What you need about donnie mcklurclin

Compiled in March 2010 by Thomas
Coy mostly from the 2004
documentary The Donnie McClurkin
Story – From Darkness to Light .
Born:
1959
Family Status:
Single with one child.
General Information as of 2010:
Donnie McClurkin websites: http://
donniemcclurkin.ning.com , http://
www.perfectingfaith.org , and http://
donnieradio.com .
Donnie McClurkin is the pastor of
Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New
York, a singer, a musician, songwriter,
choir director, author, actor, and a radio
host. Donnie has won Grammy, Dove,
and Stellar Awards in gospel music. He
has sung at both Republican and
Democratic National Conventions, been
given BET awards, and was honored
with an NAACP Image Award for
Outstanding Gospel Artist.
His albums and single releases are many
and he travels the world singing and
preaching the gospel of Jesus. Some of his
most popular gospel songs are “Stand,”
“Speak to My Heart,” and “We Fall
Down.” His biographical book is titled
Eternal Victim, Eternal Victor .
Personal Testimony:
Donnie McClurkin was one of ten
children in a relatively poor family from
Amityville, New York. Donnie’s mother
sang in the church choir and Donnie
sang his first solo in church at the age of
3. Despite their meager economic status
the family was full of love and happiness
until the 6th of June in 1968. That was
the day Donnie’s world went from the
best of times to the worst of times.
Donnie was eight years old at the time
and playing with his two year old
brother in the front yard. A ball he was
playing with went into the street and he
instinctively went after it. What he
didn’t realize was that  two year old
brother followed after him. When
Donnie picked up the ball and turned
around he saw a car traveling at a high
rate of speed heading toward his brother,
who was now in the road. He and his
mother, screaming through the window,
watched the toddler bounce under the
car as it went over him.
The funeral was held two days after the
accident. After the funeral the McClurkin
children were sent home with their
mother’s uncle, while the parents stayed
with family. Unbeknownst to the
parents, the uncle was a pedophile. In
the evening the uncle raped Donnie and
a couple of his sisters. Scared and
confused Donnie and the sisters did not
tell their parents what their uncle had
done to them.
Looking back at that night Donnie said
in the documentary, “The seed of
perversion was planted through that
molestation. It was a thing that made my
life a living hell. An eight year old can’t
handle it, and it sparks something in an
eight year old that’s not supposed to
spark until puberty. … Things start
popping in an eight year old mind that
doesn’t happen in normal eight year old
minds, because the Pandora’s Box was
opened, and you can’t close it after that.”
Donnie’s mother went into deep
depression. Sometimes she would tell
Donnie, “You killed my baby. You killed
my baby.” The family environment
turned volatile. Physical violence
between husband and wife became the
norm with the police intervening on
several occasions. His older sisters began
using drugs and arguing with their
mother.
There were other compounding factors
in Donnie’s life. He was shy, reclusive,
and athletically inept. He couldn’t
dribble, hit, or catch a ball. He was also
born with the physical deformity of web
hands and feet and his peers would
make fun of it. He felt like he didn’t fit in
anywhere.
The following summer, July of 1969,
Donnie received Jesus as his Lord and
Savior at Amityville Gospel Tabernacle.
For Donnie “the church became more
therapeutic than anything else, because
it was a place of escape.” Whenever hell
was breaking loose at home he would go
to the church. Because he didn’t fit in
any peer group, he threw himself into
music and playing the piano. Donnie
recalled feeling that “when I played
piano, everybody liked me.”
At age eleven Donnie was able to meet
the gospel singer whose music was
stirring a new passion in him for gospel
music. Andrae Crouch prayed with
Donnie and laid hands on him seeking
God’s blessings for the young man; to
give Donnie what God had given Andrae.
Donnie says that his ear was opened in a
new way that day so that he was able to
pick out notes and music clearer.
At thirteen Donnie was molested again.
This time the perpetrator was an older
teenager; the son of his uncle who had
raped him five years earlier. For years
Donnie would keep these secrets to
himself. This was a time in Donnie’s life
that he was, as he describes it,
“surrounded by a sea of women.” That
was all he knew. Donnie’s quest for
sexual identity was a sea of confusion.
One woman in the church took a
mentoring interest in the young Donnie
and helped him break some of the
feminine tendencies that he had
acquired. She taught him how to hold a
microphone in a more masculine way, to
put bass in his voice, and sing praises to
his God in a manly way. The men his
church did not step up and fill that need.
As Donnie explained it, “She dared to do
what others wouldn’t do, and she helped
save my life. … it took somebody to be
strong enough to say,  don’t care how
people take it. I’m going to help that
boy.””
In high school Donnie’s peers referred to
him as “the preacher,” because he
preached to everyone. He organized a
gospel group with his sisters and friends,
and refined their sound meticulously. He
got a break when he was selected to sing
a solo at a music shop hosted by the
Winan family, and he made a lasting
impression. Donnie’s solo was so moving
that they ended the final service
prematurely after he sang. As Marvin
Winan recalled, “We literally stopped
everything and ended it, because there
was nothing else we could do.” As sure
as Donnie was about his Savior, he was
still confused about his sexual identity
and homosexuality was his inclination.
A few years later another act of
providence placed him in  Broadway
production with the Winans called
“Don’t Get God Started;” the first gospel
show on Broadway. Donnie was the
understudy for the male lead vocalist,
Marvin Winan. The Winans became
Donnie’s second family and at the age of
29 he followed Marvin Winan to Detroit
to be part of a new church they were
starting.
At the age of 29 Donnie had never lived
on his own before, so he became quite
comfortable sleeping on Marvin and
Vicki Winan’s couch. When Marvin
Winan finally told him he had to get his
own place he was angry and scared. He
was literally afraid to be a man. Looking
back on the tough love Marvin Winan
showed him, Donnie said that Marvin
Winan’s tough love was the best thing he
could have done for him at that time in
his life, because Marvin knew Donnie
had to do something on his own. Donnie
found himself in a sea of men in Detroit.
They showed him by precept and
example what a man does.
Homosexuality was now something in his
past, not in his present or his future.
After some time in Detroit Donnie felt
led by the Holy Spirit to start a choir in
New York and with the backing of Savoy
Records Donnie gave life to The New
York Restoration Choir. From there he
recorded solo through Warner Brothers
Records and then Verity Records.
1990 was a year of a miracle in Donnie’s
life. Donnie was having some health
problems, passing blood, and a bone
marrow test showed that he had acute
leukemia. People prayed around the
clock on behalf of Donnie, fasted, and
laid their pleas before God. When
Donnie went back to have the test
reconfirmed, they found no evidence of
cancer.
After leading Bible studies in New York,
Donnie started holding Sunday evening
worship services in Hempstead, Long
Island. In 2001 the evening worship
services became the Perfecting Faith
Church in Freeport, New York. This
statement by Donnie best sums up his
life’s journey, “Music can get people to
the edge, to the brink, but the gospel, the
preaching gets them to change.”
Donnie McClurkin continues to tell his
story, including his journey out of
homosexuality. He has a passion for
others who have been molested or who
just seek victory over homosexuality.
Donnie explains it this way. “The gay
community is saying that I’m a
homophobe and that what I’m saying is
not real. And I don’t have a problem
with that, because I’m not looking to
convert everybody from homosexuality.
Those that are involved in that lifestyle
and are happy there – stay there. But
there are some of us that were broken,
that are in hell, that don’t want this life.
That for one reason or another it was
thrust upon them. There are some that
have been broken by pedophilia. There
are some people that have been hurt and
wounded, and they’re sexually confused,
and they are in hell. That was me.”
“The reason I continue to tell this
testimony, even at the expense of the
ridicule and assaults, and the verbal
attacks, and the threats of exposure,
from people who say, Well he’s still
involved and I’m going to find him …
he’s still doing it and he’s still there.” I
have to keep telling the testimony,
because if I don’t, there’s no hope for
those who want to come out.”
Factors of Homosexual Causation:
The factors that turned young Donnie
McClurkin’s life from the best of times to
the worst of times were major factors in
Donnie’s same-sex attractions. The rape
of the eight year old boy by his uncle
opened Pandora’s Box. An eight year old
does not know what sex is. An eight year
old who is raped doesn’t even know what
happened to him. Not only could the
eight year old boy not handle the assault,
Donnie has stated it began the
destructive imagery in his mind of
pornographic sex similar to
pornographic magazines and videos.
The young Donnie McClurkin had several
other characteristics that often
contribute to reinforce homosexual
attractions. He was athletically inept and
did not feel like he was a part of his boy
peer group. His physical abnormality
also made him feel different. In addition,
his life was lived in a sea of women.
Those factors all contributed to making
the young Donnie feel like he had more
in common with girls than with boys.
When puberty develops in the boy who
feels different from the other boys, he
often becomes attracted to boys, because
he perceives they are different from
him. That is the way humans are
sexually wired. The sexual attraction is
to the mystery of the different and the
exciting.
Motivations to Change:
Donnie McClurkin has made it public
knowledge that his involvement in the
gay lifestyle was “hell” on earth for him.
It was tied to the brokenness in his life
and the brokenness of a child that had

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