There are thousands of young LGBTQ Christians across the country sitting in church pews, overwhelmed by anxiety and shame. Each week, they hear sermons suggesting their identity —something they did not choose and cannot change — is a barrier to God’s love and their place in the church.
If you didn’t grow up in conservative Christianity, it’s hard to grasp how difficult it is for queer Christians to accept and embrace their identity. For many, doing so means losing not only their community or family but also, they’re told, their eternal salvation. The psychological toll of that pressure is profound.
Brandan Robertson
The journey to reconciling one’s faith and queer identity isn’t primarily intellectual. You can read every theology book, listen to every affirming podcast and still remain locked in a closet of shame. What actually opens that door — at least in my case — is not argument, but encounter. Encountering Christians who embody the radical welcome of Jesus. Who offer belonging, even when your own family or church tells you you’re lost.
My first Pride Parade as an openly gay man was in 2015, just a year after I graduated from the evangelical Moody Bible Institute with a degree in pastoral ministry. I had spent four years studying Scripture intensely, meeting with ex-gay leaders for prayer and undergoing conversion therapy in a desperate attempt to “fix” my sexuality. I longed to please God and become a pastor.
But as time passed, it became clear my sexuality wasn’t changing — and the more I studied biblical scholarship, the less convinced I became the Bible actually condemned same-sex relationships. More than that, the fear and rejection I experienced from my professors and peers convinced me their version of Christianity bore little resemblance to the Jesus I encountered in the Gospels.
“Theology alone didn’t lead me out of the closet.”
Still, theology alone didn’t lead me out of the closet. I remained plagued by fear, shame and guilt — convinced something was wrong with me or my faith. That fear landed me in the ER multiple times. I contemplated suicide more than once.
What saved me — what ultimately helped me embrace my identity as a gay Christian — were bold, prophetic voices who dared to affirm I was fully loved by God.
One summer, I stumbled into the Wild Goose Festival, a progressive Christian gathering in the woods of North Carolina. There, I met preachers who embodied the radical welcome of Jesus. I summoned the courage to approach Nadia Bolz-Weber, a national voice for grace and authenticity. We sat at a picnic table in the mud, and I told her my story. She looked me in the eye and said she believed God created me just as I am — and God still wanted to use me in ministry.
I shook with anxiety and hope, daring to believe she might be right.
Back in Chicago that fall, I visited a nearby church known for its “progressive evangelical” reputation. That Sunday, Pastor Laura Truax preached from Isaiah 58, proclaiming that true worship means justice and inclusion. After the service, a gay couple welcomed me with warmth and compassion. Their words were more Spirit-filled than anything I had experienced in my evangelical circles.
Every time I returned to my campus, I was reminded my sexuality was a sin. Unless I married a woman or committed to lifelong celibacy, I was told, I couldn’t be a real Christian. The dissonance between the legalism I was taught and the grace I had experienced drove me to my knees in prayer again and again.
And in those prayers, I came to believe the Spirit of Christ was not found in the fortress of my Bible college, where we cast stones at everyone who disagreed with us, but in the company of those who dared to live out Jesus’ command to love their neighbors — especially their LGBTQ ones — as themselves.
As Christians, the incarnation is the center of our faith. We believe God loves humanity so much that God became human, lived among us, and loves us in the midst of our broken world. Christian faith, at its best, seeks to make that incarnation real each day — by allowing the Spirit of Christ to live in us and flow through us to the world.
“People are drawn to God through an encounter with Jesus, often experienced in and through other people.”
People are drawn to God not primarily through theology or preaching, but through an encounter with Jesus, often experienced in and through other people.
As a young, closeted gay evangelical, it was encountering that love of God — through others who spoke words of truth, grace and welcome — that drew my anxious heart from the closet of fear into the light of freedom in Christ. It was the words of Nadia and Laura, the kind welcome of the gay couple in church, and countless others who dared to act like Christ — putting love first — that gave me the confidence to embrace my queer identity.
Fast forward to June 2015: I’m with a crowd of LGBTQ Christians and allies marching through the streets of Washington, D.C., to the Washington National Cathedral, waving a rainbow flag and declaring “God loves you!” to thousands of onlookers at the Pride Parade. As we walked, I looked around, prepared to see what my evangelical upbringing told me would be debauchery and darkness.
Instead, I saw a sea of people vibrating with love and light. I was overcome with joy as I sensed the Spirit of God moving through the crowd. I watched onlookers break down in tears as clergy hugged them, many for the first time feeling accepted by the church. And I knew, deep in my bones, the fear-based, exclusionary theology I had been raised with was dead wrong. I had a place at God’s table, fully and openly, and this was proof.
Each Pride, progressive churches scramble to demonstrate their welcome to LGBTQ people — through sermons, seminars, rainbow stoles or booths at festivals. All these gestures matter. But what changed my life wasn’t what affirming Christians said, it was the love and grace they embodied. I experienced Christ through them. And that love drew me out of the closet and began to heal my soul.
This Pride — and every day — may we remember that beyond parade floats and sermon series, what actually changes lives is a commitment to love like Jesus. To listen. To support. To hold space. To embody the power, presence and peace of Christ to all we meet.
That is the greatest gift we can offer LGBTQ people, and all people, in a world where “Christian” has become a byword for bigotry.
If we are to reclaim the Bible, our faith and the wideness of God’s table, it will not come through complex theological arguments or external displays of allyship alone, but through the tenderness of our hearts and the depth of our welcome.
Brandan Robertson is author of the new book Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table, available from St. Martin’s Essentials. Find out more at QueerChristian.com.
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