The Rev Randy McCain, pastor of Open Door Community Church in Sherwood, Ark., a Little Rock suburb, started his evangelical church as an openly gay man, and many of his 120 congregants are gay or relatives of gay men and lesbians. Mr. McCain said he hoped the disclosures would shake the certainty many evangelicals had about homosexuality.
But he said he doubted that other ministers would confess to same-sex attraction, because they could lose their churches and the lives they had built. He added that while leaders of large churches might hide their homosexuality, he had heard of many small churches like his where gay people were accepted, "a ministry under the surface, and not on the radar screen."
"I think that's the way God is moving, often under the radar," Mr. McCain said. "It's like finding a baby in a manger: you don't expect to find God there. And it's like that when, say, the parents of some of our members come to our church."