Michael Foust | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Tuesday, July 21, 2020 

A man who formerly worked in Hollywood as a set designer with such stars as Katy Perry and Paris Hilton says Christ freed him from homosexuality and he hopes to encourage others who are walking a similar path. 

Becket Cook, author of the 2019 book A Change of Affection: A Gay Man's Incredible Story of Redemption, shared his testimony this month on The 700 Club. Francis Chan wrote the foreword for the book, which Thomas Nelson published.

“At a very young age, I knew that I was attracted to the same sex,” Cook told CBN. “I had to keep it to myself. I dated girls. In elementary school, I went steady with girls. In high school, I dated girls. But it was all a facade. After college, I ended up moving to L.A. to pursue acting and writing and … a creative field. I just came out to everyone. That's when I fully embraced homosexuality as my identity.

“... I was very successful in my career as a set designer, production designer. I was doing covers for Vogue and for Harper's Bazaar,” Cook said. “And I worked with a lot of pop stars like Katy Perry and Paris Hilton and Oprah ... everyone you can imagine, I worked with them. And I also started my own men's fashion line.”

Cook’s clothes were sold in Los Angeles, New York City and Paris.

“I went to all the shows, I went to all the after-parties,” he said.

But God began working on his life at one specific after-party when he began pondering the meaning of life.

“I was … looking out over the crowd. It just struck me so profoundly. I was like: Is that all there is to life? Just going to parties for the rest of my life? Is that all? Is this what it's all about? And I really started to panic that night. I was overwhelmed with a sense of emptiness,” Cook said. 

Several months later, Cook and a gay friend were sitting together at a coffee shop in Los Angeles when Cook noticed that a group of people at an adjacent table were conducting a Bible study.

Cook – who says he was a “practical atheist” at the time – asked them if they were Christians. They said they were, and they shared the gospel with him. He then asked, “So what does your church in Hollywood believe about homosexuality?”

“And they were just like, ‘Well, you know, we believe it's a sin.’ I appreciated how kind of frank they were and honest,” he said. “They invited me to church the following Sunday.”

Cook didn’t think he would attend the church – yet the following Sunday, he did.

“The pastor ... starts preaching on Romans chapter seven, [and] something strange started happening. Everything he was saying – every word he was saying, every sentence he was saying – started to resonate this truth in my mind [and] my heart. And I didn't know why,” Cook said.

“I was on the edge of my seat. ... It was the first time I had really heard the gospel and understood [it]. Before [the pastor] left, he invited people to get prayed with on the side of the church.”

He walked to the front of the church and told someone, “I don't know what I believe, but I'm here.” The counselor prayed for him.

“And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit floods me, and God ... revealed Himself to me in that moment,” Cook said. “... In that moment. I knew it to the core of my being, that being gay was no longer who I was. But I didn't care. ... I had just met Jesus Christ.” 

Cook realizes that some people will doubt his testimony, believing he is “just suppressing who I really am.”

“But they don't get it. ... I lived that life for a really long time,” Cook said. “I marched in gay pride parades. I marched in gay marriage equality parades. I was super gay. I tried that for 30 years.

“This is actually really who I am now,” he said of his relationship with Christ. “My hope is that people will realize how much more amazing it is to deny yourself and follow Christ rather than to just give in … to satisfy some immediate need. So it's not a happiness from the world. It's a joy that comes from Christ. With God, I feel this unconditional love from Him that will never leave. ... He'll never leave or forsake me. I'm happy to leave that dead man behind because [Christ is] worth it.”

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.