Born Again Queer – William Stell's book on gay activism among evangelical Christians
Religious studies scholar William Stell's book on the history of LGBTQ activism among American evangelicals in the 1970s and 1980s and the construction of a homophobic majority.
In May 2026, Princeton University Press published the English-language book “Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity”. Its author is William Stell, an American historian and religious studies scholar holding a PhD from Princeton University.
The book refutes the common perception that an anti-homosexual stance has always been an inherent and unchanging feature of evangelical Christianity in the US. Drawing on archival research and interviews, the author tells the story of a network of LGBT activists in the 1970s and 1980s who tried to make evangelical churches more inclusive of homosexual believers.
The author focuses on the work of four key figures of this movement. Among them are Troy Perry, who founded the LGBT-friendly Metropolitan Community Church in 1968; Ralph Blair, founder of the organization Evangelicals Concerned; and Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Mollenkott, authors of the influential 1978 book “Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?”.
William Stell comprehensively analyzes evangelical rhetoric of the time, including publications in Christianity Today magazine, which began actively condemning homosexuality in the 1960s and 1970s. The researcher shows that the conservative majority relied on the selective reading of isolated words from the Bible, turning them into unambiguous slogans.
This historical study is important for understanding how modern anti-gay politics were formed in US religious circles. The book demonstrates that there were complex and intense debates within the evangelical movement, and homophobia was constructed gradually, rather than being the only possible path of development for the church.