Matthew Vines is the author of God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships and the founder of The Reformation Project. He lives in Wichita, Kansas.

A generation ago, I would have been too gay for my fellow evangelicals and too evangelical for my fellow gay Americans. But, as Christians grow more tolerant and gay people grow more comfortable identifying with religion, the tension between these two identities is beginning to ease.

Last Sunday morning, I went to a traditional service at a large evangelical church in San Francisco. At the end of the service, they prayed about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on same-sex marriage as well as the Pride event that was starting in their city that day.


In years past, the rhetoric from an evangelical pulpit like this one—even in the most liberal of cities—would have been entirely predictable: moral opposition to same-sex relationships, lament for the nation’s growing acceptance of sinful behavior, concern for the status of Christians in a wayward society.

So one could be forgiven for being taken aback by what this preacher actually said. He prayed for me, an openly gay Christian. He called me a “brother in Christ,” claiming me as one of his own, and asked God to grant me wisdom and clarity as I represented the church on the main stage at San Francisco Pride that afternoon.

In some ways, I didn’t know what to find more surprising: the embrace I received at that church, or the enthusiastic welcome I experienced when I took the stage at Pride two hours later. It’s no secret that faith and homosexuality have been in pitched conflict since the gay rights movement began, and to this day, that dynamic shapes the battle lines around this issue more powerfully than any other.

To be sure, the conflict between faith and gay rights isn’t going away anytime soon. But over the last year, I’ve had a front-row seat to the ways in which the conflict is evolving—and moderating in ways that are good for both groups. In large part, that’s because the two groups are far from mutually exclusive. According to May’s polling results from Pew Research Center, 48 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans identify as Christian, a six percent increase from two years ago and a higher number than the 41 percent who say they are agnostic, atheistic or religiously unaffiliated.

Increasingly, LGBT Christians are finding their voice, and in the process, they’re transforming the dialogue on both sides. Justin Lee, an author and the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, has been opening up conversations in evangelical communities all across the country, as has theologian and songwriter Vicky Beeching, whose coming out made international headlines last summer. Bisexual writer and activist Eliel Cruz and transgender minister Allyson Robinson have been advancing the conversation in the church beyond gay and lesbian issues and making a significant impact in secular LGBT circles as well.

In my own experience, it has been easy to get a sense of whiplash moving back and forth between such different worlds. Earlier this year, I met up for coffee with a conservative evangelical pastor in Portland, Oregon. Halfway through our conversation, none other than sex columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage walked in, so I took a minute to say hello. It was a striking juxtaposition: the pastor, who runs a large church that opposes same-sex relationships; Savage, who was in town for a porn festival he was curating; and me, who had traveled there for something somewhere in between those polar opposites: a gay Christian conference. Unlikely as it may seem, I ended up having in-depth conversations with both of them about the intersections of faith and sexuality.

On the evangelical side, the inroads I’ve been making haven’t been uncontested by any means. But despite fierce backlash to my efforts from some Christians, my day-to-day life is now a kind of testament to the softening that’s taking place. A few years ago, it was a struggle for me to get almost any evangelical pastors to meet with me at all. Now, it’s hard for me to find time to meet with everyone who reaches out—a problem, I should be clear, for which I’m very grateful.

Of course, evangelicals aren’t about to change en masse overnight. But the beginnings of meaningful change are increasingly visible. According to Pew, evangelical support for marriage equality has risen from 14 percent in 2005 to 27 percent earlier this year. Evangelical leaders like ethicist David Gushee and preacher Tony Campolo have changed their positions on same-sex relationships in recent months. So, too, large evangelical churches like GracePointe Church in Nashville and EastLake Community Church in Seattle have shifted to become pro-LGBT this year.

City Church, the church I visited in San Francisco, made waves across the country in March when it dropped its celibacy mandate for LGBT members. At first blush, that may not seem newsworthy—after all, it’s San Francisco, home to the Castro and gay rights pioneers like Harvey Milk. But the evangelical ecosystem, while not unaffected by churches’ local contexts, is a largely separate and interconnected sphere regardless of location. Some of the most prominent evangelical churches, like New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian and Boston’s Park Street Church, are in the heart of liberal enclaves. City Church is deeply embedded in that broader world, which is why its shift drew responses from evangelical leaders across the country. (Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted that it was “tragic.”)

Fred Harrell, City Church’s senior pastor, invited me to spend a full day with his staff team a few days before San Francisco Pride. As I heard how their friends, peers and mentors in positions of influence throughout American evangelicalism have responded to their church’s shift, it became clear that, slowly but surely, broad change is coming. It isn’t rapid, and much of it remains under the radar for now. But as I sometimes say about the work of my organization, The Reformation Project, our goal isn’t to move mountains overnight. Rather, our goal is to lay the groundwork to move mountains eventually—and the forces of change in the church are on our side.

If change will come to evangelicalism only slowly, though, then surely the same is true of attitudes toward religion in the secular LGBT community. After all, it’s hard to have positive feelings toward an institution that has caused greater pain and strife for you and your friends than any other in the United States. But to the extent that change is already happening, it is due to the emergence of those who are active, visible members of both groups. Dan Savage is no fan of organized religion, to put it lightly, but after we crossed paths in Portland, I joined him on his podcast for an extended back-and-forth about Christianity, the Bible and LGBT issues. He didn’t agree with me on a lot of things—from theism to my advocacy for monogamy—but he still likes me and supports my efforts on the whole.

At Pride, I heard from one of my friends in the crowd that a man next to her shouted, “I hate God!” during my talk. But I also saw a woman in the very front, decked out in full rainbow attire, who seemed to be eating up every word. If she was anything like the gay Christians who came up to me afterward, then she was experiencing a kind of relief and joy at no longer being told that a core aspect of her identity—in this case, her faith identity—had to be checked at the door.

As we move into a post- Obergefell world, one of the defining questions ahead is what kind of peace conservative Christians can make with the LGBT community. It won’t be easy, and long-term acrimony and polarization are certainly a possible outcome. But if there’s a better way forward—and I’m convinced that there is—then that path will be forged by those best positioned to bridge the gap: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christians themselves.