On a balmy summer evening, I approached a brownstone apartment in a leafy Chicago suburb and made a split-second decision that would change the direction of my life.

At the time I was a 20-year-old college sophomore, bursting with the zeal of a new Christian convert. I was carrying a thick leather Bible filled with underlined passages celebrating God’s love for all humanity. I had memorized a New Testament passage, which declared, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male nor female — for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

I was there because I heard an evangelical church hosted a home Bible study every Wednesday night and, being new in town, I wanted to make friends.

Then I peeked in the apartment’s front bay window and saw something that made my heart sink. My finger froze

See Full Page