son share their journey in real and raw language in alternating chapters, each from their own perspective.

Angela begins the narrative by honestly sharing the shame, disgrace, heartache, depression, and confusion she experienced when she learned her son was gay. Angela’s parental pain is something to which any parent of any prodigal facing any sin issue—not only same-sex attraction and sexual identify issues—can relate.

That’s the core message of Out of a Far Country. Where do parents find hope for their parental hurts? Angela’s first option of choice is the option we all choose in the flesh—self-effort. As she puts it, “I would do anything to fix my son” (p. 3).

Unable to fix her son, Angela lost all hope and planned to end her life. Then, in reading a booklet about God’s love for homosexuals, she realized that “God loves even me.” As Angela describes it, “I had not been seeking God, but I was found by him. Suddenly it seemed possible that my visit with Christopher—the visit that I had envisioned as one last goodbye—might actually be the beginning of something new” (p. 19).

Angela vividly portrays her spiritual journey as an identity journey. “I no longer had to be perfect. My Father in heaven loved me anyway. It was all I could do to keep from shouting, ‘I’m a sinner! I’m a sinner! I’m a sinner!’” (p. 32). Angela now shifted her focus from changing her son’s sexual identity to finding her own identity in Christ as a sinner saved by grace.

This is the vital metaphor, the scarlet thread, woven throughout Out of a Far Country. In Christ, our core identity is not our sexual identity, but our spiritual identity either as rebellious prodigals with our backs to God or as redeemed sons and daughters embraced by our forgiving Father.

Changed by Christ, Angela now lived a changed life in which she no longer focused on changing her son, but on being “the extension of God’s love to Christopher” (p. 89). For the parent of any prodigal struggling with any sin issue, Out of a Far Country models parental surrender to God as we release our adult children to God’s good hands and as we attempt to be “Jesus with skin on” for our children.

A Gay Son’s Journey to God

Christopher begins his narrative, which is not for the squeamish, with “Out of the Closet” (chapter two). Having told his parents he was gay and proud, he was kicked out. Now he felt free. Little did he know how bound he was and how bound he would become. Finding acceptance in the gay community, Christopher felt, for the first time, like he had a family. Little did he know how quickly this “family” would desert him and how fervently his heavenly Father was pursuing him—inviting him into His eternal family.

Christopher’s tells his narrative as a journey with many hills and valleys—gay relationships, drug dealing, partying, rejection, arrest, emptiness, HIV. On the one hand, living the high life, on the other hand, experiencing the lowest of lows. As he pictures it:

“Not even my friends wanted me. They wouldn’t even accept a collect call. I was nothing more than a reject, a throwaway. I took a deep breath and let out a sigh as my shoulders slumped and I dropped my head. I was about to turn toward my cell when something on top of the trash caught my eye. I bent over and picked up a Gideon’s New Testament” (p. 129).

Through a dizzying series of horrific events (arrest, incarceration, an AIDS diagnosis), Christopher hit rock bottom and then found himself clinging to the Rock of ages. Meditating on Jeremiah 29:12-14, he saw that “God could restore me and bring me back from captivity…. He wanted to be a part of my life—no matter who I was or what I had done…. With God I had no record; I had no debt to be paid; I had no shameful past” (p. 148).

In his speaking engagements and on his website, Christopher presents the gospel clearly. In Out of a Far Country, the gospel message is there in his life narrative, however, one might wish it had been presented with a little more clarity and detail.

Holy Sexuality

Those expecting a full-blown theological treatise on homosexuality would be disappointed by Out of a Far Country. That is not the purpose of the book. However, in one chapter (chapter thirty), Christopher does distill his understanding of homosexuality. Christopher’s approach is more narrative than didactic.

“I turned to the Bible alone and went through every verse, every chapter, every page of Scripture looking for biblical justification for homosexuality. I couldn’t find any. I was at a turning point, and a decision had to be made. Either abandon God to live as a homosexual—by allowing my feelings and sexual passions to dictate who I was. Or abandon homosexuality—by liberating myself from my feelings—and live as a follower of Jesus Christ. My decision was obvious. I chose God” (p. 186).

Christopher began to ask the identity question that every person struggling with same-sex attraction must ask. “Who am I apart from my sexuality?” He came to the conclusion that:

“…my identity shouldn’t be defined by my sexuality. Paul said in Acts 17:28, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ Christ should be everything—my all in all. My sexual orientation didn’t have to be the core of who I was. My primary identity didn’t have to be defined by my feelings or sexual attractions. My identity was not ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual,’ or even ‘heterosexual,’ for that matter. But my identity as a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone” (p. 187).

Some may take issue with Christopher’s conclusion that “holy sexuality is not focused on orientation change—becoming straight—but on obedience. I realized that obedience means, no matter what my situation, no matter what my feelings—gay or straight—I must obey and be faithful to God” (p. 187).

His view is that we all have sexual temptations that we must deal with until our glorification—some are tempted with heterosexual lusts and others with homosexual lusts.

“Holy sexuality doesn’t mean that I no longer have any sexual feelings or attractions. Nor is it the obliteration of my sexuality either. God created us as sexual beings with the natural desire for intimacy. And everyone is created to desire intimate, God-honoring, nonsexual relationships with the same gender. But because of the effects of original sin, this normal feeling has been distorted. I believe homosexuality (and any other sin, such as jealousy, pride, and gluttony) stems from a legitimate need fulfilled in an illegitimate way” (p. 188).

He further develops his view of holy sexual in two contexts. For the married person, “holy sexuality means focusing all our sexual feelings and behaviors exclusively toward one person, our spouse” (p. 188). He believes that this level of change is possible for the person with same-sex attraction.

Holy sexuality and singleness means that, “single people must devote themselves to complete faithfulness to the Lord through celibacy. This is clearly taught in Scripture, and abstinence is not something unfair or unreasonable for God to ask of his people” (p. 188).

On his web site, especially in the FAQs, Christopher develops his views in more detail on important issues such as sexual identity, same-sex attraction, sexual orientation, can gays change, and is homosexuality a choice. Perhaps a future edition of Out of a Far Country could include his FAQs in an Appendix.

Redeemed and Finally Home

Angela’s final chapter is “Redeemed” and Christopher’s is “Finally Home.” Both are appropriately titled and appropriate conclusions to Out of a Far Country. As Christopher came out and then came home, so the Father calls everyone who is a long way off to come home. Out of a Far Country speaks to prodigals, parents of prodigals, and all people wanting to minister to those struggling with same-sex attraction, pointing all of us to the Redeemer.

Note: This review first appeared at the Gospel Coalition’s book review site. To read the original review please visit Out of a Far Country. 

Five to Live By

Linking you to the top 5 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

Biblical Counsel and Parenting

Paul Tautges’ new blog is fast becoming one of my favorites. In this post he summarizes some great parenting insights from biblical counselor Lou Priolo. Learn what not to do in 25 Ways to Provoke Your Child to Anger. 

Me and My Brain

Over at the Resurgence you’ll find a solid summary of how a Christian should view recent research on the brain. Read Ed Welch’s My Brain Made Me Do It?  

Sin and Suffering

Also at the Resurgence you’ll find the first of what looks to be a series of posts on sin and suffering. Read the Desiring God interview with Pastor Mike Wilkerson about his book Redemption in Sin and Suffering. 

Homosexuality and the Grace of God 

At the Gospel Coalition you’ll find my review of Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God. A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope by Christopher and Angela Yuan. The book provides healing hope for all families dealing with issues related to homosexuality.

Depression and the Ministry

How can ministers and their families deal with depression? Here are links to a five-part joint series presented by the Biblical Counseling Coalition and the Gospel Coalition on Depression and the Ministry.

• Paul Tripp: Part 1 BCC, Part 1 TGC.

• Garrett Higbee: Part 2 BCC, Part 2 TGC. 

• Steve Viars: Part 3 BCC, Part 3 TGC.

• Jeremy Lelek: Part 4 BCC, Part 4 TGC.

• Bob Kellemen: Part 5 BCC, Part 5 TGC.

Join the Conversation

Which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Five to Live By 

Linking you to the top 5 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.

Can I Change?

Paul Tripp explores how God changes us in Big Drama Christianity or…?

Does God Have a Good Heart?

John Piper’s Desiring God ministry blog provides a powerful series of quotes from Martin Luther on relating to God as our gracious, loving heavenly Father. Be encouraged with Abba Father Versus a Wrathful Roar.

Can I Trust God?

Rick Thomas addresses how we should deal with our desires in Why I Can’t Have Life on My Terms.

How Do I Deal with Chronic Pain?

My good friend, Chris Boucher, recently started a blog. His insights for living are well worth following, as exemplified in his post about The Valley of Vision and Chronic Pain.

How Should Christians View Homosexuality?

Al Mohler offers a loving, nuanced, robust, relational approach to the vital issue of how we as Christians view homosexuality. Ponder his views in Mohler, Scripture, and Homosexuality.

Bonus Blog: What If I Blew It As a Parent?

I know, this makes # 6 in my “5 to Live By”… Elyse Fitzpatrick at the Biblical Counseling Coalition’s Grace & Truth blog addresses imperfect parents (all parents!) in Grace for Regretful Parents Too.

Bonus Blog # 2: How Do We Find Hope When We’re Hurting?

Rita Schulte’s Heartline Podcast interviews yours truly about finding hope in our hurts in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses.  

Join the Conversation

Which post impacted you the most? Why? What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Hope Positive: Christopher Yuan’s Testimony 

The testimony of Christopher Yuan and his parents about God as the Hound of Heaven. The story is told in more detail in Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God. A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope.

Victory Over or Struggling With? 

Last night I was reading Wesley Hill’s book Washed and Waiting. I was struck by many thoughts, including his quote from Philip Yancey:

“Much of what I read on depression, on doubt, on suicide, on suffering, on homosexuality, seems written by people who begin with a Christian conclusion and who have never been through the anguished steps familiar to a person struggling with depression, doubt, suicide, suffering, or homosexuality. No resolution could be so matter-of-fact to a person who has actually survived such a journey.”

Hill concludes, “I hope in what follows to convey something of what it’s actually like to have survived—or, rather, to be surviving—the anguished journey of struggling with homosexuality.”

How We Communicate Our Struggles   

In Evangelical circles, in pastoral care, and in the biblical counseling world, it seems to me that we spend much more time preaching, teaching, and counseling about “victory over,” and much less time journeying with and pondering “struggling with,” “fighting with,” or even “victory in.” Do we perhaps sometimes mistakenly convey the impression that applying biblical principles eliminates the battle, the struggle?

I wonder if Yancey is onto something with his diagnosis. It’s one thing to write about overcoming—academically, dispassionately, as an observer. But what about writing and counseling out of our own souls, our own ongoing struggles.

Many of the leaders of modern Evangelicalism and of modern biblical counseling, like myself, are middle-class, “type A,” academically-inclined, white males. We write, teach, preach, care, and counsel out of this perspective.

Look again at some of the literature we produce. How often are we writing about our current struggles or our ongoing struggles with issues such as depression, anxiety, heterosexual lusts, homosexual lusts, envy, jealousy, anger, and the like? How often do we preach about our current and ongoing struggles?

Stop for a moment before you say, “Oh, I just talked about how last year I battled ____________.” That’s part of our problem. We write and preach about the battle after we have won it. We talk about the valley once we are back on the mountaintop.

What impact might it have on our fellow-strugglers if we talked about the battle during the battle—while we are still in the valley? How might it connect truth to life if we were honest enough to admit that we have some lifelong, ongoing battles that we struggle with rather than that we always have “victory” over?

A Personal Confession

I struggle with worry, fear, and anxiety. Given my level of “productivity,” that confession might surprise a lot of people.

For others, that confession might seem to disqualify me from being a biblical counselor. “If you don’t have victory over these struggles, then what right do you have to counsel others?”

I view it differently. The fact that I experience daily struggles with, the fact that I daily battle against worry, fear, and anxiety, and that I seek to do so in dependence upon the Word of God, the people of God, and the Spirit of God, may be exactly what qualifies me. Each day I seek God’s daily bread to empower me to have victory in the daily battle as I fight, in God’s power, against the effects of the fall in my life.

Not Recanting, but Re-emphasizing

But this isn’t really about me. It’s about us. It’s about being biblically accurate about Christian living.

Anyone who has read any of my writings, and perhaps especially Soul Physicians, knows that I emphasize being “more than conquerors.” I stress our new identity in Christ and our new nature in Christ—our regeneration.

I believe in the power of Christ’s resurrection (Ephesians 1:18-23; Ephesians 3:20; Philippians 3:10). That’s why I call my ministry RPM: Resurrection Power Multipliers.

I’m not recanting of any of that. Our daily struggles against suffering and sin is the very reason we must cling to Christ’s resurrection power.

I am wanting to emphasize other truths that I have taught but perhaps have not highlighted quite as well. We need to ponder the truth about and the implications of living in a fallen world in fallen bodies—the groanings that exist until our glorification (see Paul in Romans 8:19-27).

I understand that sometimes God works in miraculous and mysterious ways to give what seems like total, instantaneous, ongoing victory. It occurs at times for the person struggling with drinking. It occurs at times for the person struggling with homosexuality (or with heterosexual lusts). It occurs at times for the person struggling with anxiety. Some experience ongoing victory over.

Many more experience daily, lifelong struggles against. For many, every day is another day to maintain sobriety in the power of Christ. For many, every day is another day to fight against homosexual lusts or heterosexual lusts. For many, like myself, every day is another day to struggle with anxiety in and through the power of the cross. (The Bible clearly portrays these truths by all the imperatives about continually battling against and putting off…)

Soul-to-Soul Ministry

Like the Apostle Paul, we need to give people God’s Word and our own souls (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Like the Apostle Paul, we can pray fervently for the removal of a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) or of excruciating suffering (2 Corinthians 1:8-11). But at the end of the day, many times God still says, “Not yet. I never promised to remove you from all suffering and temptation. I want you to cling to Me continually as you struggle with and fight for victory in your situation.”

As we provide pastoral care and biblical counseling, we need to minister out of the anguish of our own ongoing struggle with suffering and against sin. We need to connect soul-to-struggling-soul. As we write and preach, we have to stop implying that the resolution to any battle is easy and matter-of-fact. As congregations, we need to invite one another to join together as we struggle in the anguished journeys we face as we live in a fallen world. We are all, as Paul Tripp reminds us, people in need of change helping people in need of change.

Join the Conversation

What is your testimony of daily struggling with suffering and against sin?

How would our pastoral care, counseling, preaching, and teaching change if we ministered out of our anguished souls?

Court Upholds Expulsion of Counseling Student Who Opposes Homosexuality

Todd Starnes of Fox News reports that a federal judge has ruled in favor of Eastern Michigan University’s removal of a Christian student, Julea Ward, from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong.

A Dangerous Precedence

Monday’s ruling, according to Ward’s attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views. “It’s a very dangerous precedent,” Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told Fox News Radio. “The ruling doesn’t say that explicitly, but that’s what is going to happen.”

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients. The university contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics.

“Christian students shouldn’t be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF senior counsel David French. “To reach its decision, the court had to do something that’s never been done in federal court: uphold an extremely broad and vague university speech code.” The Alliance Defense Fund will appeal the ruling.

A Faulty Application

In his 48-page opinion, Judge Steeh claims the university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics. “Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values,” he wrote in a portion of his ruling posted by The Detroit News. “In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs – including homosexual relationships.”

There are several inconsistencies in Steeh’s judicial opinion. First, he claims she would be guilty of imposing her personal values, but then claims she would refuse to counsel clients on matters where her convictions were opposed to their views. Which is it?

Second, what would a non-religious counselor do if faced, as they often are, with a client who wants to either leave a homosexual lifestyle or deal with homosexual lusts and tendencies? The answer is obvious since the ACA has ruled that all “Reparative Therapy” (attempts to help individuals who want to leave the homosexual lifestyle) is unethical. Thus they would either have to impose their values on their client or refuse to counsel the client—exactly what Ward is said to be doing.

Third, counseling research has proven repeatedly that no counselor can counsel value-free. It’s obvious that the only values counselors are no longer free to practice are Christian values.

The Re-Programing of Committed Christians

Ward’s attorneys notes that the university told her she would only be allowed to remain in the program if she went through a “remediation” program so that she could “see the error of her ways” and change her belief system about homosexuality.

Tedesco said this case and others like them (see, for example, Augusta State University student told to change her Christian beliefs or leave) should be a warning to Christians attending public colleges and universities. “Public universities are imposing the ideological stances of private groups on their students,” he said. “If you don’t comply, you will be kicked out. It’s scary stuff and it’s not a difficult thing to see what’s coming down the pike.”

Join the Conversation

What is your opinion of the court’s ruling in this case?

Julea Ward