Finding Myself Beyond Faith: Joshua Johnson's Journey from Christianity to Self-Acceptance

Joshua Johnson has what he calls a “God-shaped hole” in his heart. The death of Pat Robertson helped put it there. 

A journalist, former NPR talk-show host and MSNBC news anchor, Johnson didn’t personally know Robertson, a televangelist who founded “The 700 Club” empire and was an influential figure in conservative Republican politics. Nor was he a fan: though they shared the same bedrock faith, Johnson, who is Black and gay, saw Robertson, a white evangelical Christian, as a homophobe and a demagogue who used the Bible like a cudgel.

Still, news of Robertson’s passing marked a turning point for Johnson, the final battle in a private war between his fundamentalist Christian background and emergence of his sexuality. The conflict began in puberty, with stirrings of same-sex attraction; the ensuing battles drove him into self-isolation as a young adult. And they nearly crippled him during what should have been a validating achievement: being chosen to host a national talk radio program.

Not long after Robertson died in June, Johnson wrote a searing, deeply personal blog post, “From My Heart: Pride, Pain & Pat Robertson,” in which he publicly and decisively announced his break with Christianity. News of the televangelist’s death, he wrote, triggered memories of the many homophobic sermons Johnson had heard from preachers like Robertson, and reminded him that his fruitless, decades-long quest to reconcile faith and sexuality ended in a painful, frustrating conclusion. 

Johnson couldn’t love his God, and himself, at the same time. 

“I think the break from my faith is pretty much done,” he said in a recent interview with The Reckoning. “There is nothing that fills that space, and there has been nothing that fills that space. It is harder, in a way, because I don't like not having a guiding philosophy in my life that can overcome my fear and my cynicism, at times when I need that.”

In troubled times, his coping mechanism “used to be that it was just based on God having a plan for my life” Johnson says. Now, he says, “that's broken.”

The Struggle To Combat Homophobia in the Black Church

Johnson’s struggle between faith and identity likely resonates with gay Black men who grew up in church pews, attending Sunday school or singing in the youth choir.

For centuries, the Black church has arguably been at the center of Black politics, culture, identity and activism, stretching from slavery to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Those deep connections include the Black LGBT community: A 2020 University of California-Los Angeles survey found that more than 70% of Black gays and lesbians are either moderately (39.3%) or highly (31.7%) religious.

Yet while there are many Black churches that welcome gays and lesbians, it’s common for mainstream churches and pastors to condemn homosexuality. But it’s also common to find gays and lesbians in those same churches -- sitting in pews, singing in the choir, accompanying them on instruments, even preaching from the pulpit.

A 2022 Pew Center for Research survey put a finer point on Black Christians’ attitudes towards homosexuality. It found that 61% of all Americans give a thumbs-up to same-sex marriage, compared with 57% of all Black Americans. Among Black American churchgoers, however, less than half -- 49% -- support gay marriage.

In a closer analysis, the University of California-San Francisco Department of Medicine found a double-edged sword for gays in the Black church. 

Gay Black men can reap important benefits from a regular spiritual practice, including stronger social connections that improve mental and physical health. Yet homophobic and AIDS-phobic messages coming from church leaders, according to the analysis, can counter those positive effects by “(increasing) Black gay men’s internalized homophobia,” leading to poor physical and psychological outcomes. 

The negativity “can increase risk-taking and decrease access to support” in times of crisis, according to the analysis. That can result in damaging consequences, including increased risk of acquiring HIV-AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. 

Moreover, the cognitive dissonance of gay men and lesbians in the choir loft while a homophobic preacher condemns them from the pulpit “creates an ‘open closet’ at the center of church life,” according to the analysis.

Johnson’s story of growing up Black and gay in a conservative church seems like a case study in that dynamic.

The Psychological Straightjacket Unable To Be Removed

Sharing a name with the Biblical Joshua -- one of God’s fiercest warriors, a steadfast and uncompromising Christian who seized Canaan for the Israelites -- Johnson grew up in a deeply religious home in West Palm Beach, Fla., the only son of a schoolteacher and a military veteran. Church attendance, Bible study and household discussions of Scripture “was the tie that bound my family,” he says. 

“I grew up in a Black religious community. Regardless of what church they went to, chances are, if they were Black, they did go to church,” says Johnson. “That was a huge lens through which we viewed the world: people who were civically active, who had been involved in civil rights. So for me, there was never really any separation between being Black, being Christian and existence — they were all welded to one another.”

It’s also why, when his same-sex attraction blossomed at 13 in the 1990s, “I knew not to talk about it,” he says. “I tried to keep being a good boy and a good Christian and just sort of not really go there,” keeping to himself throughout high school and at the University of Miami. 

As a young churchgoing man, “I think it would have been simpler, but not easier, if I had just been, like, obviously flamboyant, and could not hide my sexuality, because then there would be no choice but to just confront it,” Johnson says. But because he was a top student in high school, a beloved church member in college and a young man who “made so many people so proud” -- all while “passing” as straight -- the stakes were high. 

“There was something to lose” if he came out, he said.

As he matured, keeping his sexuality to himself -- while presenting as an exceptional, heterosexual Black man who loved God and could quote the Bible from memory -- became a psychological straightjacket Johnson could not remove.

On his own after college, Johnson sought out one church after another, searching for a faith community that could embrace and nurture his twin identities. But balance was impossible: Liberal churches that welcomed LBGTQ members didn’t satisfy his craving for the old-school Gospel teachings he’d grown up with, while more philosophically conservative churches that energized his faith often branded gays and lesbians as unredeemable sinners -- just like Pat Robertson did on television for nearly six decades. 

Still, “I didn't feel like I could just put one (identity) down and pick the other up,” Johnson says. Christianity “was such a uniquely ingrained part of my life. Nothing would fill what (one pastor) called ‘the God-shaped hole in your heart.’ He was right.”

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Joshua Johnson (Image courtesy of subject)

The War Between Faith and Sexuality Still Rages On

Things reached a crisis point in 2017, when Johnson was hired to host The 1A, a flagship NPR midday call-in show. Though he was a rising media star with a national profile and a highly-rated show, the conflict between his core identities grew so intense it nearly paralyzed him. 

At the time, “I was just a pile of nerves. And I just did my best to not let other people see it,” Johnson says. He threw himself into his work, he says, even though “I didn't always have much emotional or spiritual strength to get through. There were plenty of days that were super-duper dark. I eventually just had to come out because I thought I was gonna die.”

“Just because I was functional,” he says, “doesn't mean that I was strong.”

Gradually, Johnson embraced his sexuality, left the open closet and moved on from NPR to anchor nightly and weekend news programs on MSNBC -- including a special Pride Month broadcast, “Pride + Protest,” in 2020. He left the network in November 2022, moved with his partner to Las Vegas and launched “The Night Light with Joshua Johnson,” a multimedia news and public affairs project featuring a Substack blog and a podcast on Apple iTunes. 

“When you have to live in the height of expectations of your communities and your God, it makes it impossible for you to be a whole person and please them. You have to disappoint them to be yourself.”

— Joshua Johnson

Though he reached an armistice in the war between faith and sexuality, “it's something that never quite got resolved,” Johnson says. “And I'm just now in a place where I can fully put real brain and heart space into it. I've heard Jane Fonda say we weren't meant to be perfect, we were meant to be home. And when you have to live in the height of expectations of your communities and your God, it makes it impossible for you to be a whole person and please them. You have to disappoint them to be yourself.” 

Although he has turned away from the church towards secularism, Johnson says his struggle isn’t over. He is more comfortable in the LBGT community -- “I’ve kissed cute boys during Pride,” he says -- yet it doesn’t feel like home. And while Biblical principles he learned over his lifetime continue to guide him, “there’s nothing pulling me forward” like the church community he never quite found. 

“There's nothing about this that feels good. Nothing about this feels right,” he says. ”Other days, I feel great. But it's much harder now. When you're in your 40s, to try to rebuild your whole life philosophy -- that's a big ask.”