Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians, and Everybody Else

In Freedom, McNeill completes his trilogy (The Church and the Homosexual and Taking a Chance on God) and adds another block to the rising structure that reconciles homosexuality and Christianity. The author's nearly 40 years as a Jesuit lend a Roman Catholic context here, but the problems for homosexual people within all of Christianity are similar enough that this offering is applicable beyond the Church of Rome. Beginning with the principle of spiritual discernment (i.e., the authority of each human being to know the truth about his or her own relationship to God), McNeill, a psychotherapist, is convinced that coming out is necessary for spiritual maturity as well as mental and emotional health. To enable this, he lauds the 12-step process as ``the most powerful spiritual liberation process in the world today.'' He argues also that the emergence of open homosexuality is evidence of a new synthesis in the balancing of the human personality-a replacement for the breakdown of the patriarchial archetype. While some of his postulations are mind-bending (e.g., Mary, Martha and Lazarus were possibly gay and represent Jesus' ``family of choice''), McNeill's navigation from inside the human spirit to outside human history is graceful, learned and worthy of contemplation. (Feb.)