Revoice rocked the Reformed world in 2018. They introduced the first coming-out event that began normalizing homosexuality in the church. In 2020, they introduced the first coming-out of a gay-straight couple.
You read that right. Couple. Is that the right word?
First, we have to remember what Revoice is about. It is the annual coming-out of the celibate gay from within the churches. It started in 2018 and has continued every year since.
In 2020, their event went online. We can find a few videos of it on Youtube. There is not much there, but there is a “deep-dive” webinar entitled, “Better Together.”
In this webinar we discover this gay-straight duo. It is there we discover why couple may be more descriptive than duo.
Who are these men? The gay man is Art Pereira, a Student Ministry Director at Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA). His straight-friend is Nick Galluccio, a youth pastor at Stonecrest Community Church.
Art describes his friendship with Nick as a family and a household. Those are his words. Why did he use the word household? Because they moved in together.
With a two-year lease, Art jokes that Nick is “staying. He’s mine.” Why would a gay and a straight do this?—because they “are deeply committed to each other.”
What does he mean by “family?” Art did not specify but, apparently, it involves “planning on sharing life together for the rest of our lives.” Why does this sound like marriage?
Of course, it is not marriage, but something added to ordinary marriage. He explains it this way.
But we are totally committed to finding a way to live together and to function as a household. There’s different ideas of what that looks like, right. There are a lot of details we don’t know. Do I live in a house with them? Or do I live next door?…We’ve got a few things worked out which is we don’t move out w/out each other. If he moves, I move; if I move, he moves. We make decisions together as a family…when he has a wife one day, she’ll make the decisions with us.
Given Art’s description of their relationship, we could be forgiven for calling them a couple. This relationship has the obvious potential to harm any future marriage.
That may seem an extreme perspective, but consider if Nick’s friend was a woman. What if she considered him cute, physically attractive and had romantic feelings. How would the wife react? Especially since this woman wants to live wherever Nick lives?
Yet in the interview Art readily describes Nick as cute and physically attractive. He admits he has romantic feelings toward Nick. He admits to spending much time with Nick. Why is this appropriate?
Let us not forget that when a gay man talks about romantic feelings and physical attraction, those are often euphemisms for gay sex. If a man said these things to a woman, they would expect to get married. But since it is a gay man saying these things, commonsense goes out the window.
For his part, Nick has so internalized this bizarre relationship as to claim that his future marriage will be better with Art by his side. He even occasionally questioned his own sexuality.
Art’s pastor is supportive. He is behind their endeavor, encouraging them to carry on with their plans. According to Art, he even gave them “friendship premarital counseling.”
Interestingly, Art realized early on that such feelings were wrong. Such thoughts brought shame and guilt. He even thought he should leave the relationship for his own good. Instead, he rationalized the temptation, turning it on its head.
He explains it this way.
“So, when I started having, like when I start realizing, oh, Nick is cute…I was like, Oh, man I have to get away from this friendship, like, it’s not good for my spiritual health but all the evidence was otherwise. It was really good for my spiritual health…I know Jesus so much more from our relationship, and also he’s cute.”
This rationale brings up questions that churches have not had to consider before. Why is it OK for a male youth director to describe another man repeatedly as cute but not OK for a male youth director to say this about another woman? Is it OK for a male youth director to describe the Lord Jesus Christ as cute?
How would the average Christian parent at church react to the youth leader describing their son as “cute”? Or how does this comport with Paul’s admonition for church leadership to be above reproach? How is this relationship healthy? Will gay-straight couples be the norm in churches?
If Revoice continues unhindered, such questions will no longer be rare but commonplace. Their conference has normalized talking publicly about what was once considered taboo (Eph. 5:12). Now the annual event is normalizing gay-straight couples.
If Revoice 2018 and 2020 brought us this far, what will Revoice bring us in 2021?
The phrase “self deceived” comes strongly to mind, re: Messrs. Pereira and Galluccio. God calls the act of homosexuality an abomination. Can God be pleased with a desire for a thing He calls an abomination? Or any facsimile / approximation / indulgence of it? Matt 5: 28 adequately addresses a desire for the forbidden as being the equivalent of the sinful act. As we celebrate Easter, what do we imagine the power of the resurrection actually is?
Rom 6: 8 – 13 I Jn 3: 1-3 I Pet 4: 1-2
I call on these two “ministers” to step down from their pastoral duties UNTIL they evidence the power of the resurrection in their own hearts and minds, freed from their self deception. Let every minister of the Gospel regularly make such a self -evaluation. Myself included. Lest we be castaways.
So you are saying that I, as a Jesus follower, having a desire for other men, will be going to hell? Lying is forbidden…are you going to hell? Only God can condemn me and Jesus never mentioned homosexuality…ever. He did mention lying, stealing, love of money, etc.
Is my sin worse than yours? So God’s grace covers your sin, but not mine (if it even is a sin). I was born this way. Why would I choose to live as a gay man? God made me who I am and I must live in to who he created me to be.
Jesus commanded me and fellow gay Christians to love you, and we do. We just wish you would love us back.
Are you out of your mind? God HATES FAGS! What don’t you understand?
Leviticus 20:13
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Leviticus 18:22
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
I am disgusted by the Christians that call lgbtq fags or judge. It is only Gods right to judge any of us or our sins. First off they are born the way they are, it is not a choice, it is who they are as God made them to be. I’m a mother of a gay son. I believe with all my heart that God made him gay. He would not make him gay and then call it a sin because he’s with a man instead of a female. It’s not about sex. It’s about a normal attraction like anyone else has. Stop judging them and start loving them. Let them live their lives as they are. They are not hurting anyone. And parents that abandoned their children because they are lgbtq should be ashamed. I love my son with all my heart. I accept him as he is. I support him I protect him I love him unconditionally. I know in my heart that god only wants us to love others and do good. God bless all lgbtq. My son never has to worry about not having family that loves and supports him. My son is perfect just as he is. I thank god for him everyday!!
I can grasp the possibility of a gay person admitting their compulsion as sin and becoming celibate, thereby possibly saving their soul, but why does he have to live with another man, straight or otherwise. The idea of living as a third wheel if that other man gets married just boggles the mind. Why would anyone need to live with someone else in order to be closer to Jesus? It just doesn’t add up as normal and sane.
Possibly saving their soul? Do you not believe in God’s grace?
This arrangement is indeed weird with a straight and gay person committing to each other, but let’s leave the saving of souls to the Lord Jesus.
This isn’t a homosexual and a normal man living together. This is two homosexuals living together. What normal man would let a another man talk about him this way let alone live with him. The PCA had better clean house or they might as well merge with the PCUSA.
I watched a good part of the video of the two men discussing their friendship and then taking questions, and what came to mind afterward as the summary of what I saw: It came across as two middle-school girls with a deep, intense friendship that makes them think they’re the best friends ever, that they’ll stay together always, and furthermore that they know so much about friendship that they can tell others how friendship works.
Initially I was saying to myself, “A vow of friendship is a little bit weird, but not necessarily wrong. After all, Jonathan made a vow to David.” But the more I watched, the more it creeped me out, and the more it did appear an illegitimate vow. First off, they are very deliberately comparing it to the marriage vow, and they are calling themselves family (and they don’t seem to mean brothers in Christ). A commitment always to move if the other man moves, and if one or both marry they will continue to live together or next door and the single man will operate as a fifth wheel to the married couple? Problematic. What if one man gets a job out of town and the other doesn’t want to move? What if one man dates a woman who says, “Me or him, not both?” And what if spiritual maturity makes one man say, “Wait a minute, this is way too close a friendship to have when one man considers the other man ‘cute’ and on some level desirable”? If one man decides that, the other man would say “No, we have a covenant–you can’t back off. You can’t ‘divorce’ me.”
This is not biblical friendship; it is not mature friendship. It is not helpful to either man on a foundational level, it is definitely not an example of how other people should conduct their friendships, and neither man is qualified to be in ministry.
They are homo lovers. Don’t be fooled. What goes on behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. Or so they think.
The whole thing is really disturbing.
Like others said in the comments of the video, this is grooming. Art Pereira is moving the line a little at a time. His internalized homophobia is his conscience telling him this is wrong.
Woe to those who call good evil and evil good.
This is deeply disturbing – these guys need prayer. This is part of the ‘fog’ that will fill our world in these last days. Their video discussing their relationship is just plain scary.