“I don’t like mens no more!” was the phrase heard around the Internet when viral sensation Andrew Caldwell got up to the microphone at the Church of God in Christ conference in St. Louis.
Now, after countless online jokes at parodies at his expense, Caldwell would like to tell his side of the story.
Caldwell says he felt pressured to get up and speak because the previous speaker had called gays “sissies” and suggested they should “bleed from their butts.”
“I went up there because I needed prayer that day. I needed so much prayer,” Caldwell says.
The presiding bishop of the church, Bishop Charles E. Blake, Sr., has since come forward to apologize for the previous speaker’s words. “I apologize for what seemed to be a harsh, uncompassionate, disrespectful spirit on the part of that speaker. I also apologize to Andrew Caldwell. We love all people regardless of their faith or their moral standing,” he said.
But Caldwell thinks there is still a lot of learning to be done.
“They think that they can preach the homosexuals away in the Church of God in Christ,” says Caldwell. “And you can’t.”
Asked about whether he was truly “delivered there on the spot,” Caldwell says, “That’s not the case…I still have desires.”
“That video caused a lot to me…mentally and physically,” says Caldwell. “I feel that, if I was delivered, God should deliver me more. But I know it takes a process. But I think it is going a little bit slow. I want God to work on my mannerisms. I want God to stop the switching…talking like a woman.”
Despite the backlash, Caldwell still claims he truly wants to be delivered. “Continue to pray for me,” he says. “Because I am going through a lot each and every day.”