A Review of *Born Again Queer*



It is a gift, not only to those within the fold of American evangelicalism who are trying to faithfully navigate questions of biblical authority and human sexuality—perhaps some of whom are unsettled by, or simply curious about, the unaffirming stances of their pastors and institutions—but also to any faithful Christian, evangelical or not, who has yet to discover the consolation that comes from knowing the history of one's predecessors.

One of the book's most important contributions is that it reveals just how much work was required to create the anti-gay and heteronormative Christianity that many evangelicals now simply take for granted. The exclusionary interpretations of Scripture that have become synonymous with American evangelicalism—thanks in no small part to the Religious Right—were not merely inherited, obvious, or "common sense" conclusions. They were carefully constructed identity markers.
And they were forged not simply in opposition to liberal outsiders, but often in conflict with fellow evangelicals.

That fact alone challenges some assumptions carried even by LGBTQ Christians and their allies. Many readers will be surprised to learn that there were—and are—gay activists and advocates for affirmation operating within some of the most powerful evangelical institutions in America. Their stories have largely been forgotten, erased, obscured by a narrative that portrays evangelical opposition to same-sex relationships as timeless, unanimous, and inevitable.

Stell's work dismantles that mythology.

By tracing the construction of antigay Christianity, particularly throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he exposes the historical contingency of positions that are often presented as if they emerged fully formed from the pages of Scripture itself. In doing so, he challenges both the notion that the Bible speaks with a singular and uncomplicated voice on these matters and the claim that the church has always spoken with one mind.

This is not an easy history to read. At times it is heartbreaking. There are moments when one can feel the opportunities lost and the lives wounded by battles that hardened theological positions into identity markers. Yet the book is also deeply illuminating, profoundly validating, and ultimately hopeful.

History, when honestly told, has a way of loosening the grip of inevitability.

And perhaps that is the book's greatest gift. Born Again Queer reminds us that the world we inherited was made, and what has been made can be remade. The exclusion of LGBTQ Christians was not the inevitable outcome of an unchanging biblical witness or an unbroken Christian consensus. It was a struggle, a construction, a choice.

Which means that another world remains possible.

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