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Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity
A groundbreaking history of evangelicalism and homosexuality in the United States
Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most scholars, journalists, and observers have accepted this account; in Born Again Queer, William Stell upends it. Arguing that the antigay majority in evangelicalism has been less dominant and more vulnerable than previously thought, Stell describes a network of authors, ministers, and professors—all veterans of major evangelical institutions—who worked in the 1970s and 1980s to persuade Christians that their churches should affirm the relationships and ministries of gay and lesbian members. By the late 1970s, some even thought that these activists might shape the future of evangelicalism.
Of course, that speculation proved mistaken, and the antigay evangelical majority eventually overpowered the gay-affirming minority. Stell’s history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism shines a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, Stell documents the work of four prominent the founder of a predominantly LGBTQ+ denomination called the Metropolitan Community Churches, the leader of a gay advocacy organization called Evangelicals Concerned, and the evangelical feminist coauthors of the influential book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? By recovering the successes of evangelical gay activists and the struggles of their opponents, Stell’s account transforms how we think about evangelicalism, how we talk about the culture wars, and how we approach both religion in queer movements and queer activism in religious movements.
Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most scholars, journalists, and observers have accepted this account; in Born Again Queer, William Stell upends it. Arguing that the antigay majority in evangelicalism has been less dominant and more vulnerable than previously thought, Stell describes a network of authors, ministers, and professors—all veterans of major evangelical institutions—who worked in the 1970s and 1980s to persuade Christians that their churches should affirm the relationships and ministries of gay and lesbian members. By the late 1970s, some even thought that these activists might shape the future of evangelicalism.
Of course, that speculation proved mistaken, and the antigay evangelical majority eventually overpowered the gay-affirming minority. Stell’s history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism shines a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, Stell documents the work of four prominent the founder of a predominantly LGBTQ+ denomination called the Metropolitan Community Churches, the leader of a gay advocacy organization called Evangelicals Concerned, and the evangelical feminist coauthors of the influential book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? By recovering the successes of evangelical gay activists and the struggles of their opponents, Stell’s account transforms how we think about evangelicalism, how we talk about the culture wars, and how we approach both religion in queer movements and queer activism in religious movements.
- GenresNonfictionReligionFaith
336 pages, Hardcover
Published May 12, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 26, 2026
Born Again Queer
I must admit I was reluctant to buy this book. The word queer strikes me hard. In my youth it was a derogatory term. It was the equivalent of using the “N” word for African Americans. Yet, just as my own book An Uncertain Life: Growing up Gay and Southern Baptist was coming out so too was Dr. William Stell’s book entitled Born Again Queer. It immediately resonated with my soul. I preordered and received it just before leaving for a couple of weeks in the Canadian Rockies. I read half on the way out and finished it on the way, flying home to Florida.
One lesson I have learned from drafting my own story, and one this book confirms, is that civil rights come most slowly to those who remain silent. Alabama is a clear example. During the height of the civil rights movement, five major events took place in the state. Can you name them? Mobile, the state’s second-largest city, was not among them, and it made the least progress of Alabama’s major cities because “blacks behaved themselves.” In the conclusion, Dr. Stell writes, “…whatever the reasons behind them, the history of evangelical gay activism remains hidden from those who most need it. Some of the most vulnerable LGBTQ people have been robbed of the assurance that knowledge of predecessors can provide.” This final sentence of that paragraph (pg. 275) struck me: “…I do want all kinds of queer people, coming from all kinds of places, to know they have a history.”
I wrote my book because, as a born-again Christian, I wanted other gays from similar faith backgrounds to know they are loved by God. Stell likewise wants queer people to know they share a common history. Both messages are powerful. Why else would anti-gay people try to keep us unaware of our history and of God’s love for us?
(Answer: Anniston-Bus bombing, Montgomery: Bus Boycott, Tuscaloosa: Wallace standing in the doorof UofA, Birmingham: 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing and the Selma to Montgomery March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge)
I must admit I was reluctant to buy this book. The word queer strikes me hard. In my youth it was a derogatory term. It was the equivalent of using the “N” word for African Americans. Yet, just as my own book An Uncertain Life: Growing up Gay and Southern Baptist was coming out so too was Dr. William Stell’s book entitled Born Again Queer. It immediately resonated with my soul. I preordered and received it just before leaving for a couple of weeks in the Canadian Rockies. I read half on the way out and finished it on the way, flying home to Florida.
One lesson I have learned from drafting my own story, and one this book confirms, is that civil rights come most slowly to those who remain silent. Alabama is a clear example. During the height of the civil rights movement, five major events took place in the state. Can you name them? Mobile, the state’s second-largest city, was not among them, and it made the least progress of Alabama’s major cities because “blacks behaved themselves.” In the conclusion, Dr. Stell writes, “…whatever the reasons behind them, the history of evangelical gay activism remains hidden from those who most need it. Some of the most vulnerable LGBTQ people have been robbed of the assurance that knowledge of predecessors can provide.” This final sentence of that paragraph (pg. 275) struck me: “…I do want all kinds of queer people, coming from all kinds of places, to know they have a history.”
I wrote my book because, as a born-again Christian, I wanted other gays from similar faith backgrounds to know they are loved by God. Stell likewise wants queer people to know they share a common history. Both messages are powerful. Why else would anti-gay people try to keep us unaware of our history and of God’s love for us?
(Answer: Anniston-Bus bombing, Montgomery: Bus Boycott, Tuscaloosa: Wallace standing in the doorof UofA, Birmingham: 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing and the Selma to Montgomery March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge)
June 17, 2026
This book 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 curious about, the unaffirming stances of their shepherds regarding LGBTQ identity—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.
American evangelicalism had to work, at times very hard, to construct the anti-gay and heteronormative Christianity that evangelicals too often simply take for granted. Knowing that the exclusionary stances and anti-LGBTQ interpretations of Scripture that have become synonymous with American evangelicalism—thanks in large part to the Religious Right and the AIDS epidemic—were not merely default or "common sense" understandings, but hard-fought identity markers constructed over against the efforts not only of those "liberals" outside the fold, but also especially of their fellow evangelicals, challenges some of the assumptions carried even by LGBTQ activists within Christianity. The very knowledge that there were, and indeed are, gay activists within some of the most powerful evangelical institutions will be novel to many readers.
In telling this history, William Stell has dealt a blow to those who would rather accept the dominant narrative of the Bible's simplicity and univocality in condemning same-sex relationships, as well as the presumptive assertion of the church's historical consensus on the matter. Through his detailed treatment of the construction of anti-gay Christianity, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, Stell demythologizes the struggle for queer affirmation within the church. This book is profoundly illuminating, sometimes depressing, but deeply helpful and even validating.
American evangelicalism had to work, at times very hard, to construct the anti-gay and heteronormative Christianity that evangelicals too often simply take for granted. Knowing that the exclusionary stances and anti-LGBTQ interpretations of Scripture that have become synonymous with American evangelicalism—thanks in large part to the Religious Right and the AIDS epidemic—were not merely default or "common sense" understandings, but hard-fought identity markers constructed over against the efforts not only of those "liberals" outside the fold, but also especially of their fellow evangelicals, challenges some of the assumptions carried even by LGBTQ activists within Christianity. The very knowledge that there were, and indeed are, gay activists within some of the most powerful evangelical institutions will be novel to many readers.
In telling this history, William Stell has dealt a blow to those who would rather accept the dominant narrative of the Bible's simplicity and univocality in condemning same-sex relationships, as well as the presumptive assertion of the church's historical consensus on the matter. Through his detailed treatment of the construction of anti-gay Christianity, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, Stell demythologizes the struggle for queer affirmation within the church. This book is profoundly illuminating, sometimes depressing, but deeply helpful and even validating.
May 13, 2026
I spent most of the 90s deeply involved in a section of American moderate to progressive evangelical Christianity. We cared about forms of social justice, and we were wide ranging in our political views. But we also assumed that antigay views were the only real option for traditional Christians serious about out Bible.
I really wish we'd had a resource like William Stell's Born Again Queer back then. Stell describes the movements for queer inclusion and LGBTQ acceptance among 1970s-era evangelicals, including a fast-growing church network, a biblical gay rights advocacy organization, a feminist lesbian collective of authors and activists. In doing so, he challenges contemporary assumptions that to be evangelical necessitates being anti-queer and that to be queer needs to be associate with liberal anti-religiosity.
Stell also tells the sad story of the people and forces that resisted these inroads to gay rights in the evangelical movement, and how during the 80s and 90s, it became more committed to the ex-gay change narrative, and more vociferously anti-gay in its Bible reading, theology, and scapegoating of queer people. Noting evangelical tactics of defining its own purported faithfulness against purported outsiders and enemies, Stell wonders it if is possible that there could be evangelicalism that is not built on the bodies of queer outsiders.
I read this book grateful for the growing number of churches and followers of Jesus that celebrate the lives and faiths and loves of our queer siblings in Christ. But I read it sad that the evangelical world I found / that found me in the early 90s could have been so much larger, freer, and more loving.
I really wish we'd had a resource like William Stell's Born Again Queer back then. Stell describes the movements for queer inclusion and LGBTQ acceptance among 1970s-era evangelicals, including a fast-growing church network, a biblical gay rights advocacy organization, a feminist lesbian collective of authors and activists. In doing so, he challenges contemporary assumptions that to be evangelical necessitates being anti-queer and that to be queer needs to be associate with liberal anti-religiosity.
Stell also tells the sad story of the people and forces that resisted these inroads to gay rights in the evangelical movement, and how during the 80s and 90s, it became more committed to the ex-gay change narrative, and more vociferously anti-gay in its Bible reading, theology, and scapegoating of queer people. Noting evangelical tactics of defining its own purported faithfulness against purported outsiders and enemies, Stell wonders it if is possible that there could be evangelicalism that is not built on the bodies of queer outsiders.
I read this book grateful for the growing number of churches and followers of Jesus that celebrate the lives and faiths and loves of our queer siblings in Christ. But I read it sad that the evangelical world I found / that found me in the early 90s could have been so much larger, freer, and more loving.
May 13, 2026
Absolute must-read for anyone interested in the history of American evangelicalism or LGBTQ history. Born Again Queer shows through both gay evangelical activists and their interlocutors that antigay evangelicalism was not an inevitable extension of tradition (a theory Stell aptly derides as hermeneutical determinism) but evolved alongside popular evangelical antifeminism in the 1970s. The whole book is well-written and compelling, but the chapter on progressive evangelicals' respectability politics and failure to listen to their gay evangelical one-time allies is particularly illuminating.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews