Challenges That Change Us

142 {Craig Hoyle} The cost of being gay in a high control religious sect

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Episode notes

We’ve had guests speak about growing up in a controlling religious sect before, but for this episode we are getting a close up look at what it was like to grow up in one of these groups, while also being gay.

Craig Hoyle grew up in Invercargill, NZ in the restrictive Exclusive Brethren Christian sect, which banned television, radio, pets, and social contact with outsiders. He was excommunicated from the Brethren in 2009 after coming out as gay as a teenager. Today he is chief news director for the Sunday Star-Times, one of New Zealand’s national newspapers. His book Excommunicated is a multigenerational memoir telling the story of his family's journey with the Exclusive Brethren sect over 200 years.

 

In this episode he shares:

 

-      HIs early experience with the exclusive brethren

-      What he wasn’t allowed to do as a kid

-      How the brethren tried to change his sexuality

-      What it was like being gay in the brethren

-      What made him first want to run away from the brethren

-      What it was like being kicked out of the brethren

-      How his family reacting to him being gay

-      The people who helped him and how the world helped him

 

Key Quotes

 

“The brethren were very, very good at keeping tabs on you and very good at finding out where you were”

 

“I was going round to a local priests house and we would spend hours while I tried to confess.”

 

More about Craig

 

Find him on linkedin and find his book on amazon.

 

 

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