May 20, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 14 segments
Pastor, educator, and queer theologian Stephen Lowe (he/they) joins us for a conversation about reclaiming Christianity from evangelical toxicity and finding liberation as a queer Anabaptist…
Uh, so when I was in high school, I was the kid who argued the apologetics from the closet.
I was the person who knew all about David and Jonathan, and I was the person who knew about the seven passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that could maybe possibly refer to, uh, same-sex relationships.
Um, but that wasn't life-giving, right? To feel like you have to constantly defend yourself, uh, that you have to justify yourself.
Eventually, it came to just be like, "Well, who gives a shit? I, I don't need to argue with you.
I can be gender non-conforming, and I am just as beautifully created and loved as anyone else." Um, and that, that took a lot of time.
It took a lot of believing in myself and connecting with other people who, like, were willing to affirm me, and it's, it's still a journey that I'm on.
It was, it was a realization that, like, for folks who need apologetics, the apologetics are never enough.
Again, this, this theme of choice, like choosing to be a part of this community, choosing the story that I want to belong to, that I want to debate, that I want to wrestle with for the rest of my life.
Coming to believe some of the things that my parents told me growing up, like that I am beautifully and wonderfully made, that every human is a reflection of the divine, that we all carry that spark of, like, beauty and life.
The things that are in our bodies, uh, the beliefs, the ideas that are in our bodies that even if we, like, take the time to construct a new theology, in a moment of stress, our embedded theologies come out.
Uh, so when I was in high school, I was the kid who argued the apologetics from the closet.
I was the person who knew all about David and Jonathan, and I was the person who knew about the seven passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that could maybe possibly refer to, uh, same-sex relationships.
Um, but that wasn't life-giving, right? To feel like you have to constantly defend yourself, uh, that you have to justify yourself.
Eventually, it came to just be like, "Well, who gives a shit? I, I don't need to argue with you.
I can be gender non-conforming, and I am just as beautifully created and loved as anyone else." Um, and that, that took a lot of time.
It took a lot of believing in myself and connecting with other people who, like, were willing to affirm me, and it's, it's still a journey that I'm on.
It was, it was a realization that, like, for folks who need apologetics, the apologetics are never enough.
Again, this, this theme of choice, like choosing to be a part of this community, choosing the story that I want to belong to, that I want to debate, that I want to wrestle with for the rest of my life.
Coming to believe some of the things that my parents told me growing up, like that I am beautifully and wonderfully made, that every human is a reflection of the divine, that we all carry that spark of, like, beauty and life.
The things that are in our bodies, uh, the beliefs, the ideas that are in our bodies that even if we, like, take the time to construct a new theology, in a moment of stress, our embedded theologies come out.
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