Wrestling the Goose: LGBTQ Anger

I am a white male Baby Boomer, born and raised in the (Reformed) evangelical world. I am now retired after having ministered in that world for 49 years. My own “deconstruction” started more than 40 years ago. In September of 2026, my wife and I attended The Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina for the first time. The first Festival was held in 2011, and Wikipedia describes it as “an art, music, and story-driven festival grounded in faith-inspired social justice.” We had no idea what to expect and were, as far as is possible, open to whatever the Festival brought us. This series of articles contains my reflections on the Festival and my experience there. They are not in any particular order – think of it as a stream of consciousness thing.

We did not know what the demographic makeup of the crowd at Wild Goose would be. My guess is that of the 1500-2000 in attendance, about 20-30% belong to the LGBTQ community (both figures are my guesses, and could be off by a little or a lot).

The LGBTQ community was visibly present. Most of the flags, posters, banners, and merchandise were LGBTQ and/or “Pride” related. It was obvious to us that this was a place where our LGBTQ brothers and sisters could (publicly) be who they are and be free to express themselves in any ways they desired. The LGBTQ community was well represented among the platformed musicians. Flamey Grant, “God’s favorite drag queen”, was the spotlighted and well-received performer on Friday evening. She is a compelling onstage singer-songwriter and storyteller.

As I listened to the musicians on stage tell their stories and sing their songs, their anger was audible and palpable. Festivalgoers faced again the facts of the religious and other kinds of trauma this community has experienced throughout the 2000 years of Christian and church history as the LGBTQ community told its story and voiced its pain.

This was my first Wild Goose, so I do not know how this anger was present or expressed in the past. My wife and I wondered if perhaps the anger was more evident this year because, since the inauguration of Trump 2, the LGBTQ community has been targeted - again – in very explicit and public ways by government officials and institutions. It felt almost as if a wound that might have begun to heal during the Biden administration had been ripped open again.

Perhaps the role of (evangelical) Christians in putting Trump 2 in power has intensified the experience of rejection. Renewed public rejection of the identity and rights of the LGBTQ community by evangelicals, and the sense that evangelicals feel now more empowered by this administration, may deepen the sense of betrayal. It feels as if a scab has been torn off a healing wound.

Since Wild Goose, I have been thinking about the messages sent to the LGBTQ community by evangelicals during the last year or two.

Dr. Rev. Albert Mohler Jr. is one of America’s leading evangelical voices. He serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary – the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. His weekday podcast is called The Briefing, “a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.” The purpose is to provide “Cultural Commentary from a Biblical Perspective.”

I don’t listen to the podcast, but I keep track of the topics he discusses. I am particularly interested in how he speaks about Trump and his actions since January 2025. One might expect that there would be plenty that Trump does, both from a personal, ethical perspective as well as decisions he makes as President of the United States, that would source Mohler’s “cultural commentary from a Biblical perspective”.

I did a search using AI to count how many segments Mohler has dedicated specifically to Trump and his actions since April 2026.[1] I believe I discovered a contrast between the moral scrutiny applied to LGBTQ people and the moral scrutiny applied to a president whose conduct could – and maybe should – raise questions for Christians.

(Let me remind you of some things that have happened in the last six months since April 2026: the Iran war, with all the surrounding “just war” and Congressional oversight issues; the pardons of corrupt people; personal and family business enrichment; ICE on America’s streets and deportations which raise issues of due process; the proposed “anti-weaponization” fund; issues relating to voting reliability, including a very public promise from Trump that he would give $5000 to every American if the Republicans win November’s midterm elections. This is just a short list. My point here is not to comment on what I think Mohler should say about these issues. That may be for another article. My point is that Trump has provided an extraordinary amount of fodder for cultural commentary from a biblical and moral perspective from one of America’s leading evangelical voices.)

Starting April 2026, it appears that Mohler has devoted 3 segments of his podcast to any of these issues specifically in relation to the person Donald Trump and his actions or words (not just the policies of his administration). Two of them were in April; one was in June. Since June, not one.

A search of the same time period recorded 12 segments dedicated to LGBTQ issues, 4 of them in the month of September, 2026. Mohler’s comments were consistently critical of the LGBTQ community, regardless of what the specific topic was.

I am not a historian or sociologist – I grant that an academic might have some questions about this approach and any tentative conclusions I draw from it.

But: imagine you are a Christian who belongs to the LGBTQ community, who perhaps has struggled in silence for many years with his or her identity, who is honestly and prayerfully reading his or her Bible and trying to follow Jesus, who sincerely wants to make the best possible choices to live a life that best fits in with God’s desire for shalom for all people, and, in addition, is trying to recover from years of rejection, pain and trauma experienced in evangelical communities.

He or she witnesses the political choices the people who raised him or her are making and hears continued negative commentary about their community. At the same time there is near silence – and implicit and sometimes explicit support – for a person and a government with questionable moral, cultural and democratic character and actions at almost every level.

I understand the frustration. I understand the anger. I don’t “get it” in the sense that I have experienced this kind of marginalization, targeting, and hypocrisy, but, as far as possible, I do get it. And I believe it is only fair for evangelical leaders and communities to be as open and patient as possible to understand the anger, admit individual and corporate responsibility where applicable, and build bridges of trust to the LGBTQ community.

At my first Wild Goose I found myself wrestling with my own anger as I listened to these brothers and sisters - fellow human beings made in the image of God - who have been mistreated, marginalized, and traumatized for so long by people who identify as followers of Jesus. To ask how Jesus would reach out to these children of God is the first step on the road to discovering the answer.

May God give courage, strength, healing, and hope to the wounded.

May God give the courage of repentance and humility to those who have wounded them.

[1] These counts come from AI searches on two different platforms. The AI tools admit that it is difficult to search the archive adequately based on the titles of segments, and they do not have access to the transcripts. The results are called “unverified“ and should not be treated as an exhaustive content analysis.