Queer and Christian
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Jeremy: [00:00:00] We will buckle up for this episode. This is what you're gonna wanna pour yourself a nice glass of wine. Maybe a couple as we go, as our guest did. Because we are going to dive in so much good stuff in this episode. It is so profound, so much to think about, and this was one of my all time favorites. Today is a conversation I.
With Brandan Robertson. Brandan is a noted author, activist, and public theologian working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal. He's authored or edited 23 books, including his forthcoming title, queer and Christian Reclaiming Our Bible, our Faith, and Our Place at the Table, which we get into in this episode known as the TikTok Pastor.
His inclusive spiritual content has reached over 6 million people. He currently serves as pastor of Sunnyside Reform Church in New York City [00:01:00] and is the senior communications manager at the Unitarian Universalist Associations side with Love campaign. Had to practice saying that one, Brandan has spoken around the globe, including the White House, Oxford University, and at the parliament of the world's religions.
This guy is a thought leader and is helping the church move forward in a conversation that is desperately overdue. This is episode 44, queer and Christian. I.
I've never shared this with anybody publicly. There's so many things happen in this conversation right now, thousand years from now, people are gonna be looking at this podcast saying, so this was the breakthrough. If this was SportsCenter, that would be like such a hot take. Skip Bales would've no idea.
Steven A. Smith would've no idea what to say. You drop that down. That is so good. The joke I always say is like, how'd you learn so much? You gotta drink a lot. [00:02:00] The power of food and beverage to lubricate an environment, resistance to change is hurting the church. I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all.
I mean, the camp to God is a. Universe Spirit. This is the strangest podcast that I have been on. I don't even know what to do. I'm kind of geeked up about this wine. This is my second glass and it delivers a little more of a punch than I expected. So how I get a little loopy? It's your fault you told me to drink on this show.
I'll also say as a confession, I am a lightweight, so I've had like three sips of this wine and I'm already feeling it, so. This is fun. You've uncovered the mystery, you've exposed the formula. You've just duct taped together a number of things that aren't normally hanging out together, and I'm here for it.
We're gonna sit down a table. We're gonna have a glass of wine and some food, and we're gonna talk about. The beauty of Jesus. Thank you for the, the hospitality that this particular podcast provides folks like myself and I know others [00:03:00] to, to be curious around their faith practices. I really appreciate this menu, what you're doing.
It is fun, and yet you dig into the deep stuff. I've heard about your podcast for a long time, and I love that you're a pastor and that you explore the world of faith through wine that's very unique. I will never forget the first time I bought a bottle of wine. By myself, which was yesterday. If you're familiar with Drunk History, I thought it's like drunk theology, so I, oh, I got a little spicy there.
It's the peach wine, by the way, drinking this peanut regio at three o'clock in the afternoon is making me even more direct in my communication than I normally would be. I know why you have your guest drink wine. Makes sense now. Yeah, I get it. A little bit of liquid courage should really unleash the beast.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Well, welcome to Cabernet and pray. Brandan,
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Thank you so much. It's such a honor to be here with you today.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: it is gonna be an [00:04:00] exciting conversation. I am looking forward to this one, but before we dive in, dear friends, we have to talk about what we're drinking and I am enjoying what I've got. I am doing a 2020 is called Paso Ranches and this is a Zinfandel from Paso Robles, California and this one is aged in bourbon barrels for three months.
So I always love a good crossover when you're getting a little bit of the whiskey into the wine and all of that. And this is if you like. Big, bold fruit, a full-bodied wine, but maybe the tannins are a little much for you. And if you guys are like, what are the tannins, that's that bite that you get, that some people are like, wow, it's, it's really dry.
Or, you kind of get that like, taste on your tongue. This as a Zinfandel doesn't have as, as extreme versions of that. So this is more of a medium, and then I'm getting blueberry raisin butterscotch. It's a delightful, I I [00:05:00] wouldn't say it's a cold afternoon in Arizona today, but it's not super hot, so I'm thoroughly enjoying this.
Brandan, what are you drinking today.
on the episode?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: I am not gonna be able to compete with that. I enjoy alcohol and I don't know much about any of it. So I ran by my local wine shop and I said, give me your mid-range white something to drink. And it's a. Sonoma Coutre, Sonoma Coast 2022 Chardonnay.
I know with wines I am white rose orange, but no reds.
I think I have some
communion, wine trauma, so, yeah, but, and I'm drinking out of a 1946 wine glass, which is a great documentary about the themes we're gonna talk about today. So,
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: oh, look
at you. I like how you're, you are weaving that together subtly, and that's gonna make sense for people in
a little bit. I like that. Okay, Brandan, as I was prepping for this, I discovered something, and I'm curious if [00:06:00] you know this, do you know you and I first crossed paths 11 years ago?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: you look remarkably familiar. So, where, why, how.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay, so this is fun. I literally discovered this like a couple nights ago and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is funny. I was searching your name through my emails and 11 years ago emails started popping up and I'm like. I was confused. I'm like, wait a minute. 'cause I, I was thinking I didn't know who you were either, but about 11 years ago you had planned a trip to Woodland Hills in Minnesota to go hear Greg Boyd preach.
And unfortunately for you that weekend, Greg Boyd was not preaching. It was me. And so you had reached out to Greg on Twitter and were like, Hey, I'm gonna come see this. And Greg was like, Hey, so honored that you'd come, but it's actually not me. It's this guy Jeremy. And so then you and I share some things and you had posted a photo of it or something.
And so it's so funny [00:07:00] to be 11 years ago we had that, that connection and who knew
we'd be here today?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Wow. That's incredible. Me and my best friend at Moody used to take. Weekend trips during our time at Moody Bible Institute to the progressive churches around us that were pushing the boundaries. And that was a wild trip. We went to Woodland Hills. We also went over to Solomon's porch and got connected with Doug Paget in that world at the time.
And man, it's so good to be connected 11 years later. Wow.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: And here we are, ed. This is
great. So I thought that, I thought you'd get a kick outta that.
Now, one more housekeeping note before we get into this. You are a pastor in New York City and I have seen you wear a Yankees hat in some of your videos. And I need just to know, are you actually a Yankees fan or this, like a cultural thing?
You're just, you're just wearing
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: I am an Enneagram three, which means that whenever I move to a new culture and I've moved six times in the last 10 years I adapt and subconsciously begin wearing what people wear. I have [00:08:00] never seen a Yankees game in my life. I
like the logo on the hat, so
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay. Okay.
Well, I, just, I I already liked you, but I was, I was gonna like you even more if you're a Yankees fan. We're we're diehard Yankees fans. So when I saw that, I was like, another man of God
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Go Yankees? Yes.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Go, go, Go Yankees? All right. Okay. So I wanna begin with just, we're gonna talk about your book, but here's what I wanna say, and I, I told you I like this beforehand, but here's what I wanna say on air to all the listeners and all the, the, the viewers.
When I read your book, queer and Christian, I was expecting it to be a really good explanation of affirming Christianity, which it is.
And that's kind of all I expected, right? This is gonna be well articulated, and like you, I've read many of these books, and so I was kind of thinking, all right, I kind of know what to expect with a book like this.
And was, curious on your take on, on all of this. [00:09:00] I was so overwhelmed by what you brought to this book and I'm reading it and I'm having one of those moments where I'm like, oh, this is, this is something special. Like this is way beyond what I thought this was gonna be. And I'm going to sound like I'm bragging here, but this is actually to set up the compliment I'm about to give you.
I read a hundred books a year.
Okay. So that's like my goal. And I have for the last few years, a hundred books a year. So it's not like I read one or two. I read a lot of books and most books are regurgitating the same ideas and you read the same ideas in 20 to 30 books if you read enough.
Every now and then I will read a book that will literally like jumpstart my mind where I am processing new ideas or new perspectives or new angles.
And this is that book. And I was trying to figure out how to, how to say this without exaggerating. So I think this is an accurate statement and. If you've seen [00:10:00] other episodes, I've never said this to another author, okay? So this is not like, oh, Jeremy says this to every author. I don't watch all the footage.
I'd never said this. I think at a minimum, try not to over-exaggerate. At a minimum I can say your book is the best book I've read, and at least the last five years.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Wow.
Wow.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: and that's
give or take 500 books, and, and so I read this and was so blown away, dude, and I'm like, I have to stop every few chapters and like dialogue with my wife about this.
Let me tell you the latest thing Brandan just wrote, and I'm just loving this and there's so much to this. So I'm just, again, I just wanna put that out there to everyone listening. That's my unpaid, unbiased endorsement and which is why I was so thrilled to do this interview with you. 'cause I've got so many ideas I want you.
to unpack, but that's, that's my thought on your book.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Thank you so much, man. And we're gonna get into this, but like when I was asked to write this book, I am very aware, I've been [00:11:00] doing this work in LGBT Christian Spaces for 10 years. I was like, the last thing anybody needs is another book on this topic. Like, we've done all, it's all been set, but I was in the midst of a PhD program and my own ideas were evolving.
And so I set out on it and I'm still very insecure about it, going out into the world and seeing if it is gonna offer a different perspective. So it means a lot to be able to hear you say that. And thank you seriously.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: You should not be insecure about this book. You are about to launch something that I think it is not like other books out there. And again, I say that as a guy that reads a lot of Christian books that are very, I mean, they're good, and every now and then I'll get like one or two nuggets from a book that I'm like, Oh, that was a, it's usually like that.
Like that was a really good idea I took from that book. It is very uncommon. For any one book to have as many zingers as yours does, where you're like, holy cow, this thing's incredible. So that's my thoughts on this. I have a whole lot of things I want to do with this book, but before I get into [00:12:00] the actual quotes, I want to ask a question to you, for us to get to know you better.
This is the question I ask most of the guests as kind of the lead off question. If you.
look at the last 10 years of your life, your journey with God, how would you say that your faith has changed in the last 10 years?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Well, apparently you're the bookends of the last 10 years
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: That's true. I didn't even think about that.
I started you on this journey 11 years
ago. Yeah.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: very real way. Like
it's a, that's so interesting because 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I was a student at Moody Bible Institute trying to be a conservative evangelical pastor. I was sticking my foot into worlds like Greg Boyd, Woodland Hills, which is not super progressive, like where I ended up.
It was like, it's just, you know, moderating evangelicalism a little bit. And I was going through conversion therapy and I was afraid to be who I was in the world. And the [00:13:00] past 10 years have been a journey of complete deconstruction, which is something so many of us have gone through in the past decade.
But also a. Coming out of the closet and finding myself in between these two communities of the LGBT community at large, like getting to be in that space and then discovering this progressive Christian deconstruction evangelical community where there's such a spaciousness and creativity and a freedom with our faith in theology that has brought me so much healing, but has also brought me to this point where I could write a book like this that I really do feel like when I do theology and when I pastor people, it's no longer trying to communicate absolute truth.
It's trying to give people permission to be creative, to wrestle with God, to explore and expand and to trust that no matter where we end up in God, we live and move and have our being and we're not gonna find ourselves outside of God's grace and God's love and. [00:14:00] So all of that, just to say 10 years ago, I think I was wrapped in a theology of fear and that impacted every aspect of my life.
Today I truly mean this, that I'm in a theology rooted in radical love and there's no fear related to God or theology or any of those questions anymore, and it's such a great place to do life, but also to get to do ministry from that perspective.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: I love that. I'm so excited to hear that you say that, and I think your writing is coming out of that place, of freedom and overflow rather than, this cautionary journey that you probably had to walk for many years.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Sure.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay.
So I'm gonna read, I've got a, I had to limit this, but I, I picked a, a handful of some of my favorite quotes.
I just wanna read them and then let you elaborate and let you just go where you want to go with it. And again, there's so much there. This was hard to limit it down, but I think I, I think I've made it manageable for us.
So, [00:15:00] beginning you begin in the book about your journey and. I, I, I love you do such a good job of telling your story, and, and it's one of those, as I was reading it, I'm thinking, I, I would want anyone, and I, I meet lots of these people who probably good intentioned, but truly struggles with the idea that a Christian could be gay.
And I always ask the question, how many gay Christians do you know? And almost always the answer is, well, I, I've, I've heard about some, or I've seen some from afar, but like, no, how many, do you know, like, how many stories? Do you know? How many journeys have you walked through? And it's usually zero or, or maybe one,
and and the one is probably a family member, loosely connected.
You do such a good job of like putting a, a real person behind it. You're not, you're not a statistic, you're not a theoretical argument. You are a person who has this lived experience. And so it's so powerful, and I think a lot of people just reading the first section are gonna go, oh.
I [00:16:00] actually empathize with you. I actually feel the feelings that you're, like you just do a really good job. And then you had this line that I thought was so powerful. You say the church's rejection of me felt like God's rejection of me since I only had experienced God in the context of the church.
Elaborate more on that.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, I mean I think that that is the experience broadly of most LGBT Christians and even, I would say the experience of many women and many of people of color, especially in the world of the evangelical church that I came from. My story begins like I was a 12-year-old, didn't grow up religious, ended up going to a fundamentalist mega church with my neighbors,
and I had a salvation experience there.
But really in the past few years. I've contextualized how I tell and understand what happens as a 12-year-old there. 'cause I used to say it was, the spirit of God changed my heart. I had a conversion experience, got born again, used all of that language. And I think there's truth to that. But working through [00:17:00] kind of my childhood, through therapy, I've also discovered that what saved me at 12 years old in that Baptist church was community. For the first time, this young, awkward, bullied highly anxious kid was welcomed into a community. Told I belonged, told people were glad that I was there, told that I had a place and a future and a career and a life in this community. And so I really began to understand recently that the church is actually what saved me even more than my spiritual experience with God, because it gave me this place that set me on a different course of life.
And so my understanding of God and church were intermingled until maybe five years ago. And that might not be exactly what every LGBT Christian story looks like, but most of us find God in the context of a church. And when a church ends up saying, [00:18:00] because of some characteristic about you that you didn't choose and cannot change, you are no longer welcome here and you no longer belong.
That's not just a church telling you that you're not welcomed here. That is God. The church represents. The pastor represents the authority of God. And what that means is, and I I think so many people don't fail to recognize this. It's not just rejection from a community. It is eternal condemnation in hell.
Like
that is the magnitude of what a rejection of a church means for an evangelical young person. And so. That's what I experienced and that's what led me as a moody student to, and we'll get there, I'm sure to like do conversion therapy and so try my hardest to do everything I could to get back in good graces and to remain in those good graces with not just God, but the church that represented God.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: It's so interesting 'cause I think people who are in the church often minimize or don't understand the [00:19:00] significance that the church can have in kind of these like, like I mean literally damning
kind of positions of you. You're now no longer here and you don't fit. And it's not just, oh, I lost a social gathering.
Although there is that aspect of
it, it's
so much more. And as you have, found your identity in that and you share this. And I think that's important for Christians who are in church communities to remember that when the church says, Hey, you can't serve here, or You can't be who you are, or, we'll only accept you up to this line, those speak louder than I think Christians often realize.
And it takes a story like yours to go, this is what it meant for me.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, totally. I mean, I, it is just so unfortunate that so many, I think more conservative Christians, even today you're, we're seeing this kind of moderation of what churches say about these issues. Even conservative churches that believe being gay as a sin no longer say it's like that. They'll say, all are welcome.
People can struggle and be a part of our community. [00:20:00] But don't be afraid of the theology that you actually believe. Like, I think it's a really shady thing for churches to not just say what they believe and what all evangelical churches, and I mean all with a capital A, the theology necessitates. For them to believe that if somebody is an openly gay person, they're living in habitual sin, which means that they are not saved, which means that they're going to go to hell.
That is what the theology is. I understood it correctly, and I think most LGBT people understand that correctly and it's just such a weird thing in this moment to be watching so many churches and big Christian leaders not be willing to own that and say, well, it's, it's just rejection of the church. It's church hurt, but God still loves you.
It's like, no, you don't actually believe that, so why are you deceiving people and telling us that Like Yeah, it's
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Well, and then when you, when you ask about it, it's often, well, I don't want to give you a definitive statement. Let's go to coffee.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, yeah,
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: it's like, no, just say what, what they're asking, [00:21:00] like give the answer.
And I've had, I have lots of, lots of my pastor friends are far more conservative than I am,
and so I.
opt to get in these conversations with them.
And one of the challenges I've said is, you guys have no good news to offer this community like you. You
truly don't. And you, I think they recognize that at some level, which is why they don't come out and just say, Yeah.
this, you don't fit. 'cause they want to be able, they, there's still a heart like, no, we want you to be welcome.
It's just functionally, it doesn't mean that when you're living in that lifestyle.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. And the only way that they know how to do it is to equate sexuality with porn or lusting after other women. And they're not gonna go cheat on their what? Like, and if you, if that's truly how you see sexuality and gender issues, then it makes sense for them to be like, guys, like, why are you all making this such a big deal?
Why is this part of your identity? Just repent like the rest of us. But I think what that's [00:22:00] revealed, and I've had so many conversations, I do these closed door meetings with groups of evangelicals to talk about these issues. And the constant thing I've realized is, and you've already said this, these folks don't actually know LGBT people.
They might know a few side B or conservative leaning LGBT people. And their stories are legitimate and we can talk about that. But the vast experience of the vast majority of LGBT people is not one where we feel like our sexuality is just a choice that we're making, that we can overcome or not give into.
It's the mode of how we move through the world. It's part of the way we see and experience the world. And Evangelical pastors in particular just haven't done the work to learn
the actual experience and perspective of the LGBT person, which is what allows them to minimize this issue and to. Not be able to have true empathy with people that are walking this journey.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Right. So obviously you, you are [00:23:00] comfortable using the word queer. It's in the title of the book.
It's a, it's a word. A lot of Christians. Either don't understand or not comfortable with, have all sorts of reactions to,
and so I thought it was a bold choice to go with it. But you do a really good job explaining it.
So I want to give you a chance to elaborate on this. You say in its broadest sense, when applied to people to be queer means to resist and rupture the repression of our true selves and the forces that demand we conform to others' ideas of who we should be. What, what does, what does queer mean to you?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. So I mean, it's interesting because when I got out it 10 years ago, queer was one of the first words that I gravitated towards. And I think it's because. The way it's used culturally and vernacularly outside of the derogatory use of it, which we can talk about in a second as well of like why a lot of LGBT people don't resonate with the word [00:24:00] queer, but it literally just means in some versions of English strange.
But I think a nicer way to talk about and define the word is as unique and as that which presses against boundaries and borders and expresses itself in its uniqueness. And I've actually, and I don't mean this controversially, even though people always take it that way. I think queer and wholly are synonymous words in the sense that holiness refers to an attribute of God, by which God is something completely other unlike anything else.
God is undefinable words don't describe God. All of those things that we say about God. That's contained in God's Holiness. So to be queer is to say, I'm embracing the full uniqueness of who God made me to be. Beyond my cultural conditioning, my family conditioning, my religious conditioning. I'm showing up in the world uniquely as God made me.
I like that word because it describes way more than who [00:25:00] I'm sexually attracted to. It describes the disposition of how I want to show up in the world, and I think it is a fundamentally Christian disposition to say, I'm not going to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed and step into the image of who God actually
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: sounds
familiar. I think I've
read that somewhere, Brandan.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: exactly. And it's like it's mind blowing to me that you actually learn in church the exact opposite. It's conform. Like literally
my Baptist church was, you need this haircut, you need to dress this way, you have to like these things. Says who. And even when we get to like the gender conversations today about what is male and female, all of that is conformity to cultural standards, what men wear, how men look, facial hairstyles, all of that is cultural.
And right now the conservative church is making it a gospel issue, a core issue. And it's like queerness, ruptures that and [00:26:00] exposes that. All of this is always changing. And so let's stop trying to perform for other people and instead show up into the world, not just LGBT people, but all of us as the authentic people who God made us to be.
Whatever that looks like. And without fear.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: So, so your recommendation is that those of us who are straight need to be a little more queer in our faith.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, I, I think that, and some people would find. There's a debate in the queer community over who gets to use the word queer. I like the fact that there is a speci specificity to the LGBT movements and the way it's been used in our history. But I think the broad concept, and that's honestly one of the reasons I chose it as a book title, is this is not just a book about can you be gay and Christian.
My hope is that it provokes non LGBT people to think differently about sex, about the Bible, about how they show up in their identity. Because all of that has been teachings that have been [00:27:00] constructed, constructed by the conservative church that we've all been forced to conform to. And I think there's an invitation in the gospel to be liberated from those pressures and to experience a freedom to be our authentic selves, which I would say is our queer self.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: I love it. There's so many, so many things you're saying are gonna make great social media clips. Just little snippets of this. This is
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: TikTok has taught me how to do a quick clip. Well, so
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay, so
we're, we're, I'm trying to think of when this is gonna post. I think this is gonna post after the, the next TikTok band. What, what's your take on this as the TikTok pastor?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: this might be the only thing I think Donald Trump is good for. I think Donald Trump will prevent the TikTok ban and yeah, I was not afraid the last time. I think there's just, the damage has been done. If China is really hacking our phones, China's already hacked [00:28:00] our phones. It's already got millions upon millions of people.
A ban is not gonna stop that. And if they go that way, I'll turn to Instagram. Although the algorithm is not as good, like by chance did a lot better than Instagram ever can. So
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: yeah.
then you have to be the Instagram pastor.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: There's already so many there. I had a niche.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: I'm not worried about you. I think you're gonna do fine.
Okay.
Let's get to your, your glass that you've got there.
You have a, a quote that I, I have read this before, so this one wasn't new, but this is one of those I wish more Christians knew this fact. And the majority of Christians I know do not know this fact.
And I think this is a pretty big deal fact, like, Hey, this detail should really cause you to rethink some things. And so here's a little snippet from the book where you explain this. You say the ancient world did not have a concept of sexual orientation. These [00:29:00] are modern concepts that emerge from the field of psychology.
So it is quite literally impossible for the biblical authors to have an written anything about sexual orientation. The word homosexuals first appeared in the English Bible in 1946. Friends, people are still alive today. Many who were alive when this happened. I mean, like this is recent history. 1946.
Unpack this for us.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. I mean, and all the credit to this is due to my friend Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford and Rocky, who is the producer of this film, 1946, who did the research basically uncovering, they started out on a project to uncover when the word homosexuality appeared in the Bible, because again. This is not a liberal revisionist history.
This is objective history. That sexual orientation as a concept did not exist [00:30:00] until modern psychology existed. And it was a woman named Maria Bangert, I believe, in the late 18 hundreds that first coined the term homosexuality. And so if as that as a sexual orientation, meaning as an innate part of human beings, that we are wired to be attracted towards the opposite sex or the same sex, or both sexes, nobody in the world had thought that until the late 18 hundreds, and there was no word to describe men who were exclusively attracted to men, women to women.
Like that was not common language. So my friends who produced the 1946 documentary essentially found that in 1946 when the revised standard version of the Bible, which was going to be become the mainstream English translation of the time. When the translation committee was trying to create a translation of Paul's writings in one Corinthians and in one Timothy they came across this word, arsenate.
And Greek [00:31:00] arsenate is a word that the Apostle Paul made up. There is no Greek manuscripts that exist before Paul writes this word. And that word doesn't exist in any manuscript. After Paul writes it, it's a unique Paul line word, and he does this quite a bit actually. And so they were trying to figure out, well, what do we translate this word that roughly means men, betters men who lie in bed together?
And they had this new concept of sexuality that was beginning to be understood. And like a good Bible translation committee, they said, well, we have this new modern word that people are starting to learn about and we can help make this translation fit the modern world and like make the Bible more applicable.
And so they rendered arsenals high as homosexuality. Now the problem is obvious. At best, what Paul could have been writing about with the word arsen. I was men who had sex with men, but that is not homosexuality. And in fact, if you learn about, and I write about this in the book, the ancient Greco Roman world, [00:32:00] men had sex with men all the time who wouldn't have identified as gay.
It was just common practice for men to have
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: It's what you do when in Rome.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: And the sad part that 1946 revealed essentially was that years later, the translation committee was questioned about this choice, and they said, actually, we regret that we chose the word homosexuality. That's not a precise translation, but by that point we have the NIV and other translations that have taken this word, this translation, mainstreamed it.
And today, this past year, the new revised standard version, updated edition released, and if you look at all the places that homosexuality was used back in 1946. That translation committee has removed it.
And I should note that that committee is not a liberal committee. It's a committee from, literally a translator from almost every denomination in the world.
And so you've got Catholics and Orthodox and conservative Christians, along with progressive Christians who all agreed [00:33:00] that this translation is not best rendered as homosexuality.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: And that's one of those, if you're hearing that detail for the first time and you're like, oh, that seems significant.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yes, it's significant. Read the book. He goes more into that, read other things about it. That's one of those where we should all pause in our, obviously the Bible's clear on this language and go, maybe it's not, and maybe there's more there and you, you get in.
So I wanna get into some other things that you do with the scriptures that I think are, are so helpful. You say the lesson that Christians are to take from the entire book of acts, but especially Acts 10 and 11. That when God acts in a way that is contrary to our theology, it is our responsibility to change our theology rather than deny the work of God.
Those are your two options and, and Brandan's making it very clear. [00:34:00] God is always more inclusive than we are. Amen. And God is always drawing humanity toward greater inclusion, justice and peace.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. First of all, I'm gonna say the wine's kicking in, so I'm gonna start talking a lot more and you gotta cut me off. But,
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Here we go. this is, where the interview gets good.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: this is, I've, I have fallen in love with the Book of Acts because. If you actually read the book of Acts from the lens of this is a text that was intended to challenge the early church on their exclusion of different groups of people, the text begins to unfold right before your eyes in really remarkable ways.
The early church had so many problems with who could be included and who could not be included in the early Jesus movement because rightfully, the 12 apostles in those surrounding them believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who came for the Jewish people, [00:35:00] and the movement was for Jewish people, and it was for the liberation and the establishment of the kingdom of God for the Jewish people.
That's not problematic from the perspective of a first century Jewish messiah figure. There were many others like Jesus in that time that had very similar messages, but what we as Christians believed the spirit of God started to do. Once Jesus ascended into heaven and said, I'm sending you the Holy Spirit to continue to lead you into all the truth.
The spirit of God kept challenging the early church on who could be welcomed and who couldn't. At first it was Gentiles and we all know those stories of of Peter going onto the rooftop, having a vision of unclean animals and God saying, do not call unclean. That which I have called clean. And Jesus or Peter goes and preaches to Cornelius's household and this whole household of Gentiles is baptized into the church.
In the Book of Acts, you also have this interesting story that I highlight a a lot in this [00:36:00] book of the Ethiopian Munich, a dark skinned queer person far from Israel that. Is welcomed into the church. Even though he would've been ceremonially unclean and not meant to be touched there would've been racial biases against him.
There were all sorts of questions about this unit character, and yet the first person baptized into the church in the Book of Acts is this dark skinned queer man from Ethiopia. And this goes on and on and on throughout the book of Acts. The point is, many Christians are happy to read Acts chapter two through 10, as this is why we get to be Christians as Gentile Christians.
It's about our inclusion. But they put blinders on when they also recognize the gender stuff that's happening there. The racial and ethnic stuff that's happening there, the religious stuff that's happening there acts as about God challenging beliefs that are biblical, by the way, because it is [00:37:00] the Old Testament that says eunuchs are unclean.
It is the
Old Testament that says Gentiles are not welcome in the assembly. And yet the spirit of God says to the church, you're welcome. Baptize them. Welcome them as members. Bring them in. Let them lead. By the time we get to Paul, we see Paul welcoming women and people from the far reaches of the Roman Empire to lead the church.
If that was happening in the early church, and every time it happens, the apostles come together and say, we don't understand this, and I challenge anyone to go read Acts chapter 10. It's a beautiful chapter of Peter being confronted by the Council of the Apostles in Jerusalem, and he says, the spirit fell on the Gentiles.
What was I to do to bap but to baptize them? Who was I to stand in the way of God? And it says, the apostles heard and said, so then God has enabled the Gentiles to inherit eternal life. And they rejoiced. When the apostles theology was confronted, their biblical understanding was confronted about who [00:38:00] was to be included in the movement of Jesus.
They questioned. And then they rejoiced
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Hmm.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: on the issue of LGBT inclusion. We've had 50 years of questioning now, and thanks be to God that a majority of mainline Protestant denominations have officially changed their positions on this and are welcoming people. But a majority of the Christian churches still holding out which I think is in move aside from the clover passages.
It's in contradiction to the trajectory of scripture, which is whenever God is, whenever people are showing up at the door of the church saying, can I be baptized? The answer is yes. No one is turned away from the Jesus movement, and we'll worry about the theology later, but first you include, and then you figure out how you get there biblically.
Yeah,
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: I love that. And there, there is, people go, well, what does the bible say about that? Which is one way to answer a question. And then
there's what you're referencing is, [00:39:00] but where does the Bible take us and where are the scriptures pointing us? And where is the movement of God? What's the trajectory we see?
And I love how you, you talk about, it's, it's, it is toward inclusion. And God is always more inclusive than we are. And we are always the one for any number of reasons that define, here's the line and here's why you don't fit the line, and here's why I have to be on this line and protect the line because I am protecting God, and it's just the history of people following God and yet God is the one always pushing on our boundaries. And it's that honestly is what's so exciting to me to be alive when we're alive, to like
watch the church begin to change us and go, we're gonna see in our lifetimes a more inclusive version of the church,
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: yeah, and it, I mean, this is the most biblical thing that you could find really from Genesis through Revelation. The promise of Abraham to Genesis is that. Every nation of the earth will be blessed through you. The vision is always [00:40:00] everyone being included, and you end with revelation where every nation, tribe, tongue, and people is standing before the throne of God.
Like that is what we should always all be heading towards. And yet, what's so sad is that conservative theology beyond the LGBT issue has narrowed. It's about the remnants, it's about the chosen
ones, it's about us and everyone else being condemned. That's antithetical to literally the entire trajectory of every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yep. Okay?
You have a number of hot takes. Here's, here's one that I, obviously, I, could not ever say this. This is one where it's like, I read
it. I'm like, oh. okay. This is you saying this,
and this is an interesting take. I, I like it. You say this, there is no such thing as an ex-gay,
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Hmm.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: yet thousands of people in the world use the [00:41:00] label of ex-gay in our modern world, most of whom also claim that God has healed or delivered them from their same sex attraction and encourage other queer people to pursue God's healing as well.
And then as if that wasn't spicy enough, you added, you must have been drinking your your white wine on this sun. You added on this. I am convinced that these folks are either deeply deceived or are being willfully deceptive, and my experience leads me to believe that most of the time it's the latter.
Why?
is this, why is this your take?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: there are very few things I'm a fundamentalist on and I do like, I hope people will know that I don't use language like that often. I. But that I'll die on the hill for. I will say that that's objectively true and like, just an [00:42:00] anecdote, evidence, if people want to see why. I think that last year I did one of these Jubilee debates on YouTube where it was gaze versus ex-gay.
And I sat in a room with five people that identified as ex-gay. And each one, we were there for four hours. So we got to hear each other's stories. And at the very end of that debate, four hours later, we went around and I said, every single one of you has said that you're healed. And yet every single one of you says that you still struggle with same sex attraction.
That it's a temptation that you're crucifying every day, that you need to continually work to repress this, so that you can live in alignment with your values. None of you have been healed.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Hmm.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Alan Chambers, my friend, who ran Exodus International, which is and will be, I hope. Forever. The world's largest ex-gay ministry.
I hope none ever gets as big as that. Again, closed it down after decades when he admitted, I have not seen [00:43:00] one person healed of their sexuality. What I'm advocating for in this book and in that chapter is not just to be spicy to marginalized folks that claim to be ex-gay. The reason I'm so insistent that they must be honest and say, I still struggle with my sexuality, but because of my faith and beliefs, I'm choosing to repress it.
I'm fine if they say that. But the moment you get up until a 12-year-old like I was, who's sitting in a church pew, that God wants to heal you of your homosexuality, and then they spend the next decade seeking to be healed through prayer, through conversion therapy, through dating women, through whatever else, and find that nothing changes.
And the other side of that coin is if nothing changes, it is eternal separation from God and hell.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Hmm.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: What do you think the psychological impact on that person is?
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yeah.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Kid or adult? What is the psychological impact? It's a lie and it leads to death. It leads to suicide. It leads to, [00:44:00] I'm still struggling with anxiety and depression years later from this teaching.
And so I really did wanna come out hard because very few people, like I, I respect so many of my ex-gay friends and I have many of them, but I'm not gonna stand for people lying in a way that I think hurts people and did objectively hurt me. And so I feel like we need to not mince words here and say, you can be a Christian who believes that homosexuality is a sin and represses your sexuality.
Stop telling people you're healed of it, because that's just not true.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yeah. That's a powerful brand.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Okay.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: You write this as a queer Christian. I'm not interested in participating in a version of the Christian faith. That perpetuates a theology of exclusion and a fear of others in the same way that it is demonized and marginalized people like me or anyone else. Instead, I'm interested in being a part of a community that looks like talks like and lives their faith [00:45:00] out like Jesus did.
Raw, radical, always evolving, always reforming, always listening to the fresh word that the spirit of God is speaking to each generation. Faith is based more on living and loving like Jesus, than believing like orthodox Christians, and there is a big difference.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: How, how do we create a, a church community that looks more like Jesus?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. Well, I mean, that was kind of, I. That particular section reveals what was happening in my life at the time and where my theology has evolved in the sense that I come from a version, and I would say probably a majority of Christianity today is centered around this idea of orthodoxy, which is you need to believe the right thing or you are not truly saved.
But if you just like, I feel like if you take a zoom out and step back and think about that logically for a second, you're telling me that the [00:46:00] salvation of billions of people's souls is based on whether they confess the right propositional truth, which by the way, every creed, every council, all of that was not inspired by God.
That was groups of men that came together and literally voted on what doctrine they agreed on and chose what they did not agree on. That is what our eternal salvation is based upon. And. That is what I was devoted to for the first 20 years of my Christian faith of like defending
that you need to believe the right thing.
But then you look at like the book of acts or you look at the gospels and ask where, show me one creed. Show me one robust theological debate between Christians. It was always ethical debates. It was always practical debates about who to be included. Do we include gentiles? Do we include people who eat food sacrifice to idols?
It was never was Jesus hypostatic, 50% God, 50% man, or a hundred percent God. Like no one cared. [00:47:00] And yet every Christian, like I grew up in Chicago outside of Willow Creek. Willow Creek was founded by Bill Hybels, which that's a whole nother conversation for another day. But his vision was like, acts chapter two, I want to build a church where people are coming together and there's this transformation in spiritual where renewal.
Like every pastor says that about the church. You want an Acts chapter two church. And yet if you have an Acts chapter two church, it's a church with not a lot of structure, not a lot of buildings, not a lot of theology. It's people coming together, doing life together and trying to build a better world together, by the way, in resistance to an empire that is constantly coming against them and
oppressing them.
Which for folks like me, feels like where we're at today. So like, yeah, I think I owe that the church would embrace an Acts chapter two model that put people over theology that put following the spirit over this rigid worship of what I would call an idol of Jesus. It's a Jesus made in [00:48:00] their own image that doesn't reflect the radical renegade rabbi we find in the pages of the gospel.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Hmm.
Okay, we're gonna pivot here.
I'm gonna ask you a wine question and then we're gonna close with some questions that I ask every guest and we get to compare your answers to everybody else's answers. Okay.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: love it.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: So here's the wine question. You, you're a whiskey guy, but you drink white wines primarily, not reds. 'cause you got religious trauma around
red wine. So if you think about, like, if I were to say what's the best glass of wine you've ever had in your life? Like when you think, wow, that was as good as it's ever been. Is there a specific bottle that comes to mind? A specific glass? Was it a location? Was it who you were with? Is there something that comes to your mind, a story you could share with us?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: No,
but what I will tell you is my first glass of
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay. Is this the trauma?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: no, this is a good one. It's a hilarious one. It's similar to how we
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Is this the trauma?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: no, this is a
good
one. It's a hilarious one. It's similar to how we ended up at Woodland Hills [00:49:00] Church. At Moody Bible Institute, students are not permitted to drink alcohol or smoke or
watch tv. Lots of things. Yeah. And so by senior year at Moody, I was growing cynical and I had a group of friends, me and two other friends that also went out to Woodland Hills.
We were growing cynical and we got invited Christian Century of the magazine, liberal magazine, invited NT Wright to do a lecture their annual lecture. And me and my two moody friends ended up on this porch in downtown Chicago. Nt Wright was the only person out on the balcony, and we all three had a glass of white wine together.
It was my first drink of
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yes.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: absolutely horrible. But with Nt Wright, as we thought about getting expelled later that night. And here we are 10 years later and I can drink a whole bottle of white wine in a sitting. So it's really nt right's fault that I drink wine
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: If N NT Wright would've been the reason you got kicked outta Moody, that would've been a hell of a [00:50:00] story.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, unfortunately he's not moved along on this LGBT issue though, so everybody,
we've got a little bit of issue with him, but
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: interesting. I hadn't, I hadn't made that connection.
Okay, here we go. These, these can be quicker answers. I call it the, the
lightning round. But you don't have to have, you don't have to be fast. Just whatever you wanna say. What is something you used to believe that it turned out later you were wrong about?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: There's so many, I mean, that's so hard. I think, I think how we understand and engage with the Bible broadly, I think even as a progressive, the way I swung very quickly to the Bible's not the word of God, the Bible is not iner. And in my PhD program we're learning a lot about how the Jewish culture and tradition has always related to the Bible and my, and I go to a queer Jewish synagogue here in New York City and I've really learned to engage the Bible again as an inspired book, though not being in errand, but understanding that God [00:51:00] speaks through the Bible in a playful and creative way.
And that the Bible's a text that we're meant to play with and wrestle with in the same way. Ja Jacob wrestles with God. And so I changed both from a conservative from, it's no longer in errand, but I also swung very quickly too. And it's not very useful as a progressive because it's just a bunch of myths and all
the things you hear atheists say.
And now I've kind of come to this place of, oh no, there's something unique and sacred about the Bible. But it's still not what I
learned in fundamentalism, Right.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: What do you see as the main issues facing Christianity in America today?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Theology of fear being perpetuated to the masses by a select group of people who are seeking to preserve political power and privilege.
It's Christian nationalism. It's the entire Roman Catholic, any evangelical church right now. It's not about theology or truth at the highest levels. It's about people maintaining power and privilege.
And in order to do that, they've gotta cause their [00:52:00] bases, their congregations to be afraid. And so they're doing that with crazy theology that lots of people are accepting as mainstream Christianity. And I think it will destroy our country and is destroying the witness of Christianity in the world
today.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: absolutely. What is something that's blowing your mind right now?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Oh, so many things. Again, I'll reiterate because I'm in the mid midst of PhD exams. I've been encouraging every Christian who's at all interested in studying stuff to go back and read first century Jewish writings, of which we have lots of them. Because if you want to understand Jesus and understand what he was saying and doing in ways that your church has never taught you, you can go read the writings of Hillel and Shammai who are two of Jesus's contemporary rabbis of the first century.
And all of a sudden the New Testament comes to life. You also realize Jesus wasn't that unique, but I didn't say that. And I don't know. I've just found myself more enthralled with Jesus, relating to Jesus, relating to the Bible and [00:53:00] Judaism, there's just so much we can learn from it. So
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: We're
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: nerdy Bible answer.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: No, we're actually in our online community right now. We're going through Rob Bell's book, what is the
Bible? And that's basically his premise is you need to read it, with the context of the first century in the Jewish culture. And so many people in our weekly discussions of these are like, oh my gosh, when you find out this detail, it completely changes this story.
And so it's been fun every week to watch people's eyes light up of like, I never understood that and now I do. So like that's a
totally a great rabbit hole to go down. If you're interested in understanding the Bible more,
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Amazing.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: is a problem you're trying to solve?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. I think the problem I'm trying to solve is how to, my constant problem is how to invite people that have been burned by the church into a relationship with Christ, even as [00:54:00] I am constantly. Even in progressive religion, tired of all of the same problems that exist in conservative Christianity, just in a different way.
And so I'm constantly in this tension of a love-hate relationship with organized religion in the church, but also constantly seeing my friends and people I care about in the world, like yearning for spiritual community
and connection. This is not a unique problem. I feel like every pastor in the country would say something like that, but it's truly what I'm always thinking
about.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Okay. I can guess your answer to this one, but we'll see.
What is something you're excited about.
right now?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yes, the book
coming out, but what's more
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: oh, more
than the book?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah, we've, we have a 40 city book tour starting on the last week of
May. And just to get out, I'm going to places like Hattiesburg, Mississippi, places I've never heard of before, but getting to be in kind of smaller towns in southern states and in rural states and being with the people that are doing this work in communities where it really, really [00:55:00] matters.
I'm just so excited and honored to get to go and learn from them more than I get to share about the book.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Wow. That's very cool.
That sound, I'm gonna be honest, that sounds scary to go to these small towns of Mississippi and have a conversation about queer and Christianity, but
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. Pray for me if you're the
praying type, but I'm excited as well.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Yeah.
That's gonna be, that's gonna be cool.
Okay. Is there anything else that you wanna add before we close this, that we can't wrap this episode up unless we talk about this?
What have we missed?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: You really did a great job. You covered all the most controversial things in the book and,
And got me tipsy before five 30, so I, I, I think we're doing, we're doing well, and this was an incredible interview. Thank you.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Oh, Thank you.
so much. Alright. How do people find you online? If they're like, holy cow, this guy is dropping bombs here. How do we follow his work?
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Yeah. The best way is to go to queer christian.org, which is the book website, but it's also my personal website. Has all my [00:56:00] books, all my articles, all my social media, everything is there. So queer christian.org.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: And I'll put all links in the show notes as well. Well, Brandan, like I said, when we began, dude, I, I was, I've been looking forward to this conversation with you for a while. I was, just, to be honest with you, I didn't seek out your book, your publicist reach out to me. And so I was like, yeah, I'll, I'll read another one of these.
Totally caught me off guard how good it was. And then it was like, okay, I cannot wait to have this conversation with you. You are putting something so provocative and so helpful. And it is so needed in this time right now, and I am, I literally am like excited for you as to the impact that you're gonna have and the impact this book is gonna have in the community.
So thank you for sitting down and spending time talking through these ideas with us and for putting this into print that is gonna live on for a long time.
brandan--he-him-_1_04-01-2025_161017: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate being here and the work that you're doing to cultivate these spaces and lift up these conversations, so [00:57:00] thanks.
jeremy_2_04-01-2025_131017: Well, everybody, hopefully you've made it through a couple glasses with us. If you're drinking, this is an episode, you need a good hearty few pores,
To process all of it. And I would encourage you absolutely pick up a copy of Brandan's book. You can pre-order that now, and you'll love diving into these ideas in new ways.
And we'll see you all on the next episode of Cabernet and pray.
