The Priesthood of All Queer Believers

What makes a song queer?
Is it the artist? The lyrics? The history around it? Or can a song become queer because of what happens when we hear it through our own bodies, experiences, and communities?
This week, Anny and Tym are queering the playlist. From Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, Kesha, Joy Oladokun, and more, they talk about the songs that helped them recognize something about themselves — sometimes before they even had language for what they were recognizing. As Anny puts it, maybe “the queering of it” happens in our experience of the music itself.
The conversation moves from queer anthems to church anthems, from dance floors and drag shows to Broadway, marching band, and Episcopal worship. What makes a song something a whole community can claim? Why does singing together create such a powerful sense of belonging? And what happens when music gives our bodies permission to open, release, move, cry, or simply feel more like ourselves?
Because maybe an anthem is more than a song everybody knows.
Maybe it’s a song that creates belonging.
And maybe queer joy sounds like a bunch of people singing and laughing together.

What continues to form us after the music stops?
Anny and Tym return for a final check-in on their contemporary Christian music conversations. They consider the genre’s renewed mainstream visibility, the complicated relationship between art and the beliefs of its creators, and whether listening still brings us closer to God...or simply gives us more theology to analyze.
But the conversation soon opens into something deeper: the music shaping them now, the exhaustion of always producing for a community, and the difference between being needed and being chosen.
Anny shares what it has been like to enter a new season after many years of ministry at Church of the Redeemer...reconnecting with music, scripture, work, and parts of herself that had become difficult to hear beneath the constant demands of production. Tym shares a new source of queer joy: helping imagine a drag event that brings affirming faith communities and Cincinnati’s LGBTQ+ community together while supporting queer youth.
Together, they ask what it means to choose ourselves, receive our own becoming, and recognize queer joy as something sacred.

Anny and Tym welcome Darien McCoy for a conversation about the Christian and gospel music that formed them, the complicated work of reclaiming it, and the tension between sacred memories and harmful theology. Darien also shares his journey into campus ministry and reflects on building communities where queer people can bring their whole selves, ask honest questions, and keep becoming.

On another snow day in Cincinnati, we sit down with Temani Chapple—creative, coffee lover, and founder of a production company born out of survival and transformed into a tool for opening doors. 
Temani shares the harrowing story of escaping a predatory music contract, rebuilding with safety and integrity, and learning how to trust himself again. From there, the conversation turns to the intersections of faith, race, music, and church hurt, naming what happens when institutions want your gifts—but not your whole self. 
Together, we explore what biblical community actually looks like: not isolation, not control, not branding—but a place that covers you, holds you accountable with love, and lets you bleed safely. We talk about personal conviction versus weaponized scripture, chosen family, and why God never calls us to disappear. 
We close with our anchor question: 
What does “The Priesthood of All Queer Believers” mean to you? 
Temani’s answer is simple—and profound: there’s a seat at the table. 

What happens when the songs that formed us no longer fit the faith we are growing into?
In this episode, Anny and Tym sit down with church musician and future seminarian Stephen Sollars to talk about the music, communities, and unexpected moments that helped shape his faith. Stephen shares his journey from a conservative religious upbringing in southeastern Ohio through deconstruction, reconstruction, and a renewed understanding of God’s love for his whole self.
Together, they explore the complicated theology hidden in childhood church songs, the spiritual power of musical theater, the hymns that stay in our bodies, and what it means to reclaim the music of our past without ignoring the harm that sometimes came with it.
Along the way, they discuss Bare: A Pop Opera, queer representation in Will & Grace, the enduring influence of Sandi Patty, banner-waving in worship, and why Christianity is never something we practice alone.
At its heart, this is a conversation about change: the faith we inherit, the faith we question, and the faith we choose to carry forward.
Because life is not ended but changed—and none of us makes that journey alone.

What happens to the music that formed us when our faith begins to change?
In this episode, Anny and Tym revisit the contemporary Christian music of their childhoods—from Amy Grant, DC Talk, Jars of Clay, Jennifer Knapp, and Rebecca St. James to Hillsong, Ichthus, and the Family Christian Bookstore listening station. Along the way, they explore how music shapes belief, the difference between performance and corporate worship, and why the sacred cannot be confined to songs that explicitly mention God.
They also reflect on the music that accompanied their deconstruction, the artists they are listening to now, and the freedom of returning to the songs that still live within us without shame.
Because sometimes faith sounds like a worship chorus. Sometimes it sounds like Joy Oladokun, Bruce Springsteen, or a lo-fi playlist. And sometimes the music we thought we had outgrown is still helping us become.

What does the life of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray still ask of us?
In this episode, Anny and Tym are joined by the Rev. Raquel Gill, a board member of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, for a conversation about Pauli Murray’s extraordinary and deeply human legacy.
Pauli Murray was a priest, poet, lawyer, activist, scholar, and visionary whose work shaped the movements for racial justice, women’s rights, legal equality, and liberation within the Episcopal Church. Yet Pauli’s life cannot be separated into neat categories. Their work, faith, queerness, gender expansiveness, poetry, and pursuit of justice were all part of one continually unfolding life.
Raquel shares how encountering Pauli’s writing helped her understand that she did not have to choose between being queer and being called to ministry. Together, we reflect on Pauli as a sacred ancestor who modeled what it means to move toward an unfragmented life, even when the church and the wider world could not fully recognize the wholeness of who they were.
We also explore Pauli’s concept of “Jane Crow,” the barriers they encountered because of both race and gender, and their ability to identify gaps in systems and imagine something more liberating. Raquel reminds us that Pauli’s queerness was not incidental to their insight. It helped them see beyond the binaries and limitations that others accepted.
The conversation turns toward the priesthood of all queer believers and the gifts queer people bring to communities of faith—not despite our queerness, but because of it. Raquel honors the queer elders who became pastors, healers, teachers, hosts, and conduits of grace long before any institution laid hands on them or acknowledged their ministries.
We also learn about the ongoing work of the Pauli Murray Center, which preserves Pauli’s childhood home while serving as a living center for history, education, organizing, and social justice.
Pauli Murray’s life reminds us that the work is larger than any one person or generation. We inherit it from those who came before us, and we carry it forward for those who will come after us.
Always the dream was freedom.

This week, we’re joined by Dr. Peter Carlson: queer theologian, committed Episcopalian, scholar of Christian history, gender, sexuality, sacred space, and editor and principal author of A Queer Lectionary: Improper Readings from the Margins.
Together, we talk about queer theology, embodied faith, scripture, religious trauma, the limits of “all are welcome,” and why the church has so much to learn from queer people. Peter reminds us that queer theology is not simply about whether LGBTQ+ people are accepted. It is about asking deeper questions: Who holds power? Whose bodies are welcomed? Where is God actually found?
This conversation moves from evangelical childhoods to medieval history, from Zacchaeus to Pulse, from dinner and a bath to the resurrection of the queer body. It is funny, tender, provocative, deeply theological, and full of holy trouble.
At the heart of it all is this truth: God is not found only at the center. God is already alive in the margins.

This week, we’re joined by Dr. Peter Carlson: queer theologian, committed Episcopalian, scholar of Christian history, gender, sexuality, sacred space, and editor and principal author of A Queer Lectionary: Improper Readings from the Margins.
Together, we talk about queer theology, embodied faith, scripture, religious trauma, the limits of “all are welcome,” and why the church has so much to learn from queer people. Peter reminds us that queer theology is not simply about whether LGBTQ+ people are accepted. It is about asking deeper questions: Who holds power? Whose bodies are welcomed? Where is God actually found?
This conversation moves from evangelical childhoods to medieval history, from Zacchaeus to Pulse, from dinner and a bath to the resurrection of the queer body. It is funny, tender, provocative, deeply theological, and full of holy trouble.
At the heart of it all is this truth: God is not found only at the center. God is already alive in the margins.

In this Pride episode, Anny and Tym reflect on Pride Month, the Cincinnati Pride Festival, the diocesan Teen Zone, the Pride Mass, Twilight Tea, and the many sacred moments where queer joy, faith, and belonging showed up in real time.
Throughout the episode, we hear voices from across the community responding to questions like: Can faith and queerness coexist? What does belonging feel like? What gives you hope right now? Where have you experienced queer joy recently? And what do you wish the church better understood about LGBTQ+ people?
What emerges is a chorus of witness: queer people have always been here. Queer youth of faith are not a contradiction. Drag belongs at the table. The church is at its best when it makes room, gives the platform, and remembers that every body is sacred.
Pride Month may be ending, but Pride is not over. The real party, the real work, and the real joy are just beginning.