I love reading history. Still Time to Care is a groundbreaking look at the history of the white Evangelical movement’s response to gay people, and an invitation to shift from a culture war mentality to a posture of humility, love, and honesty. Like all history that’s told well, it’s an engaging, riveting, and accessible read.

And yet it’s a hard history to read. Tremendous amounts of damage has been done, and continues to be done by those who repeat the history from which they fail to learn. But like all history that is told well, it is a complicated story with both darkness and also bursts of light… and often not neat, tidy lines between the two. You will come away with a better understanding of how the white Evangelical movement earned such a notorious reputation of hating gay people, as well as the awareness that there have been and continue to be Jesus followers who do it differently.

Perhaps surprising to some is the fact that Greg is not pointing Christians to something new, but something old. A way of thinking that existed before the Ex-Gay movement, and is illustrated in leaders like C.S. Lewis. A way of relating that holds to the traditional sex ethic, and also cares for gay people by standing up against discrimination, equally valuing and promoting celibacy and friendship alongside marriage, and enveloping gay people within the family bonds of the Church. A philosophy of ministry that doesn’t try to cure people’s orientation, but rather care for them as fellow image bearers of God and heirs of grace in Christ.

And it’s more than a history book. Greg also engages the hard theological and practical questions that so many are asking right now. Did we get the biblical sexual ethic wrong? Is the biblical ethic inherently violent to gay people? He brings his historical, theological, and pastoral training to these questions, as well as the vulnerability of his own story.

I hope many people read this book. Where the church has caused harm, I hope this book helps to make amends.  Where there is confusion, I hope this book clarifies theological and historical truths. For those who have experienced exclusion, I hope this book is an experience of the welcome of Jesus… for all people, but especially for you. For those who have done the excluding, I hope this book is a seedbed of self-reflection and humility that opens the door for you to learn a better way. The way of Jesus.