“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
— Psalm 139:13–14, ESV
Hiding one’s sexuality is not uncommon.
For many LGBTQIAP+ people, hiding begins before we even have language for it. It begins in the body. In the stomach. In the nervous system. In the way a child learns to scan a room before speaking. In the way a teenager learns what gestures to shrink, what words to avoid, what softness to bury, what longing to deny.
I was fortunate in some ways. Most of my family accepted me when I came out. I came out somewhere around fifteen or sixteen, though things did not fully settle until I was around eighteen. One parent accepted me. The other did not. One parent’s response was closer to love. The other wanted me out of the house.
It never ceases to amaze me how coldness can come from a parent or family.
Your child is not an accident.
Your child is not a theological inconvenience.
Your child is not a problem to be solved before the neighbors find out.
A child is part of God’s creation. Scripture says God knits us together in the womb. That means the body matters. The soul matters. The person matters. The child standing in front of you, trembling and telling the truth, matters.
So when people say that queer people are an abomination, I have to ask: what kind of God are you imagining?
If God formed us, knew us, and knit us together, then you do not get to look at one of God’s children and call them trash. You do not get to look at the work of God’s hands and spit on it. You do not get to weaponize Scripture against the very bodies and souls God made.
The hiding began for me in middle school.
Like many gay men of my generation — Gen X, Boomers, and those around us — I learned early what cruelty sounded like. The names. The slurs. The bullying. The threats. The violence. The humiliation of being treated like an exhibit, like something people could stare at, mock, torment, or use for their own sadistic entertainment.
So I began to shut down inwardly.
I learned not to speak too much.
Not to act too much.
Not to reveal too much.
Not to let the wrong person see too much of who I was.
Because hiding was not about shame alone.
Hiding was about safety.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…”
— Romans 12:2, ESV
The world teaches conformity long before the Church ever gets involved.
It teaches boys how to be “real men.”
It teaches girls how to be acceptable.
It teaches queer children how to disappear.
It teaches us which bodies are desirable, which bodies are laughable, which people are safe to love, which people are safe to hate, and which parts of ourselves must be buried if we want to survive.
For gay boys, the lessons often came brutally.
Do not act feminine.
Do not act gay.
Do not talk like that.
Do not walk like that.
Do not look at another boy that way.
Do not bring attention to yourself.
Do not embarrass the family.
Do not be a sissy.
Toughen up.
Act like a man.
Play the right sports.
Stand the right way.
Make your voice sound different.
Become someone else before someone hurts you.
That was the catechism many of us received from society before we ever opened a Bible.
And when the Church joined in, the wound became spiritual.
Because then the hiding was not only about surviving school, family, neighborhood, or society. It became about surviving God’s people.
It became about sitting in pews while people cherry-picked Scripture against you.
It became about praying inwardly while lying outwardly.
It became about loving Christ while fearing Christians.
It became about hearing “love the sinner, hate the sin” from people who seemed far more interested in hating than loving.
I need to say this plainly: that phrase has wounded people.
“Love the sinner, hate the sin” often becomes a polished way of keeping contempt alive while pretending to be righteous. It lets people keep distance. It lets them avoid relationship. It lets them claim love while making sure you know they still consider your life, your body, your love, or your existence defective.
But Christ did not say, “Love your neighbor with a caveat.”
He did not say, “Love your neighbor unless they make you uncomfortable.”
He did not say, “Love your neighbor unless your denomination has trained you to fear them.”
When asked about the great commandment, Jesus said:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
And He said the second is like it:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
— Matthew 22:37–39, ESV
And then He said something even stronger:
“On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
— Matthew 22:40, ESV
That means love is not optional decoration.
Love is not a side dish.
Love is not a soft feeling for people who already agree with you.
Love is the measure by which our religion is judged.
So if your interpretation of Scripture teaches you to despise your neighbor, mock your neighbor, exclude your neighbor, deny your neighbor dignity, or treat your neighbor as less than fully human, then something has gone wrong.
Not with Christ.
With the interpretation.
Not with the Gospel.
With the weapon in your hand.
Now, I want to be careful here. Jesus was Jewish. Mary was Jewish. The apostles were Jewish. Christianity grew from Jewish soil. So this is not about blaming Jewish Scripture or Jewish law. That is lazy, dangerous, and wrong.
The problem is not “the Old Testament.”
The problem is Christian cherry-picking.
The problem is when Christians grab selected verses from ancient law, rip them out of historical, linguistic, covenantal, and interpretive context, and then use them as clubs against people they already fear.
The problem is when Christians claim they follow the Good News of Jesus while ignoring the actual pattern of Jesus.
Jesus moved toward the wounded.
Jesus touched the unclean.
Jesus ate with the despised.
Jesus saw the person beneath the label.
Jesus confronted religious hypocrisy.
Jesus protected the vulnerable.
Jesus did not beat the different.
He blessed the broken.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you…”
— John 13:34, ESV
That is the command.
Not perform righteousness.
Not protect appearances.
Not preserve the denomination at the expense of mercy.
Love one another as Christ has loved us.
And how did Christ love?
He came near.
He touched.
He fed.
He forgave.
He healed.
He wept.
He told the truth.
He stood with the rejected.
He gave Himself away.
That is the blueprint.
Not hate.
Not bullying.
Not spiritual blackmail.
Not exclusion dressed up as holiness.
Not parents telling children they are accepted only if they become someone else.
Not churches holding people at arm’s length from the table because their lives are complicated.
Not pastors screaming about sin while hiding their own wounds, addictions, desires, fears, or double lives.
That hypocrisy has done tremendous damage.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen the loudest “Bible thumpers” and gay bashers turn out to be wrestling with the very things they condemned in others. Men who preached one man and one woman while propositioning men in secret. People who shouted purity while breaking covenant. People who condemned queer lives while living hidden, fractured lives themselves.
Why?
Why live that way?
Why attack the mirror?
Why call yourself Christian while using Christ to punish people who remind you of what you refuse to face?
If you are struggling, tell the truth.
If you are afraid, tell the truth.
If you are wounded, tell the truth.
If you are hiding, tell the truth.
But do not turn your hidden pain into another person’s public crucifixion.
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar…”
— 1 John 4:20, ESV
That verse should make all of us tremble.
Not just conservative Christians.
Not just progressive Christians.
All of us.
Because it is easy to love God in theory.
It is easy to love God in music, incense, stained glass, Scripture, and private feeling.
It is harder to love God in the person who frightens you.
The queer child.
The trans soul.
The addict.
The disabled body.
The poor neighbor.
The immigrant.
The one who does not fit your culture, politics, class, language, theology, or comfort.
But Scripture does not permit partiality.
“My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ…”
— James 2:1, ESV
James does not treat favoritism as a small social flaw. He treats it as a contradiction of faith. You cannot claim the Lord of glory while ranking human beings by wealth, appearance, class, status, respectability, or usefulness.
And yet we do it constantly.
In society.
In families.
In churches.
In queer communities.
In religious communities.
Everywhere.
We say all people are equal, but then attach caveats.
Help comes with caveats.
Friendship comes with caveats.
Love comes with caveats.
Belonging comes with caveats.
Respect comes with caveats.
The fat person is judged.
The poor person is judged.
The non-university graduate is judged.
The gay person is judged.
The Black person is judged.
The Latino person is judged.
The disabled person is judged.
The mentally ill person is judged.
The person who does not perform success correctly is judged.
So much of our compassion is still performance.
We know how to say the right words when the cameras are on. We know how to stand with the right crowd, post the right slogan, use the right language, and look like we care.
But when real cost arrives, many disappear.
That is not Christ.
That is image management.
Christ calls us deeper than image.
He calls us into truth.
He calls us into the real self.
And that is terrifying, because many of us have spent our whole lives building false selves to survive.
The good son.
The masculine son.
The acceptable daughter.
The straight-looking gay man.
The quiet queer child.
The respectable Christian.
The perfect church member.
The preacher with no wounds.
The priest with no doubt.
The person who says, “I’m fine,” while inwardly falling apart.
But Christ already knows.
There is nothing to hide from Him.
Christ sees the real self beneath the armor. He sees the scared child, the hidden queer soul, the one who prayed to be changed because God’s people made being alive feel dangerous.
I prayed that prayer.
God, please do not let me be gay anymore.
Your people want to beat us.
Your people want to kill us.
Your people want to imprison us.
Your people hate us.
Why would You do this to me?
What have I done wrong?
That was not a one-time prayer.
That was a regular prayer.
A desperate prayer.
A child’s prayer from inside terror.
And now, years later, I look back and grieve for that child. I grieve for every queer child who prayed to disappear because Christians made them afraid of the God who formed them.
That is not the fruit of the Gospel.
That is spiritual violence.
And I will not call it holy.
The word “homosexuality” itself is historically modern; in German form, Homosexualität first appeared in an 1869 pamphlet associated with Karl Maria Kertbeny. That does not settle every biblical argument by itself, but it should make us cautious about pretending modern categories map neatly onto ancient texts.
We need humility when we read Scripture.
Real humility.
Not the fake kind that says, “The Bible is clear,” while refusing to study language, history, genre, translation, empire, culture, covenant, pastoral consequence, or the life of Christ.
We need to read deeply.
We need to read prayerfully.
We need to read with the whole witness of Scripture.
We need to read through Christ.
Because Christ is the Word made flesh.
Every written word must kneel before the living Word.
And the living Word teaches us what love looks like.
The Beatitudes are not decoration. They are not soft poetry for church walls. They are Jesus naming the shape of the kingdom.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“Blessed are those who mourn…”
“Blessed are the meek…”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”
“Blessed are the merciful…”
“Blessed are the pure in heart…”
“Blessed are the peacemakers…”
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…”
— Matthew 5:3–10, ESV
That is the world Jesus blesses.
Not the powerful pretending to be persecuted because they can no longer bully without consequence.
Not the wealthy preacher leaving a million-dollar church for a private plane while the poor are told to sow one more seed.
Not the title-seeker.
Not the purity-police hypocrite.
Not the religious performer.
Jesus blesses the poor in spirit.
The mourners.
The meek.
The merciful.
The persecuted.
The hungry for righteousness.
The pure in heart.
The peacemakers.
So if a church looks nothing like the Beatitudes, it should be afraid.
If a ministry produces cruelty, it should be afraid.
If a preacher becomes rich by terrifying wounded people, he should be afraid.
If a denomination protects power while denying mercy, it should be afraid.
If Christians are more interested in controlling bodies than healing souls, we should all be afraid.
Because Christ is not mocked.
He sees.
He sees the queer child hiding in the pew.
He sees the parent who chose reputation over tenderness.
He sees the preacher weaponizing Scripture.
He sees the pastor hiding behind rage.
He sees the person who says “love” but practices contempt.
He sees the wounded ones who still miss Him but cannot trust His followers.
And He sees the ones who were taught to hide.
I was taught to hide.
Many of us were.
We learned signals before safety.
We learned silence before freedom.
We learned how to cloak ourselves in public.
We learned how to fight.
We learned how to tell friends with shaking voices and brace for rejection.
We learned how to survive without cell phones, without social media, without easy connection, without the language many young people have now. We had clubs, meetings, bars, cruising, signals, coded speech, face-to-face risk, and the constant calculation of danger.
And yes, rights have changed. Culture has changed. Some things are more open now.
But do not mistake visibility for safety.
There are still places where a flag pin feels like courage.
There are still rooms where a collar on a gay priest confuses people.
There are still communities where queer people remain hidden because survival taught them caution.
There are still churches where the Eucharist is guarded from the wounded as if Christ were too fragile to touch sinners.
But Christ is not fragile.
Christ is not afraid of queer people.
Christ is not contaminated by the wounded.
Christ is not scandalized by the bodies He helped create.
Christ is not waiting for us to become someone else before He can love us.
He calls us to transformation, yes.
But transformation in Christ is not the same thing as erasure.
Transformation is not becoming acceptable to people who hate your existence.
Transformation is not cutting out your soul so the denomination can feel comfortable.
Transformation is becoming truthful.
Holy.
Merciful.
Alive.
Free.
Rooted in God.
Capable of love.
Capable of repentance.
Capable of seeing yourself and others without contempt.
So no, I do not believe the LGBTQIAP+ community needs to be crushed into someone else’s mold to prove God can work.
I believe many Christians need to restore their own faith before demanding transformation from everyone else.
Restore mercy.
Restore humility.
Restore study.
Restore compassion.
Restore reverence.
Restore the Eucharist as medicine, not a prize.
Restore the Mother of God to prayer where she has been reduced to a name or erased from tenderness.
Restore the Beatitudes.
Restore the commandment to love.
Restore the courage to look in the mirror.
Because the question is not only, “What do you believe about queer people?”
The deeper question is:
Who are you really in Christ?
Are you a follower of Jesus, or are you repeating the fear you inherited?
Are you protecting holiness, or are you protecting your own discomfort?
Are you preaching Scripture, or are you hiding behind it?
Are you loving your neighbor, or are you managing your image?
Are you transformed by the renewal of your mind, or are you conformed to the world while calling it faith?
I am tired of hiding.
I am tired of watching others hide.
I am tired of Christ being blamed for cruelty He did not teach.
I am tired of the Gospel being used to build cages.
I am tired of people confusing denomination with faith, control with holiness, exclusion with righteousness, and fear with truth.
The gay man I was taught to hide is not shameful.
He is part of the person God formed.
Part of the priest Christ called.
Part of the soul the Holy Spirit has been healing.
Part of the wounded child the Sorrowful Mother still holds.
And if Christ can see him, love him, call him, correct him, strengthen him, and use him, then I do not need to keep burying him for the comfort of people who have not done their own inner work.
So let the hiding end where it can.
Let the false self die where it must.
Let the frightened child breathe.
Let the priest stand honestly.
Let Scripture be read through Christ instead of used against His children.
Let the Beatitudes judge our cruelty.
Let love be more than a word.
And let every queer soul who was taught to pray, “God, please do not let me be this,” hear another word beneath the terror:
You are seen.
You are not trash.
You are not a mistake.
You are not outside the reach of Christ.
You were knit together.
You were known.
You were called into truth, not disappearance.
And no one who hides hatred behind God’s name gets the final word over a soul God made.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.