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Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tune in each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello? Hello. Hello. Before we dive into this episode, which spoiler alert is our 600th episode, which is just mind blowing to me. You can’t see Shea, but he’s shaking his head in disbelief. Just a quick reminder that we are running a three week poly possibilities cohort that starts next week.

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It starts on Tuesday, July 29th, three Tuesday evenings Eastern time, Wednesday mornings, Australia, Japan time, and various time zones. Depending on where in the world you are, it’s gonna be looking at the intersections of obviously polyamory and spirituality and really with an eye towards what a polyamorous perspective, how that can enrich all of our types of relationships as well as our spiritual and faith lives. And so this is great for you, certainly if you’re a polyamorous or non-monogamous person of faith, but also, even if you are not polyamorous or not open in an open relationship of some sort, but you just wanna learn from the wisdom of polyamory, we would love to have you, you can learn more and register at Queer Theology dot com slash poly possibilities.

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There are sliding scales, and if you can’t or you don’t wanna join the calls live, there’s always the option to watch the replays. I would say like about half the folks do it that way. Anyways, so you’d be in good company, whether you join live or watch the replays. If you have any questions, shoot us an email, connect ology com or send us a DM on Instagram. And with that said, let’s dive into this episode. This Episode, 600 episodes. I can’t believe it. We’ve been doing this podcast pretty much every week for 12 years, 13 years. I don’t, I’m not quite sure what the Math is. Yeah, I think 12 years. Yeah. That is wild. It is wild. And so today we just wanted to reflect a little bit on, you know, over the 12 years, obviously we spent the first six or seven years of that queering a bible passage every, every, actually longer, longer than six or seven years, maybe the first nine years.

(2m 31s):

Yeah. Because I feel like we did the lectionary in total three times anyway, you know, queering a bible passage. And then we’ve talked about all sorts of other things impacting the lives of queer and trans people of faith. And I wanted to talk a little bit today about, you know, what has stayed the same over those 12 years? What has changed? Obviously both of us have been through a lot of life and a lot of, Oh my god, So many locations. We’ve moved quite a bit in those 12 years. You, you converted. We’ve done, we’ve done lots of things over the 12 Years.

(3m 12s):

Yeah, you were celibate, now You’re married, you started. Yeah. So lots, lots of lots of differences. So I’m, I’m curious for you, Brian, as you think about like the last 12 years and particularly this podcast, what are some of the first things that come up for you, maybe as, as just general reflections, things that that stand out. Yeah, I mean, I think that I still really love the Bible, which is, I don’t know, wild, like maybe like, I don’t know, not fashionable in progressive circles anymore, but I think there’s like something really cool there about sacred texts and wrestling with them and wrestling them with them together with you, Shannon, on this podcast with the listeners of this podcast in the emails that they send us or in the discussion threads inside of our Sanctuary Collective Community to sort of like, have these conversations together with people.

(4m 1s):

Or like when we do the type of work in person at speaking events at churches or synagogues or, or conferences, colleges, that there’s like something about not just like reading the Bible and isolation, but like reading it together with other people that feels like really juicy and interesting. And I am just like, never, like, I’ve never been more convinced, like my con my conviction only grows that queerness is already holy and that the world is in desperate need of like the queer gospel, the queer good news. And that like, that there’s like something about whether or not you s stay religious or a particular version of, of faith that like, there’s like something really powerful about saying like, how I do life as holy.

(4m 49s):

And then also like making sure that like, but like bringing sort of a greater attention and intentionality to how you do life together, just like really adds like a richness to life. Life. And I dunno, I was t in my twenties when we started this And I just turned 40. So it’s like weird that this is not spinning the decades and lots of love and loss along the years. And that like, there’s like, something about sa like having spiritual tools is not just like, I don’t know, forgetting into heaven. Like who the fuck cares. Like, I don’t mean lots of people really care a lot, obviously that’s like not a question that these days like captivates me anymore, but I think that like, it’s not just fairy tales and make believe that like, I, I’ve now like seen the real power of having both practices and communities to lean on when times are really good and when times are really bad.

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And I want everyone to hav