a trans priest preached that jesus transitioned. in march. the right found out this week.

via the sermon text on the Rev. Flourish Klink's website, the Sinclair national desk, Scene and The Daily Signal.

"First of all, it isn't controversial at all to say that God is non-binary." That is the first line of the argument the Rev. Flourish Klink made from the pulpit of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and reader, it went on to become controversial.

Klink, an assistant priest at Christ & St. Stephen's Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side who uses they/them pronouns, preached it on March 21 at the cathedral's Celebration of Trans Joy and Resilience. The full text has been on their own website since that day. In it, Mary looks at the newborn Christ and says, "Oh, look! A baby boy!" Klink then points to the Resurrection stories, in which even the people who buried Jesus do not recognize him, and lands it: "I think that Jesus was not only transfigured. I think that Jesus transitioned."

Six months later, clips resurfaced and were shared by conservative outlets and accounts, Scene reports. The Daily Signal called the sermon viral and said neither Klink nor the Episcopal Diocese of New York answered its questions. Klink did answer on Instagram, both Scene and Sinclair report, by sending love to the haters and offering a serious, non-abusive conversation to anyone who wants one. The replies we saw on X did not take them up on the non-abusive part.

Christians have been arguing about the nature of Jesus's body for roughly two thousand years, so one sermon was never going to settle it, and it certainly was not going to be settled in the quote tweets. For a sense of range: the same week New York's Episcopalians were being yelled at for a trans Jesus, their Anglican cousins in Southern Africa voted on whether to pray for same-sex couples at all, and said no by seven votes.