Synopses & Reviews
He survived a turbulent childhood in war-torn London, earneddegrees with honors from Cambridge University, was ordained in the Church ofEngland, became an Anglican worker-priest, and emigrated to the UnitedStates.
He has been a prolific broadcaster for theBBC, helped organize the Public Broadcasting System in America, was a foundingchairman of National Public Radio, and became a senior management consultant for theCorporation for Public Broadcasting.
He designedand directed the first system of suicide and crisis counseling centers in California(a model for later centers nationwide) and helped found the Parsonage, anEpiscopalian ministry on behalf of gay rights in the Castro section of SanFrancisco. And all the while, Bernard Duncan Mayes struggled to reconcile his viewson sexuality--and his experience as a gay man--with his theological and culturalbeliefs.
In an entirely honest and engagingvoice, Mayes offers considerably more than autobiographical recollections of hislife as priest, journalist, university teacher and administrator, and gay rightsactivist. Throughout Escaping God's Closet, Bernard Mayes recounts how social anddoctrinal oppression posed fundamental challenges to his own belief system, but ledhim to revelations about sexuality, Christianity, and the nature of human existenceitself.
Review
"A broadcaster for the BBC, an organizer of the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S., a founding chairman of NPR, the creator of an important suicide hotline, a professor, a media consultant, and, oh yes, a 'queer priest,' Bernard Mayes has lived a far from exemplary life—if 'exemplary' is defined as the norm or something to be emulated. But 'exemplary' it is: it exemplifies what can happen when an intelligent, passionate, and deeply thoughtful individual finds his natural inclinations in conflict with the teachings of the Church. Mayes sheds new light on the ways human beings struggle to reconcile frequently divergent impulses, and he draws unsparingly on his experiences in order to provide a framework for the understanding of society and nature. This is a stark book, gutsy in its revelations, moving in the details of his religious journey, and heartening to millions of gay men and women who have found themselves cast out of social and religious hierarchies for reasons even the most intransigent bigots have difficulty comprehending. While his belief in certain dogmas of the Church may have faded, his commitment to his fellow humans intensified and became a substitute, even better some would say, life's mission." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)