Brandan joins Sam to talk about what it was like to find belonging in a fundamentalist Baptist community at twelve years old and to be a closeted gay kid inside it at the same time. He speaks honestly about the cognitive dissonance of feeling genuinely loved by a community whose theology told him who he was amounted to sin, and the anxiety and fear that slowly built underneath that. The conversation moves through his experience of conversion therapy, the point at which he realised he couldn't keep forcing the two things to fit, and what it looked like to eventually find a spirituality built on something other than fear. It's a compelling, open conversation about identity, survival, and what it actually takes to rebuild your sense of self and faith on your own terms.

Who Is Brandan?

Rev. Brandan Robertson is an author, activist, and public theologian working at the intersection of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal. He serves as Pastor of Sunnyside Reformed Church in NYC and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Known as the "TikTok Pastor," his digital ministry reaches nearly 400,000 followers worldwide.

Robertson has authored or contributed to more than twenty books on faith and justice, including True Inclusion, an INDIES Book of the Year Award finalist. His work has been featured by TIME Magazine, NBC, CNN, and The Washington Post, and he has spoken at the White House, Oxford University, and the Parliament of the World's Religions.

A passionate LGBTQ+ advocate, he was named to Rolling Stone's "Hot List" and Out Magazine's 2025 OUT100. He lives in New York City and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at Drew University.

Connect

• Brandons Website - https://www.brandanrobertson.com
• Find Brandan on social media - Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to beyond the Surface.

This is a space for conversations that sit at the edges of faith, identity, power and recovery, especially for those of us who have been shaped so stretched or harmed by fundamental religion or high control systems. Some episodes are personal, some are reflective, some are educational or curious or quietly disruptive.

All of them are grounded in lived experience and a deep respect for the complexity of leaving, questioning and rebuilding meaning.

We will be talking about religious trauma, various forms of abuse, cult dynamics, queerness and recovery, not in answers, but in honest conversations. In listening to these conversations, some parts might be heavy or activating for you.

Please take care of yourself while listening and feel free to pause or step away if you need to. I'm Sam and I'm really glad that you're here with us. Just a quick heads up before we dive in.

For transparency reasons, this episode includes a short paid message.

At the beginning, I'm conscious to only ever share things that feel aligned with the values of this space and as always, I appreciate you being a part of it.

What happens when the faith that was supposed to set you free kept you terrified instead? I spent years convinced my panic attacks were spiritual warfare.

My exhaustion was calling and my questions were rebellion until I realised that it wasn't a faith crisis, it was trauma. My book Holy Saved so Hard I Needed Therapy is my story and maybe it's yours too.

It's for anyone recovering from high control religion, reclaiming their voice and learning to trust themselves again. Especially if you came from the Pentecostal flavor of church.

I'm Elise Heerde and you can find Holy Hell on Amazon and hopefully you can find yourself again too.

Welcome Brandon. Thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

I always love getting people on the podcast who, I don't know how to say this but will defy the idea of like stock standard theology and spirituality and who are just going like, actually there's a different way that we can do this.

And so I love having those conversations for my listeners who want to be able to hold onto their faith, particularly queer people who want to hold onto their faith. And so before we get into it, where in the world are you right now?

I am in New York City in Brooklyn. And yeah, it's a sunny almost summer day here. So nice.

It's always so strange for me when I'm talking to people in the US and it's like freezing here and it's really sunny over there. It's just. It messes with my brain a little bit.

Yeah, we're on the opposite sides of the world, but what a crazy thing that we get to connect this way.

I like to start these episodes with a big, broad question, which is, where does your story start?

Yeah, that is a great question. And there's so many places that it could begin. But for me, the general starting place is around the age of 12.

I grew up in kind of an abusive, alcoholic family, kind of lower class trailer park in Maryland. And that environment caused me a lot of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation at a young age.

But that is what started leading me towards exploring religion. I started going to church with my neighbors, and it was a fundamentalist Baptist church.

And so started going there and had this moment of being welcomed someplace for the first time. And that felt incredible. But I didn't recognize what the theological paradigm actually was.

And it wasn't for many years until I actually started seeing the kind of negative underbelly of the theology of that community. But at the beginning, it was this moment of finding a place where I truly felt like I belonged. I had a purpose, I was welcomed.

And that, I used to say it was the salvation experience that I had in the church that changed my life.

And I think there's part of that that was meaningful, but it was more the community itself that made this young, closeted gay boy feel like I belonged. And yeah, it changed everything.

And I mean, I. Did you say age 12?

Yes.

Yeah, we're the same age. I was like, right, okay.

Because I will rephrase it as like, I found Jesus at the ripe old age of 12, like developmental age of 12, when I completely had no concept of anything except feeling loved, like I belonged somewhere. And so I sort of like hearing you say that. I go like, why would you at 12, have known the theological underbelly of what you were joining?

And there seems to be. There seems to be something around that age that a lot of people have a conversion experience.

And I think pre puberty and all of that just puts you in a psychological space where you're more looking for community like that. But, yeah, fascinating.

Absolutely. It's such an emotionally vulnerable space and age, I think. So what was it that drew you in?

Like, because, like, it's not unless you go to what I describe as, like, the Pentecostal, happy, clappy, charismatic kind of space that is exciting with, like, exciting news groups and things like that. What was it that drew you into that space?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I started going because my best friends were super religious, and it gave me an excuse to get out of the neighborhood on Sundays and go to some fun new place. But it also. I mean, while it was a more traditional Baptist church, It was like 2,000 people and there were hundreds of kids.

And again, I never felt like I belonged in my public school that I went to at the time, because I was repressing sexuality and still trying to figure out what all that meant and why I felt different. And so it truly was. I remember walking in that first Sunday and the youth pastor coming up and shaking my hand and saying, hey, what's your name?

We're glad you're here. They gave me a new Bible. It was not an experience I was used to at that age and in the world that I lived in.

And when I heard the message from the big burly preacher in the pulpit talking about a God who loved me and had a plan for my life, that was just not something I thought much about. And I actually didn't believe my life had much of a plan or a purpose.

And so I think the message was powerful also at that age, combined with the sense of, look, there's a bunch of young people like me doing this thing that not many other people seem to be doing. And it feels warm and fuzzy right now. So, like, this is pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. And did you know that you were gay at this point, or was that not information that you had access to yet?

Yeah, that's. It's a hard question, though, because I think lots of kids on the playground used to call me gay.

Like, so lots of people were putting that into my psyche. They knew before I knew. I knew that I was not like the other kids. And for a while, religion became the excuse. Right.

This is why I'm not like the other kids. It gave me something to explain my difference with. But then, of course, we'll get into it.

But later on, I found out that religion wouldn't have space as I started to understand the fullness of what made me unique.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I was about to ask a question around, like going from a place where you didn't necessarily even have the language for that, but the intention behind it still had like a negative connotation attached to it even before you hit a space that had a very overt negative connotation attached to being gay. Was that in the playground only or was that at home as well?

Yeah, I mean, thinking back, my dad was quite verbally abusive and he would use the F slur word all the time and things like that. And it was, I mean, stereotypically I was the quiet, shy, soprano pitched voice kid who preferred to be in choir.

So, like, I wasn't living up to kind of the masculinity standards that my brother and my dad and everyone around us embodied. But again, I really didn't have a frame, um, until probably like 16 for sexual identity being something that was making me different.

I just thought this is who I am in the world. And I. I don't know why, but. Yeah, yeah.

What was it like for you to go from. And I'm, again, I'm sort of.

People will have heard me talk about this in terms of my own story, which is what was it like for you to go from a verbally abusive father, which I imagine is, you know, not a, not a great attachment, a bit of rupturing there into a space that presents you with a perfect father?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that is it. Right. I think that's what religion we'll say at its best can offer a lot of people is this idea.

I started having a deeply supernatural relationship with Jesus. I remember on abusive nights at home going into my room and praying and having vivid, like visions of.

For some reason I recall wrapping my arms and feeling the shoulder blades of this Jesus figure in my mind.

Yeah.

And it really did serve a healing and I think survival purpose for me in that moment. Because, yeah, this Jesus was able to do all the things my earthly father was not living up to.

And I do think it started giving me some confidence that I had lost early on because even though I would find chaos when I went home, I could still retreat to this me and Jesus type relationship that gave me a sense of stability and purpose and protection even. And I still think that that's probably the most beautiful part of faith. Even though I don't think of God or Jesus in those terms anymore.

This idea of a loving presence that is there for you, that is helping to guide you, was really, I think, life saving for me in my preteen years.

Yeah. And I Am going to ask this question so that I can mirror it later on, which is what I will often do.

Who was God and who was Jesus at the time in those early years? Like, what image and idea did you have of the divine then?

Yeah, I mean really it was this man in the sky, a very fatherly figure, a real person that was intimately involved in every moment of my life.

My spirituality throughout all my teenage years was like I sensed I was living in a supernatural world and I was always praying and I always, on the other side of that was feeling demonic attacks and evil. And that's a whole other anxiety inducing aspect of it. But God was this grounding presence of love.

At the same time, though, not to paint it all nicely, I very quickly also learned that God was this watchful eye of judgment.

And I started being very afraid of thoughts that I would have or friends that would be doing things that lured me towards what I was then viewing as evil.

Like at once quelled my anxiety from the abusive home I was in, but also birthed this new anxiety of if I don't read my Bible at night before I go to bed, I'm opening myself up to Satan and God is disappointed with me.

And so, yeah, it was a strange space, but I think so many people in high control conservative religion continually live between that space and don't ever have the language to really articulate it that way.

But yeah, absolutely. I mean, as a, as a trauma therapist, I go, our nervous system is not designed to be able to experience an emotion like fear as both awe and terror.

Specifically, like when we're young, we just don't have the ability to be able to like feel fear and be like, am I supposed to be in awe of this or am I supposed to be terrified of this? And that's, I mean, that's confusing in general, but it's sure as heck confusing for a teenager. So. Yeah.

What did your family think about you being in church?

Yeah, I don't think they really knew what to do with it. It was probably not the trajectory they thought I was going to take, but also probably a relief that it is the trajectory I ended up on.

My brother was a lot more rebellious and drugs and sex and alcohol and all of that. And now I was this kid coming home and preaching to them and telling them they were going to hell. I have this vivid memory.

My mom had a picture of the Pope hanging on the wall. For some reason we were not Catholic.

But early on I came home and I took it down and I stomped on it because My church said that the Pope was like the great whore of Babylon and the Antichrist.

And so I think they probably had some whiplash of like, we're glad this is what you're choosing to do, but like, lay off the fear and judgment you're bringing home with you. Yeah, yeah. I can't even really imagine what they must have been thinking watching their 12 year old become a fundamentalist.

Yeah.

I mean, how do you look back on that version of you who is like stomping on photos and being like, essentially, like you said, a fundamental evangelical 12 year old. Like, that's a fun description for someone to hold.

Yeah. It's funny to look back on it now, but I also get it.

The more I've kind of researched and worked with people with religious trauma and done my own work, I realize how afraid I was before religion, how afraid I was when I got into religion, but the fear was dressed up differently. And so all of that fervency was just rooted in a fundamental desire to feel loved and to belong. And so I feel.

Laugh at those memories, but I also feel sad that like, that is the only place that I could find a sense of belonging and love and it ended up being such a fake belonging and a conditional love.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a. I look back at my younger self and go, she, she was doing her best. She was.

I would have described myself as like a black and white obnoxious teenager Christian in a secular non Christian family as well. So it was like a whole fun time. And I think we have to look back on it with a mix of.

Of gentleness, but also humor because otherwise it just gets a bit too heavy too quick.

So.

What do you remember? The moment that you heard homosexuality talked about negatively in the church you were in? Or was it just so baked in that it was just. It just was.

Yeah. There must have been sermons because that is the kind of church it was. It was quite politically inclined.

But my actual memory was I used to sneak into the sanctuary and pretend to preach and be a pastor when nobody was around. And I have a vivid memory of opening up. It was the King James version Bible.

And I must have come across 1 Corinthians 6, 9 or 1 of these passages that used the word homosexual explicitly. And I remember landing on that. I was finding a passage to pretend preach to. And I think what jumped out at me was that that word was in there.

It didn't seem like it fit. It might have been the new King James version.

Like for some reason it just homosexual in that kind of context just felt like, wow, that's weird, first of all. But then I also thought, could, could that be me? Is that me?

And what does it mean that in the translation I'm remembering, no homosexual offender shall enter the kingdom of God. Yeah, well, I'm saved. I know I'm saved. Like, I'm. Look at what I'm doing with my life.

Like, so again, it wasn't this panic moment immediately because I hadn't fully accepted that identity for myself, but.

But something sparked within me and I felt deep discomfort that one, this was so explicitly there in the text, and two, that it might have something to do with me. And I do think it started off kind of the.

The ball of anxiety that continued to grow over years as I began to realize that perhaps that word was meant for me. And what, what does that actually mean about my relationship with God and my belonging in this community?

Yeah, it's the start of the cognitive dissonance of how do I make sense of this? That in their ideology just simply doesn't make sense. And that's so hard for, I think, particularly teenagers, to be able to try and reconcile that.

I mean, we're not supposed to at that age. Realistically, what was it like for you as a closeted queer kid in a fundamental, I imagine, purity culture driven space as a teenager?

I mean, honestly, the purity culture was helpful in, in that context.

Okay. I don't know that I've ever had someone say purity culture was helpful, Brandon.

I don't believe that it is.

But I think for somebody who's trying to repress their sexuality, being told that you're not supposed to hold hands with girls or do anything, like, I was not predisposed to do that anyways. And it just looked like I was a really good holy kid. And so it did keep the pressure off of me throughout at least those early puberty years.

I did have a girlfriend at the church and things like that. But again, like both, the message of purity culture, which I do think has its own harmful, even in my context, had its own harmful impact.

It gave me an excuse for why I wasn't trying to kiss my girlfriend or, like, why I wasn't doing all the things all the other kids at my school were doing, but later, obviously, like, that purity culture did root itself in my subconscious in a way that when I did start even trying to explore with my girlfriend romantically, like, I do vividly remember moments of intense shame and fear. One time I did kiss my girlfriend in our. In my house.

And I remember Taking her out on my porch afterwards and pulling out the Bible and reading it with her and saying, we have to repent because we just did that. And so, again, it was this.

And I think all of us probably went through it, but that exhilaration of the teenage years of wanting to explore an experience, but also knowing that my belonging and my relationship with God was contingent upon me keeping these rules and not crossing these boundaries.

And so it's a whole messy mix of things, but it gave me an excuse to not be sexual with the opposite sex and at the same time, started implanting those seeds of shame for having any desires for romance or sexual intimacy.

Yeah. When you look back, was there any, like, typical teenage desire for other guys that you just consciously was like, like, no.

Yeah, totally. I mean, I write. I've written about. There's this guy. I forget what name I changed it to, so we'll just call him a guy.

But he was a guy in our youth group and, like, high school and I was in middle school, and he was the stereotypical jock at the church, and everyone loved him, and he was so attractive. And I obviously, like, could tell that there was something there.

But again, because of what religion immediately put on me at 12, like, I don't think I was thinking, I'm sexually attracted to this person. I think I was interpreting it as, I want to be masculine like him. I want to. How can I become more like him?

It really didn't start until late high school when, again, I went to a public high school and was in the choir and there were lots of out gay kids, and they all knew I was gay again before I knew that. And so I actually had some people in my life being like, you're gay. Stop dating a girl. Like, get over this.

Yeah.

And that started both increasing the fear and sense of pressure, but also helping me to begin exploring and not with a feel like I have permission to explore. What does it mean that these people think I'm gay? And, yeah, it was messy.

Yeah. I hear a lot.

And, you know, even in my own story, but in a lot of other people's stories, that that crossover between admiration and attraction is really confusing of, like, do I admire this person or am I attracted to this person? But I am curious to know what it was like for you to have people know before you had the language that you were gay.

Because I imagine that would have been incredibly confronting at times.

Yeah. I mean, every year I go back and look at my Facebook messages from high school. Because that's dangerous. Yes, it is.

And now I can look at it with a degree of funniness. But there was this one gay guy who was very popular in our choir who made it his mission to, like, get me out of the closet.

And I have these messages of him being like, exactly what I said. Break up with your girlfriend. We know you're gay. Stop lying to yourself. And me saying your lifestyle is going to lead you to hell.

You don't know what you're talking about. You're working for the devil kind of thing. And that I do.

I think it describes the state that I was in of, like, I'm very enticed by these people calling out a part of me that's probably right and probably describes why I've not fit in anywhere. But I have this other thing that has given me a purpose and has given me a community, and I'm not willing to let that go for this.

And I think, thankfully, in some ways, teenage years, like, I really wasn't confronted with needing to make a choice. Yes, the kids could pressure me to come out, but I wasn't really sexually active. I wasn't dating. I was not all that interested in all of it.

So I didn't feel like this was something I needed to figure out right now. It was really when I got off to college in a conservative, evangelical environment that everything started ramping up.

And I really had to start wrestling with. Okay, all these people that said I was gay saw something in me, and I think they were right. And now I'm looking towards, like, building a life.

And what does that mean? Do I keep conforming just to belong to this community, or do I express this part of myself that I've been afraid to explore?

Yeah. Once you had that language and you were able to sort of go, okay, whether I like it or not, like, I can recognize that this is what it is.

And irrespective of what I want to do with it, how did that impact your relationship with God?

Yeah, I mean, I think throughout college I developed. I've always had anxiety disorders, but in college it became very acute.

I ended up in the hospital multiple times for these panic attacks that I didn't know what was happening. And I also got very. It was very hot in the evangelical world at that time to be, like, super reformed Puritans were in.

And we were all reading and talking about them in our college. And so I was reading things. There's this book called the Mortification of Sin, and that sounds fun. Yeah.

If anybody ever wants to get traumatized, just go read that book. Yikes. It's the most self hating. It's this man writing about how evil and wicked he is and how unworthy of God's love he is.

And I was reading that as devotional material while recognizing for the first time in college that, oh, I actually am same sex attracted. And how do I mortify this sin? Do I crucify my flesh? Is the language we were using.

Yeah.

And I do think as grotesque as that is, it's accurate. Like that's what we were feeling like we needed to do and I couldn't. Right. I tried for four years to pray. I did conversion therapy for a year.

I went to Christian therapists for a couple of years, all trying to figure out, because most people might be familiar that like the conservative paradigm is the reason someone becomes gay is because they had trauma and abuse in their background and their disordered gender is being expressed in this way.

And so I would spend all this time spiritually trying to crucify my flesh and psychologically try to get to whatever is wrong in me that is making me attracted to men. And nothing obviously was working.

And so you can see why that either drives you towards panic and anxiety or for so many suicidal ideation and things like that. It's a no win environment.

Yeah.

As soon as I heard you say that you had done a form of conversion therapy, I thought, oh, that's going to be very interesting because you actually do have trauma in your childhood and I imagine that would have been weaponized by others and almost even by yourself, like as a way to go. Well, this is why I am the way that I am. I am. And they're to blame. And, and I think it's confusing when someone doesn't have that.

But what was it like for you that you did have that?

Yeah, I mean, it was truly the textbook scenario.

One of my professors gave me a book called Shame and Attachment Loss by Joseph Nicolosi, who is kind of the guy who spearheaded the conversion therapy psychology behind it.

You need to get new people recommending new books.

Yeah, yeah.

They don't sound fun at all.

It's an insane book. But you're right that like the whole first, like three chapters are diagrams of my mother and my father. And so I was compelled. Right.

It was like, this seems to make sense. It's in a book.

And I often say this, and I know it's a little shocking probably to hear at first, but like conversion therapy, the version I went through was kind of helpful in that all I was doing in my sessions was sitting with A professor who would ask me in a prayer state to go back to traumatic moments in my past, usually of abuse. And we would invite Jesus into those moments and try to, like, reimagine those moments, as if God could have intervened.

And so in a fairly safe environment, to be able to walk through traumatic experiences did make me feel like I was becoming more stable and my anxiety was decreasing. But I recognize now, obviously, that that is a type of therapy. The person was not qualified to be doing it, but that is helpful.

And no matter how many of the memories I could have healed of my past, they actually didn't have any real bearing on my fundamental disposition as a gay person. And I've just counseled so many people over the past decade who, as you said, just don't come from these environments. The theory falls flat.

And that has been liberating for me as well, just because there was always that voice, even after I came out and was affirming of, like, well, is it nurture? Like, what happened here? But even if it was, who cares? Like, because the sexual orientation itself or gender identity is not morally bad.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, you sort of said you gave a window of around four. Like that, four years. And I know, like, I talk to.

Every time I talk to a queer person on this podcast, I go, what was that window of time of, like, peak suppression? You had the language.

You are now consciously suppressing it, you know, or you think that you know that it's bad because that takes a toll on you, not just emotionally but spiritually and psychologically and physically. And so what was that window of time, like, where it was, like, conscious suppression?

Yeah.

I think my story is unique, and I was blessed in some ways because not growing up religious and coming to it on my own, I always felt free to be curious and free to read or listen to different perspectives. And so in college, for it was, my school was in downtown Chicago, and so we had ample resources to go and explore in the city.

And I would go to different churches almost every week with my little group of friends. All of us, it turns out, were gay. But I found myself in affirming communities in the midst of this time of high shame and stress.

And so I started getting the message that there was another way to be Christian, that there was another way to think about my sexuality that I do think diffused a lot of what could have been much worse in my inner life. And I just finished a book last week about leaving high control religion.

And I dedicated the book to a pastor named Pastor Laura Truex Two blocks from my school, there was this church called LaSalle Street Church in Chicago. And it was the first LGBT inclusive church I'd ever been to, the first church with a woman pastor I'd ever been to.

And Pastor Laura would meet with me in her office, not trying to force me to change my theology about any of this, but letting me express this stuff to her.

And, like, I think without her and that community that I had found, which my school thought was heretical and evil, like, it allowed the steam valve to kind of release some of the pressure.

And by the time I got to the end of my senior year, which is the year I did conversion therapy, I just felt like, okay, I now can see that if this community is going to kick me out or not have space for me, I see that there is another space for me. I mean, I can't imagine what it would look like for me to go to a liberal church or be a liberal pastor, but I know it exists.

And so I'm not afraid of losing everything.

And I know most queer Christians in particular don't have that or are too afraid to start exploring other kinds of churches, but that was really helpful in my scenario.

Is this you looking back and seeing it helpful, or did you think it was helpful in the moment?

Because I imagine, coming from fundamental theology, that there would have had to have been a part of you going, yeah, but, like, her theology is incorrect here.

Yeah, I mean, that's the weird thing about this period of my life is I had a blog and a podcast, and from freshman year onward, I started interviewing people that my school said were heretical, even people that were kind of mainstream evangelicals. We would have them on our podcast. And I got a lot of pushback.

I got called into the dean's office six times over four years because of what I was writing or who I was talking to.

And so by that point, the acute stress that I was feeling was more that I was going to get kicked out of this community that had become my family and the place that I was shaping myself to become a pastor and less the fear that I was somehow going to be unsaved or end up outside of God's love and grace, because, again, I was talking to people that looked and sounded a lot more like Jesus than my community did.

And even though they had theology that I didn't understand or thought was wrong, it felt safer to say, like, I'm gonna go with these people that actually embody the love of God versus the people that preach about it, but have this theology that is causing me fear and anxiety. And so you're probably right. I am probably looking back a little bit with some revision. I've.

I was a pretty theologically rambunctious person over those four years, and I do think that benefited me in the end.

Yeah, we don't find a lot of curious fundamentalists, which is why I was like, that's so interesting.

Yeah.

But I mean, when. When did you start using. Stop using the term same sex attracted and start using the term gay?

Yeah, that was really hard for me, as I think it is for so many of us. I ended up getting outed publicly.

After I graduated college, I moved back to Washington, D.C. which is the general area I'm from, and I got a job working for an organization that I just started called Evangelicals for Marriage Equality.

And the position of that organization was evangelicals should be able to support the civil right of LGBT people to get married, and we should protect our right to not have to marry them religiously. And so it was this nuanced place, but it was like, oh, this. That's where my theology was at at the time.

I was like, okay, I still think it's a sin, but I like gay people, and I might be a gay person, so let's support civil rights.

The long story short is I also had gotten a book contract, and the publisher canceled the book contract because of my support of civil marriage equality. So Time magazine decided to do a story on me.

And they did their research and had talked to people in my life and found out that I was same sex, attracted or strugg with my sexuality. And so when they released the story about this, the headline was, Young Evangelical Leader loses book Deal after coming out.

The problem was I had not come out. And that's literally how my parents and friends and family and everybody found out.

And I was pushed into a world where I felt like I immediately had to choose some sort of language. And gay was probably the last thing I wanted to use. I actually gravitated towards queer first, even though looking back, I'm like, that was crazy.

I don't know why I did that, because I had no paradigm for that language. But gay just felt too far at that moment. But within a year, I was living in D.C. and I think D.C. is the gayest city in America.

And so I found a new community. Like, there were so many gay people that showed up into my life and said, like, we're here to support you.

Yeah.

And the more I had the gay community demystified, and I saw that my stereotypes from evangelicalism were fake, the more comfortable I became using the language of gay over the course of a year. But I bounced around. I used queer. I sadly used bisexual for a while. Not to erase the bi community, but I did do that.

We understand.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, like, what happened internally for you when you saw that article and you read those words.

Yeah, it was obviously traumatic.

Yeah.

Only not because, like, I was moving towards coming out. Like, I knew that that's where my trajectory was heading. I wasn't ready to be there yet, but it was going there.

The sad thing was the that article alone cut off me from the evangelical community.

I saw overnight job prospects, which, again, I'm grateful for looking back, but, like, I still was planning on going and working at an evangelical church. I was still planning on keeping my relationships from college. Overnight, all of that went away.

People literally wrote emails, People did radio shows talking about this young gay evangelical that's now out. And, like, I felt like I became. I was the golden boy the day before in the evangelical world that I was a part of.

And now I was officially an outsider, a heretic. And that trauma, I still haven't fully unpacked all of it, but, yeah, it was a difficult about a week.

Again, the thing that saved me was literally the progressive Christians and the queer people that came out of the woodwork and said, like, we're here for you. We understand what you're going through.

And so I never really had a moment where I felt like I was isolated and alone because people were immediately there. And that changed everything for me. I think that saved me from some of the very dark spaces I could have gone to. But, yeah, it was traumatic for sure.

Yeah. And I mean, like, I'm just, you know, like that plus, like, remembering what you said about, like, the playground and being at school is just like.

It's almost like everybody has had more language and ability to speak about your sexuality more than you have the entire time. And I just can't imagine the disorientation that that would have had even with the extra people saying, like, we've got you, but it just.

Yeah, totally. Don't out people if you're listening to this, like, it's just really shit. Don't do that.

And I know this. I know it sounds like I'm looking back on everything with so much grace, but, like, the reporter who did it, really, it was a mistake.

And I love her, she does great work still, but, like, just was not clear on what was happening in my life. And yeah, it was messy.

Yeah. Absolutely. Oh my goodness.

I mean, like over the course of that year, like once you started playing around with different language, was that terrifying, exhilarating. Like, what was that like for you to sort of just be able to be free with language and just try different terms on?

Yeah, I mean, like I've been saying, I. I always have been a little bit curious, a little bit mischievous. And so once I was out it, I did start running towards the gay lifestyle quickly. Like, I was like, okay, I've lost everything.

I have nothing to lose, so why not see what this is all about? And again, like, playing with language was really good for me and it all felt really weird.

I still remember like that year I could not for the life of me picture myself getting married to a man and like having a house together. Like, I was like, that is what is supposed to happen in this trajectory now that I'm out. But like, that reality didn't feel like it fit.

I had never allowed myself to conceive of that kind of world. Obviously now, 15 years later, I can't think of any other world or anything that feels more natural than that.

But that, that year was really coming to terms with exactly as you said it.

Like, owning what I had known all along, what other people had called out all along and not having to be afraid anymore because the worst possible scenario had already happened. And that I honestly, again, it feels weird to call it a blessing.

But like, after walking with so many people who have very long coming out processes where they have to have each individual conversation that is traumatizing in and of itself, I am kind of grateful that the band aid was pulled off so quickly because it saved me from, I think, what would have been a way harder having 37 different conversations with evangelicals who would tell me terrible things to my face. Now I just had a few letters and emails and like, yeah, yeah.

I mean, what was what impacted all of this and sort of like moving towards embracing your queerness in, you know, like, even if it's, I sort of say, like, not even necessarily in a fully affirmation kind of way, but just in a I might as well go in this direction kind of way. What impact did that have on your faith?

Yeah, I mean, in that season of life, I don't think my faith waned at all. I think I remained. I think I was stubbornly committed to being like, these damn evangelicals are not going to tell me that I can't still be this.

I am this.

You're not letting them win.

Yeah. I spent years identifying as an Evangelical afterwards. And that was important to me.

Honestly, I think it was a really formative part of my journey that was necessary, even though, again, throw up a little bit when I say the word evangelical these days because of what it has done to me and what I've seen it do to other people. But I would say, like, my faith, I doubled down.

I joined an evangelical moderate, affirming, ish community in D.C. i immediately started looking for seminaries to go to.

Obviously they were going to be more progressive, but the seminary I initially chose was a pretty moderate to conservative methodist school in D.C. that was LGBT inclusive but very traditional. And so it felt like I was really just trying to keep those two worlds together. And that itself became its own trauma later on.

And that became exhausting later on because there was a whole nother coming out process of, like, recognizing that this religion I had been a part of was rooted in nothing but fear and that I don't think any true spirituality should be rooted in fear, fundamentally. And that realization finally freed me to let go of all of it.

But I definitely spent probably three years after coming out, like, fighting to have my place at the evangelical table, and that was not a good time.

Yeah, no, I can't imagine, like, I can't imagine, like, the dissonance that would have increased during that window of time trying to make all of that make sense. But also, like, I know for so many that the drive to stay at that table is not even for you.

It is just to prove, like, internally to, like, prove a point that you feel like you can and to prove a point to them that you can. And because their automatic is that as soon as that happens, slippery slope, you're done for. And.

And there, that drive to just prove that you can stay at the table is bloody exhausting.

You're exactly right.

And, like, in this new book, Queer and Christian, like, I have a whole chapter where I critique those people because there are, like, cadre of warriors in the LGBT Christian world that are hell bent on staying orthodox and staying with traditional sexual ethics. And, like, I used to want to do that. Now I look back and I'm like, one, I don't think this is healthy for any of you.

Not that I have the room to say that, but if I suspect it doesn't seem healthy.

But also, like, I don't really know many LGBT Christians that I've walked with or counseled that don't realize that the problem wasn't a few Bible verses about sexuality. The problem was the entire kind of religion. We were a Part of. And it's so freeing. Again, I used the coming out language.

It felt like another coming out experience to say, I don't give a damn about orthodoxy. Like I'm not. Why am I playing by their rules? Who says they get to determine if I'm a Christian or not?

And that has been in this last season of my life.

The most liberating part, because even after being openly gay and not thinking it was a sin anymore, there was still a double life sense of feeling because I was still trying to play a religious game that didn't fit with what I knew authentically to be true about the world. And I'm so glad that I'm not in that anymore because you're right, it that caused a whole new kind of anxiety.

Even as an out gay Christian pastor, I was like still dealing with, can I preach this stuff that I don't actually believe in? But I'm just doing it because I don't want these people to be right.

Yeah, yeah. And I want to come back to the deconstruction piece because I think it's one of the hardest things of like deconstructing that fear based ideology.

But I want to ask an, ask an extension of the purity culture space and feel free to be like, I don't want to talk about this. That's fine. But there is, I think a very big difference between embracing your sexuality and engaging in queer sexual.

And so what was that like to be able to develop, like you said, a new sexual ethic and to not just embrace your sexuality, but everything that comes along with that in terms of living as an openly affirming gay person?

Yeah. I actually think this is a near universal experience for young evangelicals, but mine happened quite late.

The first time I had sex, I realized it was amazing. And like I realized the things I was told about sex, that I was giving a part of myself away, that I was somehow being soul bonded to another person.

Like none of that was true. And it was like the floodgates open.

I do think lots of queer people have second adolescences and I certainly did, where it was like, oh my God, I've been repressing myself even as an affirming Christian because I believed these things about sex. And now I've had a romantic relationship with a man and now I've had sex and it was beautiful and it was fun. And sure, there's. You learn as you go.

And I think a lot of that stuff around sex and romance, you actually do have to learn by doing. And there was always that voice of fear in the back of my head of like, is this right? Am I just going down the slippery slope?

But what I learned was that when theology and reality collide, reality needs to win.

And for me, that was a liberating realization that when I experienced sex or sexual intimacy, I felt more alive, I felt like I was having fun, I felt connected to other people in really beautiful ways that I had never experienced. And that was not possible in the purity culture paradigm. That shouldn't have been a. A thing that could happen.

And so often in my story, I realize it was my experience, not my study, not debates about theology, but the experience that proved the religion I was a part of was wrong.

And I am grateful that for some reason I was willing to trust my experience easier than I think a lot of other people that are in conservative religion are.

Yeah, I mean, even hearing you sort of say like, reality should always win over theology, I'm like, what do you say to the people who go, but the theology is the reality because I can hear it. 14 Year old me would have said it.

Yeah, but that's the. They know their being dishonest at some fundamental level. I know that they know that because I knew that.

I realize now, looking back, I did kiss my girlfriend in high school. And even though it wasn't my cup of tea, I didn't think it was bad. And yet I knew I had to think this was bad. And so I performed this righteousness.

And it's just, life is so much better when you don't feel like you have to perform for this God that is constantly watching and waiting for you to mess up so he can condemn you. That's not even good Christian theology, I would argue. But the moment I. This might be a tangent, but forgive.

Me, I love a tangent.

Early on in my faith, I used to be terrified of demons and Satan. Right. That's a common thing in fundamentalist theology. And I would go home from school and I.

It's a funny story looking back, but I would like throw butter knives down the hallway because I was convinced that there were demons in the hallway and I would be praying and like, not in a good mental space.

But even in that period, like within a few years of having that acute stress of being worried about demons, I realized one day I challenged myself to just not believe that that was true. And it all went away.

And it was like that early moment for me of realizing I could turn on and off this with whether I gave weight to the belief I had. And it significantly changed the way I felt in my life.

One day I'm surrounded by demons that are trying to lure me into hell, the next day I'm just living my life. And I don't think these things exist and I don't have these anxious sensations anymore.

Like, that experience has replicated itself with so many things in my theological paradigm where it's like, let me just try on what it looks like to not believe that having sex with somebody is inherently sinful. Oh, wow, this is beautiful. It's actually good. And I feel good about myself and the other person feels good. This is wonderful.

And I do, when I talk to more conservative people, try to challenge them just like for a day, be an atheist, like just try that on and tell me what it feels like. And most people can't do that fully, obviously, but it does, I think, change our paradigms if we're able to experience life with a different lens.

Yeah, absolutely. Hearing you tell that story, I go, trauma survivors have like a really warped idea of funny stories, don't we?

Yes. Oh really?

It's always so humorous to me. But also it kind of sounds, it sounds similar to what we would say like in trauma work of like, what if you could though?

Like, even just sitting with the idea of like, what if you could is just, it's such a powerful, curious based question.

Like you don't have to do anything based on that, but just what if you could imagine it right now in this moment, like it is, it just allows you to sort of like breath out a little bit and not feel like you need to make any huge life altering decisions, but to just in that moment, be for a moment. And so I, yeah, I love the idea of that.

I mean, like, okay, I, now I want to go into the deconstruction base because I think it's really hard for people and the fear based ideology is not easy to deconstruct. And if you've grown up in that fundamentalism, what is that like for you?

As I'm assuming at this point you are pastoring while you are deconstructing at the same time.

Yeah, I mean, it took me a little while before I stepped into pastoral ministry. I became a pastor at 25, but at that point I had had like four years out of the closet, four years in seminary.

I had a long term relationship with a lovely gay man who was a therapist. So that we had like, I don't recommend dating and doing trauma work with your partner who's a therapist.

I thought you were gonna say, I don't recommend dating a Therapist.

We can talk about that some other time. He was lovely. Yeah. But he did provide me with, like, paradigms that were able to help me process through some of my trauma.

And so when I did step into pastoral ministry, the real deconstruction for me at that point, I think I would have still said I was evangelical, but affirming and gay. And you're right, it was pastoring. People also did more to pull my theology apart than reading books or anything else ever could.

Because I remember I have this one sermon that's still viral on YouTube at my first church, where every summer we did the something called an ask anything series, where people would text me questions live on Sunday morning, and I would answer. And I remember getting, for instance, a question from somebody who said, I'm in a polyam. Polyamorous throuple.

We've been part of this church for years. Are we actually welcomed here? Oh, and on the spot, I had to answer the question in front of my whole congregation.

Thankfully, because of all these experiences, I chose reality over theology in that moment. And I said, of course. Like, I can't think of one ethically wrong reason, three people in committed, loving relationship. Like, why is that wrong?

Of course you're welcome here. And lots of people in my church got angry, even though they were gay affirming because they were like, what is this?

And lots of people online got angry because this is the slippery slope. But for me, it just became clear over my journey that I needed to choose what my experience of reality told me was true. Can that be wrong? Yes.

Have I changed perspectives on things that I felt to be true before? Of course.

But I feel much better choosing to live in alignment with what feels authentically true to me in the moment, based on logic and reason and experience, than holding onto a theology that I only believe because some authority told me that it was true. My big question that I ask all the time now is, like, says who? Who cares that the church fathers said? Like, who are the church fathers?

They were just people. Who cares what the Pope says? Like, he's just a guy.

And that helped my deconstruction process a lot when I just started being able to question authority. Because once you remove the fear of hell, which was one of the first things that went for me, what else is there to be afraid of?

Like, yeah, it really liberated me.

Yeah. You are still a pastor, right? You are still pastoring a church.

What is it like for you to now be the person who can create safety in a faith space that you.

Didn't get yeah, it's why I do it.

And I say this candidly all the time, like, I don't know that church, in and of itself, as it typically functions, is necessary for my spiritual journey. Right. Like, it's not where I find my spiritual fulfillment. I think most pastors feel that way in general because it's work for us.

But I do this work because I know how to create the spaces now. And that's exactly it.

It's like, I think the progressive church at its best is a revolving door where people with trauma from conservative religion come in and can experience what religion, what Christianity could be. It's not perfect. Our churches are still messy as hell, but they see a different theology lived out.

They see a pastor stand up on Sundays and say, my word is not the truth. I'm just giving you what I think about this passage. And, like, please disagree with me.

And most of the time, I have seen those people will leave the progressive church and find some other way of doing spirituality. And I think that is perfect.

I think that is what the role of the kind of church that I pastor is, is if it is the last stop on your journey and, like, you feel like this is a space you want to be at forever, amazing. You're welcome to be there.

But I want to create a space where somebody coming in, feeling like I might never be able to find another church space that fits me, even though I still feel like I want it, can have an experience that blows their mind, shatters all their boxes about what church and theology and God has to be, and then gives them the permission to say, that was really cool, but this no longer works for me and figure out something else with our blessing.

And I will just say, like, lots of other progressive clergy would disagree with the way that I do ministry, but, like, I'm not interested in building institutions. I'm not interested in perpetuating religion for religion's sake.

I'm interested in helping people be empowered to heal from the same trauma that I'm still healing from. And I think church is just one small tool that can help people on that journey. And so that's why I do it.

I imagine you get quite a bit of pushback around the way that you do that. And, like, hearing you say that like you've navigated anxiety most of your life.

How do those two things meld for you and how do you keep doing the work that you do because of that?

Yeah. I mean, the truth is, there were, after my first church, I took off three years from religion altogether.

I stopped Pastoring, I stopped going to church, and I needed that. That was so helpful for me. And I feel like my spirituality, my psychology got better and deeper because of that.

And I didn't want to step into a new church when I moved to New York City. It was kind of an accident that I ended up with this lovely small community that I pastor now. But you're right. I mean, I still.

The difference in how I do ministry now than even how I did it at my first church is I don't pretend at all. I don't play the role that people think I should play. Like, when this church hired me to be their pastor, I told them everything I'm saying here.

Like, I am not your moral example. I am not the beacon of truth. I don't want to have the authority. We're going to share it.

And what was delightfully surprising was that there are churches that were looking for people that were doing that kind of pastoral work in the world. And so that has made it a lot less anxiety inducing and a lot less like, I don't feel like I have to perform anything at my church. I show up as I am.

I'm going to say what I say. I'm going to cultivate the experience that feels like it might work. And if it doesn't, we try something new next week.

But that is also not to say that I still do wrestle with anxiety disorders and things like that that I think are bigger than religion, but also still rooted in. I was just talking to my own therapist this past week. I find myself yearly going into spirals of shame.

For nothing that I've now recognized is that embedded teaching of, you are fundamentally wicked. And so I. Every once in a while, there'll be a season of my life where that pops up and it causes me anxiety and panic and worry.

And what's really beautiful now is that I get to share that when it's happening with my community, in the ways I talk about the sermon of the week.

And like, they can see a spiritual leader, so to speak, saying, I am still holding the same religious trauma you're holding, and I'm not better, I've not healed, I've not overcome it. But, like, we're working on it together. And that feels healing for me and I hope it's helpful to the people that I get to serve.

Yeah, I call them trauma versaries, which sounds fun. It sounds nice. Sounds nice and fun. Makes. It makes me and my clients feel better about it.

But I mean, what was it like for you to put all of this in writing. You've obviously mentioned there is a book Queer Christian, and I imagine even the title pisses off a bunch of people.

So, like, what was that like for you to put that out into the world, to put it onto paper and to not just do the work, but you're now it's like in print for people to critique and criticize.

Yeah, I mean, I want to be able to tell you that I'm one of these people that never reads the comments. And I don't care what anybody says,.

I always read the comments. It's terrible.

Me too, at. I just earlier today I was spiraling looking at a few comments. But that is true that I still do care what people think and it still affects me.

And I hope this is true. I really don't give a damn anymore about, like, I'm not performing.

And so this book I've written about being queer and Christian before, I have two other books on the topic. And I didn't think I wanted to write another book. My publisher kind of gently nudged me and said I needed to do it.

So I begrudgingly started writing this book, but then was really grateful by the end of it because this is me and this is what I think. And I know while I was writing I could see the people that I was going to piss off and get angry at me.

I have nothing to lose because this is what is true for me and what I've seen work for other people. And so this book was really became. The subtitle is Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith and our place at the table. And that is the energy.

It was like, I'm taking this stuff back. I'm not letting you.

Not that I need to be called a Christian, not that I need that affirmation, but I also don't think you evangelicals out there or fundamentalists out there deserve to get to make the rules. Who gave you that authority? And so this book is really a rebellion. It's a. What does it look like when queer people get to make Christianity queer?

And it doesn't go as far as some people go, but it goes a lot further than I ever thought I would be able to publicly say. And it's been a joy this past year.

I went to 66 cities talking about this book and just got to see again, thousands of people lighting up and thinking the same kind of thoughts and recognizing that I'm not alone in this religious trauma, but I'm also not alone in this kind of queer reclamation of what faith could be. And that's really exciting to me.

Yeah. What do you imagine would have happened if you were able to hand your book to 12 year old you?

I would have burned it. Absolutely.

I would have probably burned your book too, to be fair.

Yeah. I have a chapter in it. I debate it and I put it in there and I say it in the chapter just because I want it to provoke people.

But it's one of those chapters where I suggest Jesus was queer and had a relationship with Lazarus, which is their scholarship. And I present that.

But like I did it kind of thinking about 12 year old me, because I also do believe that there is some value in shocking people out of their kind of days.

And so much of my journey was the person who would come on my podcast and say the things so clearly and outrageously that they knew I was gonna think was wrong. And I was like, I cannot believe you said that or think that. And it did unsettle me to a point that allowed me to start thinking in new ways or.

So this book has a little bit of that. It's not the whole book and it's not most of the book, but I did. There's some chapters that were meant to unsettle even the good progressive person.

That is gay affirming. It's like I want them to wake up to not be having to give authority over to people that don't deserve to have authority over our lives.

Our faith is our own and you get to make it what works for you. And that is liberating.

Yeah. I mentioned earlier that I would mirror this question. So who is God to you now?

Yeah. I think I've used the language of ground, of being, reality itself, my spirituality. I do acutely feel like God exists. And I've tried for years.

I've read atheist literature. Like I've tried to get to the atheist point of view because I logically understand it.

Yeah.

Experientially, it just does. I can't get there.

And for me, this pervasive sense that there's something more going on in the universe and even that there's some force that cares about me and you and all of us. And it's like somehow working in my life.

There's just so much in my journey that I look back on and say, like, I can't imagine how that happened or why that person came into my life. And so my spirituality is really one of awe and wonder are the words I use. A lot of time it's, I don't know what God is. I don't.

I use the word Agnostic, a lot to describe myself. But I do believe that there is some force of love and goodness in the universe.

And even if there's not, I'm very comfortable with believing that there is and letting that do the psychological work that it does for me because it helps me more than it hurts me.

So, yeah.

And so I will often ask this question of people who are progress, not necessarily just like queer progressive, but just progressive pastors in general, particularly around, like, affirming, like, like queer theology. Why are there so many pastors not doing this? What's your opinion as to why pastors are not doing it? Because everybody gives me a different answer.

Yeah, I think there's two things. One, I think there's still a lot of queerphobia among even the most affirming LGBT friendly pastors.

Many of them are my friends, but are just not willing to deconstruct their own paradigm enough to allow a queer person. I'm using queer to describe the fullness of the community.

Like, our experiences are different and the way we show up and experience the world is different.

And if you're not willing to listen and learn from those perspectives in a real way, I think you're going to probably perpetuate some really harmful theology. But the other side is also, it is costly.

I just preached at my denominations conference a couple weeks ago, and my message to them was the future of the church is not full pews anymore. It's not having full time, well paid pastors anymore.

Like, people are unwilling to give up that image of the church, which I think only works with a theology of fear and exclusion.

And so a lot of progressive pastors are willing to give up most of the theology of fear and exclusion, but they've got to hold on to some of it, because whether they would consciously say it or not, it still gives this authority, structure, and a little bit of fear that gets people to still belong and still like.

And that sounds so cynical, but I really do think that that is true across the board on liberation theology and talking about immigration, like, people are more interested in protecting their power and privilege. And I get it, but I don't think that's the best, the most liberating or the most faithful way to embody the faith that we're claiming to proclaim.

Yeah, I mean, fear makes people stay, right? So, like, realistically, like, fear keeps the pews full. So I completely agree.

Not that I've got much to go on, more than you do in this conversation, but I completely agree. Because by and large, the many people that I work with and have spoken to.

Like, fear is what keeps people staying in those buildings far longer than sometimes even they want to, consciously. So, yeah, I like to end my conversations with some encouragement and I will tweak every question a little bit differently.

And I thought of this question midway through this episode because. And so many other people I know have a little, like, moment when we talk to pastors because they're the source of so much of our trauma. Right.

They cause so much harm sometimes in our lives, particularly for queer folks. And so what would you say to somebody who maybe wants to keep something in their faith?

They want to at least see what they want to keep and do that exploration. But they are terrified of a pastor.

Wow. I mean, I get it. I'm terrified of pastors.

And I think the only thing that has helped me is that I've gotten to see every kind of religious leader and see how flawed and human all of us are. I think if you want to engage organized religion or a religious leader, look for people that are being really honest and authentic.

Yeah.

We live in a day where there are so many incredible people online, so many other of my colleagues that are, like, sharing their full life in ways that you can see that these are not people pretending or trying to build an authority structure or just build a brand or whatever. And so I do think we're blessed to live in a world where you can safely engage from a distance digitally these days.

And there are a lot of, I would say, at least in America, in every city, there are progressive churches with people that hold similar views that I have to like. Pastors are not the authority. I do not have the answers. My job is to set a table and see what happens.

And that can be so healing and liberating again, even if it's just a waypoint on your journey, I don't think it needs to be where you end up, but just to step in and to risk trusting that this kind of progressive, inclusive faith community is not going to harm you in the ways that fundamentalism did, can be healing.

But I also recognize that it's a big risk and it is hard, and I don't think you need to take it if it doesn't feel like your whole being is compelling you to want to go back into a religious community. So I don't know if that was the clear answer, but yeah, yeah.

I mean, I love that we're finishing the episode on, like, you don't need a pastor to tell you that you can explore your faith, which is an amazing thing. To end on.

So yeah, thank you so much for joining me and for doing the work that you do and releasing, you know, your story, but also challenging people in a space that so many people need challenging. And I know, actually quickly, you have a course, don't you? Like a web series? Yes, quickly, tell us about that.

I forgot all about it. I just released it two months ago. The paperback of the book.

We decided to record basically all of the sections of the book into an hour long free course on YouTube where I break down the clobber passages. We talk about sexual ethics and purity culture, we talk about what is queer theology.

And so if folks want to go to queerchristian.org they can find both the book, the free course and everything else I've done related to this book.

Beautiful. And all of that will also be in the show notes as well. So for ease. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. It's been such an honor. And thank you for the work that you're doing. It really matters in this moment.

So thank you.

Thanks for listening to beyond the Surface. If this episode resonated, challenged you, or named something you've struggled to put words to, I'm really glad you found your way here.

You'll find ways to connect, learn more, and explore further in the show notes as well. As always, you are good. You have always been good and your story matters always.