I did add in more details, but it’s been clear all along that Rich Mullins only ever used women. The only question was whether any of them were real.

Let’s try reading the story more critically than you might wish to do. He used Ann Bartram, clearly, to get a veneer of religious respectability. This was during the period in which he was working in local churches.

Per his conversation with his father, he also seems to have had a boyfriend during the time, and having sex, and even contemplated gay marriage awhile, until he resolved to get more “Christian.”

Ann Bartram was forced to dump him repeatedly, so he must’ve really been a handful. When Mullins was free of her he sang a happy song.

Are economic considerations possible? During the time of his “relationship” with Ann, he was dependent on local churches where he worked as a youth minister. When he had an income from commercial music he no longer needed to put on a heterosexual show.

Then, for years, he told a story of being so hopelessly in love with this unnamed fiance that he couldn’t see other women. Another lie.

So, not really that great of a story even before we get to Mullins waging war on AIDS victims in “Awesome God.” That was a message Evangelicals wanted to hear but mostly closeted gays, writhing in self-loathing, would say it.