NYC Priest Heavily Criticised for Outlandish Sermon Asserting That 'God Is Nonbinary' and 'God Is Trans'

An Episcopal priest's sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York has drawn criticism after an excerpt circulated online this week.

Flourish Klink argued that God is 'nonbinary and trans', and offered a personal interpretation of Jesus's resurrection.

Klink preached at a noonday service called the Celebration of Trans Joy and Resilience. The cathedral's programme names Klink as the preacher, and Klink has published the sermon in full on their website.

Klink serves as an assistant priest at Christ & Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church, but the cathedral hosted this service.

What Flourish Klink Said About God and Jesus

Klink, who describes themselves as nonbinary and transgender, began by speaking about the experience of seeking acceptance within and outside the church. They told worshippers that transgender people should not have to spend their lives justifying their existence. Their discussion of God and Jesus followed that appeal for dignity.

Klink then argued that God is beyond human gender categories. 'God is non-binary,' they said in their published text, before making a further claim: 'God is trans.' The statements were part of Klink's interpretation of Christian teaching.

To explain their reasoning, Klink described how others assign a child a gender at birth. They applied that idea to the Christian belief that God became human in Jesus, imagining Mary looking at her newborn and seeing a boy. Mary's supposed words were Klink's illustration, not a quotation from the Bible. Klink delivered the sermon on 21 March.

Klink also said Jesus did not follow what they considered the usual pattern for a man in first-century Judea. They pointed to his interactions with women and said that, to the best of their knowledge, he never married. Klink presented those observations as part of their argument about gender.

The resurrection was central to the next part of the sermon. The service included a reading from Luke 24:13–35, in which two followers came to recognise the risen Jesus. Klink said the Bible did not explain why Jesus was not immediately recognised and proposed their own answer: they thought he had been raised as a self beyond male or female. 'I think that Jesus transitioned,' Klink said.

Why Flourish Klink's March Sermon Drew Criticism

The Dissenter, a Christian commentary site, published a critical article and an X post about Klink's remarks on 23 September. Its article challenged Klink's imagined account of Mary seeing a baby boy, pointing to the biblical account of the angel Gabriel telling Mary she would bear a son. The objection reflects the site's reading of scripture. The article does not establish what Klink's parish, the cathedral congregation, or the wider Episcopal Church thought of the sermon.

The excerpt highlights the sermon's claims about Jesus and gender. Klink's published version also sets out why they made those claims; they wanted transgender worshippers to see themselves as understood and valued by God. Klink was explicit about the limits of their resurrection interpretation, saying they could not know for certain what had happened.

The sermon and the published criticism show two readings of the same Christian account. Klink used the resurrection to speak about living as one's true self; The Dissenter objected to the way Klink described Jesus's birth. Klink ended by urging transgender people to live openly and find joy despite the difficulties they had described.