The Name is Brother Cinaedus

One of the questions that I have been asked is where does Brother Cinaedus come from; am I really a monk? Now the short answer is no, but there are past issues that are part of the nom d'internet.

In my junior year of college, I became involved with a group called Campus Crusade for Christ. This was a large part of my last two year of college, and I even looked at becoming a part oftheir organization. However, things did not work out, and I did a yearof being a mathematics teacher, but that did not work out well.Iwasthen looking for something else to do. As I had been attending a Methodist church while I was teaching, I applied to a couple of Methodist seminaries. I was accepted to Iliff School of Theology, and I moved to Denver.

This was an enjoyable time for me; it was a time of discovery. I got to explore what I had always expected: I am gay. It was a good place and time to do the exploration. While the gay issue was not the predominate issue at the time I was in seminary, it was on the horizon. (Women in the ministry was the issue then. The Anglican Church was splitting over the ordination of women.)

However, after three years of classes and discovery, I discovered something about my faith. I could talk about theology and all that stuff, but I had a problem with one small assumption: is there a god. After some thought I found that I really did not know, and I could not go into the ministry with that standing. So I left school.

School was not a bad time for me,and I was fascinated with the Medieval monastic tradition. So when I was trying to come up with a nom d'internet, I though I would start with the monastic title of Brother. I then added the Latin word for sodomite...or gay. Brother Cinaedus.

That is the story behind the name.