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Hail, Holy Queen: Flamy Grant's Story

  • Writer: Kelsi Nelson
    Kelsi Nelson
  • Dec 17, 2024
  • 25 min read

Note: all narrative prologues are imagined by the author based on details given by each storyteller, meant to act as a lens for the biography that follows, not to be projected as factual toward any singular person.

"As Flamy, I can create spiritual spaces for other people who also don’t quite know how to do this in the typical ways, anymore. I, personally, can’t necessarily hold all their pain, but Flamy can. She can approach the concepts of faith that I might still have a hard time with.

She can worship with people.”


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The old pew sighed sharply as the boy shifted in his seat, the southern summer heat pooling heavy at his back. He wondered how discreetly he might undo a button — just the one, at the top, to release the building pressure at his throat. He shifted again, with another groan from the pew, and a firm hand suddenly on his knee. The heat it added was unbearable, but he dared not protest. He sensed he was causing distraction, and better to have Mom’s hand than Papaw’s eye.


“You’ll be a leader of the church one day,” Papaw would always remind him. “Best act like it."


The boy knew what was expected of him. All men were granted authority in their homes and church spaces, but as the eldest grandson on both sides of his family, he received a different kind of attention. Something set apart.


A man in the pew behind him began to stand, recentering the boy’s attention. He’d lost count of how many different men had spoken in today’s service, and could not for the life of him track what any of it was about. He tried — he really did. He watched their movements and mannerisms, and imagined himself standing with such command. He listened to their rhythms and inflections and tried hard to feel it in his own voice. This is who he was meant to become, the way he must grow to lead.


The boy thumbed lightly at his collar button, hoping it might just open itself. He envied the girls in their skirts. Even though his sister swore that head coverings and tights were worse to wear than anything, their clothes at least seemed to allow for more air to flow. They were prettier, too.


The boy’s mom removed her hand from his leg to reach for a hymnal.


Finally.


The only part of church he enjoyed was the music. He liked the melodies, he liked the rhythms, he liked the sound of everyone’s voices mixing together. It was the only time he felt like everyone belonged.


The pianist moved softly from the front pew to the piano, drawing as little attention to herself as possible. It was entirely different from the way the men rose to take their places. No command, no authority, and definitely no speaking. The women never spoke; not in the sanctuary.


Everyone stood as the pianist began to play, those first chords filling the stale air at last with color. It felt so good to be removed from the hot bench, and though the backs of his legs were heavy-damp with sweat, the boy felt immediately light. He watched the woman’s hands move up and down the keys, wondering how such a gentle touch could create such a powerful sound. He looked down at his own hands — could they move so elegantly?


The women always looked so beautiful when they sang. The soft lines of their lips always seemed to take great care of the words. The boy liked trying to cradle his own voice in the same way, gently ushering the sound out rather than forcing it. Even their head coverings took on a new beauty when the music played, the gently swaying heads beneath them giving movement and life to the lace. The boy wondered how he might feel to wear one, how it might move as he moved, and drape so prettily across his jawline…


“You’ll be a leader of the church one day. Best act like it,” resounded Papaw’s voice in his head.


Right.


The boy shook away his thoughts, straightened his posture, and returned to the music, joining in the chorus of men, women, and children — every voice singing out loud.



At least once weekly, my sister Karli and I perform a sacred ritual we’ve come to call “TikTok TV”. We gather together in the comfort of our living room, open our phones to our most recently favorited TikTok videos, and we cast them to the big screen because Mother raised no fools. We laugh and laugh at dogs and babies, cry through commencement speeches and choral performances, rage over political commentary and magic tricks we can’t explain, commiserate with teachers and religious deconstructors, throw our hands in worship at the prophesies of poets and comedians, and generally just marvel at the absurdly hysterical genius (and lack thereof) to be found in humanity.


Every now and then, a video pops up that is just too good for patience. The superior experience of watching TikTok on the TV is surpassed by the brilliance of the content, and it must be shared in urgent haste.


Let the people know that most videos I consider urgent viewing are of drag queens displaying dangerously quick wit. Give your girl a montage of Trixie and Katya just talking to each other and I will follow that trail so deep just to swirl in the wake of their timing. Give me Jinkx on a Judy ballad forever and for always. A Shangela “halleloo” and death drop — I’m here for it ’til the end of time.


But a drag queen singing songs about the Bible? That was not something I expected when Karli came to me with a video as I made my coffee on a quiet Sunday morning. Even if I’d already had a cup, what she was showing me could not have immediately computed.


“What do you mean she’s a Christian singer?”


“She’s a drag queen Christian singer…”


I grabbed my mug from the counter and took a sip, unable to even.


“…and her name is Flamy Grant.”


I woke immediately in the rush of comedy and caffeine.


FLAMY. GRANT.


Yes.


And amen.

Momma, why you melting down?

Some babies show up with a crown

And nothing you can say or do is gonna turn that shimmer down.


Flamy Grant, What Did You Drag Me Into?

Since the dawn of RuPaul’s Drag Race, “What’s your drag name?” has been a basic conversation starter in the queer community. People sift through puns and personas and sound combinations for hours, finding just the right fit. The teacher in me thinks it’s actually one of the most creative and intellectual exercises we can give to our brains, finding ways to connect culture and sound and language and humor. It activates our storytelling and our musicality and our artistry, and requires wit and mental agility and knowledge of the world, just to choose a name.


Are drag queens saving the world?


For Flamy Grant, the name just appeared. “My husband and I were watching RuPaul, so I asked him what his drag name would be.”


(See?)


“Then, when he asked me, the only name that came to me was Flamy Grant. Just, immediately. And it’s probably because I had such little exposure to the world growing up; Amy Grant was the only name I could quickly make a pun out of. She was really my first ‘diva’,” she says laughing, knowing full-well our girl is anything but. Amy Grant — Christian music’s original darling and chart-topping crossover artist — is a soft-spoken, sagely, still-waters-run-deep storyteller who is the living embodiment of a crackling fireplace: cozy and warm and cottage-homey — and blazing. This contrast — the true-blue comfort of Amy Grant vs. a self-professed shame-slaying, hip-swaying drag queen — is exactly what makes "Flamy Grant" such a freaking good idea.


“My husband started laughing immediately — like, quickly enough that it surprised me. And I just thought… If someone who was fully disconnected from Evangelicalism in the 90’s can laugh at this, how much will people who were raised like me respond to it?”


A lot, is the answer to that question.


"It all just fell into place from there. I was just like, okay -- Flamy is going to be a Christian drag queen who sings about church trauma. It was just obvious."

How long did the lies deceive us?

What was the truth that finally freed us

From the fear and brought catharsis?

When did you realize your heart is good?


Flamy Grant, Desire of Your Heart

“I didn’t realize, when I started doing drag, just how much of it would be inner child work. But it’s like… Like the part of me that just wanted to shine and sing and be funny and pretty and outlandish and just… Larger than life… That part of little [me] gets to be seen and known and loved.”


She speaks from the ground up. While others of us sling words through the air (hi, hello, me), Flamy listens and responds from her very core. This isn’t to say she doesn’t possess any color or fun or fire; girlfriend's wit can leave even the most cunning of internet trolls lying in a pool of glitter. But the place her words come from — the place where she considers and maps out the story she's telling — it’s deep soil.


It’s reminiscent of Amy herself, who is certainly one of the most intricately thoughtful storytellers walking on God’s wild and precious earth. It’s also a core most often developed through adversity, a wisdom gained on wounded margins.


Raised in an insular notch on the Bible Belt, Flamy grew up in a time and place where expressing who she was didn’t feel safe. Though her family was loving, and communities were kind on the surface, there were always layers to Flamy that she knew could never be found out. It’s a message all too often received by those of us raised in church spaces — especially those who identify as queer.


“You definitely develop a quick ability to read people when you watch from the sides. And it was clear, really early, that if anyone knew what I was, I would not belong. So I quieted a lot of impulses, like we all do… But they never actually went anywhere. And drag — Flamy — she’s allowed me to express so many parts of myself that took me a long time to believe were beautiful.”

My church insisted women all be small, submissive, and unseen,

But their own holy book betrayed that lie,

'Cause in those pages you'll find badass rebel warriors and queens,

Prophetesses, witches, whores, and wives all causing scenes,

Every woman in the Scriptures smashed the norms to smithereens...


Flamy Grant, Esther, Ruth, and Rahab

As the story often goes for those of us raised in twentieth century Evangelicalism, several hours a week of Flamy’s early life were spent inside a church. “Any time the doors were open, you know?” she says, amused. “If there was a service or gathering of any kind, we were there in the whole doily situation.”


In the tradition of her youth, head coverings in church (the doilies she alludes to) were an expectation for women. A short explanation has to do with respect, and whose glory is permitted to be displayed in sacred spaces, but I’m not here for theological commentary on that matter. What I can comment on is how far symbolism reaches into the psyche of a person, and for a kid like Flamy — maybe any person so exposed to such specific structures — the veil didn’t stop at being a symbol of respect. Ultimately, it symbolized the firm line drawn between the masculine and the feminine — aspects not believed to be vague, or even possessed by each individual human, but easily definable qualities reserved for binaried sexes who were treated with seemingly incongruent value.


“The most we ever heard from a woman were the piano keys,” Flamy says just hyperbolically enough that it must be true. “Women were permitted to play for family bible hour. But other than that, no preaching, no praying… Not in the sanctuary. The sanctuary was for male voices, only.”


It’s easy for me to get a little sword-swingy when it comes to female participation in church spaces. I was only three when I asked our pastor why no ladies helped to serve communion, and it was not a month later that they started. Even when it was tiny, my voice already mattered. So I can go a little red when I see women hushed. And while I certainly respect that there are times and places for certain roles to be filled in certain ways, and though I think that tokenism is an entirely toxic practice, representation for all people present matters to me. I love a good soapbox when representation is lacking.


And yet: the image of a woman at a piano in a sanctuary otherwise reserved for male voices, playing while all others in the room are guided and supported by HER? That’s a powerful image.


Music will always, always, always reach further than words alone can. And these women who were only heard through keys on a piano — they may not have been preaching, but they were preaching.


“It’s interesting,” Flamy says retrospectively. “For as patriarchal as it all was, and for how much work was put into elevating the men and quieting the women, they were the ones giving us the first seeds of faith that were ever actually worth anything. Like, no matter how much they were silenced, and even if they believed that they were worth silencing, they still found ways to get real shit done.”


Slay, mamas.


It wasn’t just the church women who first nurtured Flamy’s early faith. Outlined in her song Esther, Ruth, and Rahab are mentions of the many Biblical women who also formed much of her outlook. While the external world of church may have demanded an atmosphere of well-behaved women, the internal world Flamy was experiencing in the Bible was filled with anything but female passivity, and for the glory of God. From queens to warriors to judges to spies, the women in the Bible were filled with more wisdom and danger than we’re often comfortable with.


Which is probably why their stories are often told inaccurately.


It was this song that Karli first saw Flamy Grant sing — the one she rushed to show me. We’ll go to our graves defending the Biblical ordination of female badassery, so when we find something that doesn’t just defend what we've seen, but empowers and uplifts us and makes us want to laugh and dance and ride at dawn, we’re consuming ALL of it. Especially if it's sung by a gospel-country queen with a seemingly impossible combination of Amy's soft legato, Wynonna's brass, and Ben Platt's warm, round tones.


Werk.


To hear Biblical references in a song also full of the off-color wit typical to drag performance was not just an intriguing incongruence, but a balm for someone like me, who finds endless humor in toeing the line of reverence. A curse word in a prayer? Gimme. Hip-shaking in the pews? Obviously. Shots, shots, shots-shots-shots I’ll sing during communion and never not be amused with myself. Stuffy faith with tidy corners makes no gospel sense to me, and few things bring me as much joy as walking bare-necked into a room full of clutched pearls.


There are also few things as lonely.


It isn’t easy to live against the tide of the crowd. This is the lesson from the Bible’s women.


What was written as a tongue-in-cheek laugh had me sobbing by the end, both in celebration and in ache for all the topsy-turvy, God-used-who? tensions that biblical womanhood encompasses.


A queen risked her life to thwart genocide.


A prostitute housed spies in defiance of her own nation.


An immigrant mothered the ancestral line of Christ through her own proposition to that spy-housing prostitute’s son.


And a drag queen sang the Word.

God is a storyteller, a lover composing a letter

And every word is hope and light and glory.

This is the awesome endeavor: justice that flows forever,

But fear and shame will interrupt the story.


Flamy Grant, I Am Not Ashamed

“Coming out was definitely a process for me. It all happened in stages,” Flamy recalls. “By fourth or fifth grade, I knew something was off. I knew I was different than the other boys my age, but I didn’t know what to call it.”


What to call it became more clear after a friend’s older brother from church (it’s always a friend’s older brother from church) presented Flamy with a Playboy magazine, and the experience wasn’t quite what she expected. “So I definitely knew by middle school that I was gay,” Flamy says, laughing at the memory before more soberly recalling that what she knew also had to be kept secret.


“I knew there were people who loved me, of course. But that doesn’t mean they were safe to talk to about it.”


We forget, sometimes, that love and safety do not always come hand-in-hand.


Flamy would carry her knowledge alone until college. “I finally told three close friends that I was ‘struggling with same-sex attraction,’ because I wasn’t ready to say the word ‘gay’ just yet. Even with my best friend — I couldn’t even tell him out loud. I just opened a Bible to a Romans clobber passage and said, ‘This is me,’ then retreated to the corner of the room alone while he read.”


I hear variations of these same details in almost every coming out story I’m given — especially from those who were raised in the Church. Retreating alone to a corner of the room, if it isn’t literally done, is certainly the internal experience. The fear of having clobber passages used against them, of being rejected upon revealing their real experiences, is based in more reality than most of us will probably ever admit.


I fear, too often, we only practice love that rejoices in the truth we want to hear.


Flamy’s journey to make sense of herself continued for years through the lens that she was a problem to be fixed. “As far as I was taught, to be straight was to be holy, so that’s what I tried to become. I tried praying it away, I dated a couple of girls, I even put myself through Exodus.”


Exodus International, a now-defunct organization, gained notoriety through its use of conversion therapy to reorient sexual attraction. And though former president Alan Chambers eventually recanted his views, expressing that, of the thousands of people "treated" at Exodus, he’d never actually met anyone who’d had a true change in orientation (further detailed in his book, My Exodus: From Fear to Grace), the trauma experienced by those who participated in the reparative therapies continues to run deep.


“Oh, it was damaging as fuck,” Flamy says, “but at least it was a place where I could talk about what I was experiencing with the understanding I had at the time. What’s that quote from The Truman Show? We accept the reality with which we’re presented? All I knew was what I’d grown up hearing, so I was figuring myself out with the script I was given.”

What occurred after the cannons loaded?

Vision blurred after the bomb exploded.

Doesn't hurt unless I try to remember.

What's the word for giving up forever?


Flamy Grant, Scratches

Eventually, Flamy ended up in San Diego as part of a church-plant team. “Everyone knew about my ‘temptations’,” she says. “The pastor of the church we were starting was my best friend, and he knew everything. The staff all knew. And that felt almost like belonging.”


Almost like belonging.


All the while, Flamy was still conducting her own study on what it meant to be a same-sex attracted person of faith, poring through scripture for answers, and stories of people with similar experiences.


“It was a long time coming, but ultimately I found that I wasn’t condemned, because all of my searching was finally in pursuit of the love of God. It just dawned on me: if God is love, how could seeking that love condemn you?”


Amen.


But while God may be all-loving, we humans aren’t quite as adept. After so many years of shame and trauma, Flamy may have finally been at peace with God, but the church she served in wasn’t as quick to accept the removal of that tension.


“Again, these people were my best friends — my family. You don’t get much more intimate with people than you do in pastoral leadership circles. You’re with these people all the time, they know your life, they know the ins and outs of everything. You really do talk about everything. So I didn’t think it would be a surprise when I came to them and said I thought it was okay to be gay. But that was the line I crossed where, up until that point, it was ‘come as you are’ as long as you admit it’s a struggle. Releasing the struggle for the peace we preach God gives was a bridge too far.”


Flamy stepped down from leadership, though didn’t leave right away. “My pastor was my best friend. I’d seen this project from the ground up. It was my community. I didn’t just want to disappear.” Over time, though, what had once been a church devoted to building bridges with the queer community stopped the conversation altogether, even with Flamy — a member of both communities — sitting in the pews every Sunday. “The scales fell, as they say, and I saw that I was not respected. ‘Welcome,’ sure. But not respected.”


There is a difference.


So Flamy walked away, wounded, confused, exhausted, and angry. And though it is absolutely worth noting that several community members stood readily in her defense, with many choosing to also leave as they sensed their community was not extending the same welcome as the Gospel, the day that Flamy left that church was the day she lost her best friends. The ones who knew her best denied her, and never reached out again.

When I wake up, will you be gone?

Which side of the mountain will I find you on?

If I promise not to make a sound

Might I feel the resonance from holy ground?


Flamy Grant, Holy Ground

The longer Flamy and I talk, the more I realize how much we share. By all surface details, I, a cis-gendered straight woman, and Flamy, a non-binary queer drag queen, should have very little overlap in the Venn diagram. But when it comes to the deeper details, I feel like I’m speaking to someone in my own language for the first time in a long time. Whether it’s the churchy phrases that still come so naturally, or an off-color joke, or a quick aside about 90’s CCM or Lilith Fair or RuPaul — this person gets me. We were both raised in musical families, both separate our favorite things into “tiers" because we can never pick just one of anything, and have both lived as wanderers who, as Flamy puts it, “feel like aimless puzzle pieces”. We’ve both wrestled with questions too large for the guidance we had, have both left faith communities in which we played major roles, and had friends disappear from our lives the moment we did so. Every story Flamy tells me feels like she's telling me things about myself.


I don’t know why it shocks me. I shouldn’t expect anything else from someone whose music has already given words to my own experience.


Holy Ground, the center, backbone song on Flamy's album — listening to it for the first time was to pour water into a very parched time of my life. I had just left my church, and was tending to that post-journey pain that only sets in once the adrenaline to push through has gone. I didn’t have, at that time, much in the way of religious music that spoke to what I was experiencing. I had Brandi Carlile and Adele and Arvo Pärt to help nurse me back to life, but in terms of the Christian music I’d spent years with as a worship leader, there wasn’t much. There were a few gems that I white-knuckled like the last bits of my faith depended on it, but Holy Ground hit different.


The song’s three verses are each centered around an aspect of nature — forest, water, sky — and meditate on the deep sanctity of each space while also acknowledging the deep uncertainty that accompanies matters of the sacred. The silent comfort of a forest floor, the rest granted by water, the wonder-full immensity of space… All of it holy. All of it dangerous.


My corner of the world is situated right near the Pacific Ocean and mouth of the Columbia River, enmeshed with thick forests, with summer nights so clear you can outline the Milky Way. I’m surrounded by water, surrounded by trees, surrounded by stars, surrounded by the most immense beauty you can imagine, and yet…


And yet.


The Columbia River bar is the deadly "Graveyard of the Pacific". Widowmaker trees lie in wait throughout these woods. And apparently we have aliens, now?


Water drowns. Danger lurks in forests. Stars are fireballs held in place by God-knows-what in an infinite universe we know so very little about and every bit of it is awe-inspiring and terror-inducing because what do we even do with all of that?


I walk through cathedrals of forests and kneel at beach altars and lift my head in praise toward starry skies, feeling so right-sized within it all.

And also it could kill me at any time.


I could stay right here in this moment, in this peace, for literal ever.

And also that sounds like way too long.


God makes way less sense out here.

And also God makes perfect sense.


A keen musical ear will also recognize that Holy Ground is in irregular meter, something Flamy says she didn’t even fully realize until she went to record it. She just "happened" to write it that way. “It just felt right.”


She's not wrong.


The song plays out like a stroll. Easy steps. Comfortable. Left, right, left, right. But the seven beats in each measure leave your footing just slightly unsure. The pulse never changes, so your pace stays the same, but the beat where once you may have stepped with your left foot is suddenly being landed on by your right. The walk may feel steady, but it’s just askew enough, if you’re alert.


If that isn’t faith…

It's been a while since I could admit that there was something missing,

But I've seen enough to know what love is and what love isn't.

I'm not content to fade into the crowd and let you decide who's in or out,

So I'm coming back, 'cause I'm living proof that it all belongs without a doubt.


Flamy Grant, Good Day

In the last days of July, during an early morning writing session for this very interview, ADHD beckoned me instead to Instagram, and I, ever devoted to distraction, followed.


Flamy Grant was everywhere. Headline after headline, reel after reel, people ranting, people raving, rejoicing, raging. 


Flamy’s album, Bible Belt Baby, had clinched the number one spot on the iTunes Christian charts, with Good Day, the albums most definitive ‘worship’ song doing the very same. Flamy Grant had officially become the first drag queen with a best-selling album in the Christian music industry. The miracle of this, though, is this was not new-release hysteria. Both pieces had already been out in the world for ten months, but the rapid climb to number one happened over just twenty-four hours.


Other articles you read will tell you that it all began when a well-known Christian musician spoke out against Flamy, claiming that her space in the Christian music industry is a true sign of “the last days,” while also expressing relief that “no one is interested or listens.” In this piece, however, that is the only mention said Christian musician will receive, because 1) we don’t keep the gates of worship, here. Worship is for all of us, and I won’t entertain otherwise. And 2) the match that strikes the flame is useless once the fire starts burning.


The match is gone. This is about the fire.


A response was ignited in defense of Flamy Grant, spearheaded by artists like Derek Webb and Semler, the latter a fellow queer artist in the Christian music realm, whose song Faith had recently topped the Christian charts. “What if a drag queen had the number one worship song?” was the driving question — and apparently, they weren’t the only ones wondering. Less than a day later, Flamy Grant was at the head of the Christian iTunes charts, for both song and album, with press calling non-stop.


The real reason Flamy Grant rose to the place she’s in is because she represents a growing number of people who no longer feel they can worship authentically in our traditional spaces, not just as their own authentic selves, but in response to the authentic experiences of Jesus they’ve had. Famed former-Evangelical leader Russell Moore has been detailing their “exodus” from the church for several years, noticing that, in years past, people left the church when they no longer believed in Christ. Now, however, people are leaving because they do.


“[W]hat if people don’t leave the church because they disapprove of Jesus,” Moore posits in Losing Our Religion, “but because they’ve read the Bible and have come to the conclusion that the church itself would disapprove of Jesus?”


These are the people Flamy sings for: those who know there’s greater Love to be had, who are determined to be with the One who loves in the way they've been taught about, but have spent so many years feeling the need to hide.


They aren’t hiding anymore.


When Flamy was spoken against, they stepped up, ready to declare that they’re still here, still seeking, still having conversations and making art about faith, and no one gets to tell them their hard-won faith is invalid. In less than a single day, they took to iTunes and ensured that Flamy’s music would be heard — so that they would all be heard.


Our churches have been filled with these hiding people for too long. We preach a Gospel about a God who “goes after the one” and loves “the least of these” and accepts us exactly as we are, and yet we’ve allowed specific groups of people to remain in the corners, shaking and forgotten. We’ve allowed it because, deep down, we want them to feel a little ashamed. We don’t want to deal with their mess because we don’t want to deal with our mess. We don’t want people to be free from the chains that we’re still wearing. We don’t want the deep-dive it would require into our thoughts and theologies. So if they can just stay the tiniest bit afraid of being open, life can just be smooth. If they can just keep themselves to themselves, our faiths can remain undisturbed.


But this is not the Gospel. Christ came for freedom, not with new chains. This is both the Gospel’s greatest gift and its greatest offense — everyone is actually free. Where to draw boundaries — or if boundaries even exist — are questions to be explored, not thoughts to be shut down, not even in that sneaky exploring-for-the-purpose-of-shutting-it-down way that we typically prefer. For Truth to prevail, the wilds of freedom must be honestly reckoned with.


This is why it matters that a drag queen is singing in church.


This is why, contrary to someone’s recently-expressed opinion, people are interested and listening.

It's a good day, nothing's gonna keep me out of the light,

I'm not gonna hide,

I've got my heart in the right place, covered by the good graces of

An endless love.


Flamy Grant, Good Day

“Whatever vision I have left for the church is encompassed by Good Day,” I tell Flamy, entirely unaware of the impact the song will one day have. "I cried through the whole damn thing. I just want to sing it over everyone who feels like they don't fit and dance while they declare it."


She smiles softly, as any proud mother, and admits, “Of all the songs on my album, that’s the one I most wrote for people other than myself. It feels the least like it’s just mine.”


The song was inspired by a group of people in a new church Flamy had started attending in San Diego. “I was hesitant to start going, because I’d been so burned. I felt very done with church, and very done with Christianity, honestly. I didn’t identify as a Christian anymore. But this community wasn’t very rigid. What I called myself didn’t matter to them as much as that I was seeking, so… I came in to do music.”


It’s interesting… I’ve had several friends wrestle with the title of “Christian” in recent years, weighing what it means to bear a name that has become so synonymous with political power and platitudinal performance rather than co-suffering love and mercy and grace and peace. Many are shedding it, altogether, in favor of terms like "Christ-follower" or "Seeker," or sometimes just a melancholic (though hopeful) shrug of the shoulders.


But if it’s true what Jesus said, that you’ll know his followers by the fruit they bear… Does it matter what they call themselves? The earliest Christians didn’t even call themselves Christians, but "Followers of The Way".


All I can say is, many of my friends who have shed the Christian label in an effort to more accurately align themselves with what they’ve experienced of Jesus — they are more intimately-connected to him than they were before.


God will not be contained.


“So, the church was putting together a queer small group that I basically went to out of obligation. I was the music leader and visibly queer, so I figured I should probably be in attendance. But I had my walls up. I’d been so hurt, and I naturally come into things skeptically, anyway. I didn’t want to go, but… I went.


“The first thing the guy said when we sat down was, ‘So, how did we all reconcile our faith and our sexuality?’ Just, jumped right in.


“I threw my hands up because I had my easy answer: ‘I don’t identify as Christian anymore. There’s nothing to reconcile.’ And I sat back all proud of that. But then they went around the room… and I just… I just shrank and shrank and shrank…


“Everyone had a story, and every story had its specifics. But every single one was some version of ‘I know what I am, and I know I don’t fit, but I stick around because if I vacate, there’s going to be a void, and the people who fill it will make it that much harder for the next queer kid. I want to be the person who tells the next queer kid that they belong.’


“Seeing the strength of my queer peers… Like, I don’t think my answer was wrong, necessarily, because it was my truth then. But it was a lesson to me, nonetheless, that there is something to be said about staying. And not everyone needs to. There are absolutely times when boundaries are necessary and leaving is for your good. But it’s worth wrestling with. Some of us need to stay, if we can.


“So I went home and didn’t even have to think. I just started writing and the words were there.”


The song that would come to hold a number one spot on the charts is, at its core, about belonging. But rather than a blueprint for how to create belonging, or a general commentary about the belonging Christ freely offers, it's about belonging so completely to yourself that you bring that same belonging wherever you go. It's about an unshakeable knowledge that, because you are "covered by the good graces of an endless love", you can worship unashamed. Regardless of how misunderstood you may be in certain spaces, you can dance freely in the front row, basking in the full knowledge that that space, as far as God is concerned, is yours. For the song to become so popular means this is the very message people need.


Flamy lives the very heart of this message. Sanctuary spaces that may once have inflamed every scar of her childhood wounds are now open territory for celebrating the good things of God, regardless of what people say. “I literally went back and toured the Bible Belt as Flamy,” she says in total amusement, “and it was fantastic. There were rumors about people wanting to picket shows, but it ultimately never happened.” She gives me a sly smile and adds, “I don’t know if I’m relieved about that or not.”


Ha.


“It was amazing, though, and so validating, and very — like I said before — healing of the inner child. That’s been the greatest gift Flamy’s brought me. She’s taken the broken, aimless pieces of my life and made them make sense, and she can do it for others, too. As Flamy, I can create spiritual spaces for other people who also don’t quite know how to do this in the typical ways, anymore. I, personally, can’t necessarily hold all their pain, but Flamy can. She can approach the concepts of faith that I might still have a hard time with. She can worship with people.”


What might our churches look like if everyone could worship unashamed? I’ve heard that question posed for years, and in my years as a worship leader, asked it obsessively. It’s an entirely different question to me now, though. In my previous circles, to “worship unashamed” was defined through the lens of “being on fire for God.” It meant being unafraid to look silly, to be obvious and out-there in our praise. But now… Now, to worship unashamed means, to me, to worship laid bare. To worship without hiding the truths of yourself. To worship without shame for every single thing you’ve been made to feel shame for. Not after they’ve gone away, not after you’ve gotten them under control, but while they’re on full display.


To worship unashamed means that queer kids see queer adults love and be loved by God. It means that the good kids and the bad kids and the bullied kids and the bullying kids — that every kid — that ALL of us — get to see who loves and is loved by God. It means that every single voice is heard and matters and belongs.


And they do.


“So what do you say, then, to people who get nervous at the thought of all this?" I ask. "What do you say to those who worry that giving so much grace can be a slippery slope into enabling — that it isn’t actually loving?”


Flamy’s eyes smile first as she says in total confidence, “We can’t love more than God can.”


Spoken like a good, wise leader of the Church.


We can’t love more than Love can.




NOTES AND REFERENCES


 
 
 

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