A United Methodist Church candidate for ordination published a shocking video this week on his website, speaking blasphemously about God.
Isaac Simmons is an associate pastor at Hope UMC in Bloomington, Illinois, who describes himself as a "drag-evangelist" that goes by the stage name of Ms. Penny Cost. In the video posted to his website this week, he declared that "God is nothing."
The five-minute video came with a description that read, "This Slam Poem is dedicated to the deconstructionists, non-literalists, and queer spiritualists. It is directed to those who actively and passively cause harm against the LGBTQIA2S+ Community due to their understandings of Scripture."
The Blaze reported that in the blasphemous speech, Simmons repeatedly declared that "God is nothing," "the Bible is nothing," and "religion is nothing."
Pastor and Drag Queen Calls God by Female Pronouns
In the video, Simmons claimed that the God of historic Christianity is a farce and referred to the Holy United Methodist Church. The United Methodist Church associate pastor also claimed that queer spirituality and LGBTQ+ identity are the true expression of divinity.
"God is nothing, but if she were, she would be yes, queen-ing her way down the runways of Paris and Montreal, strutting between that tightrope pulled taught between absurdity and opulence, balancing between too much and never enough," Simmons argued. The pastor and drag queen described God as a "seamstress of divine couture, weaving together string theory and self portraits to form the fiercest gowns of queer existence."
According to Simmons, God is "nothing but a drag queen with a microphone of biblical f-ing proportions who came from a "closet of darkness."" The pastor and drag queen also claimed that humanity was designed "in the gender-bending, identity-breaking, system-shaking image of God."
Pastor and Drag Queen Denounces Toxic Masculinity in the Church
Simmons, who according to the Religion News Service is the first openly gay man to be certified within the Illinois Great Rivers Conference and the first drag queen certified in the UMC, decried the "theology of toxic masculinity" and the "ideals of the "ideals of the oppressive regume," as wel as the "Christian terrorists" who oppose the LGBT movement.
Simmons' blasphemous speech on how "God is nothing" comes at a time when the UMC is facing major shakeups over LGBT issues and policies. Earlier this year, the more conservative Global Methodist Church denomination announced that it would split from the United Methodist Church as it holds a more traditional view of marriage and prohibits ordaining LGBT clergy.
Simmons currently serves at Hope UMC, where he hosts "drag queen Sundays," in which he preaches as Ms. Penny Cost. The drag queen name was derived from the biblical story of Pentecost, during which tongues of fire came upon Jesus' disciples and they were filled with the Holy Spirit enough to speak different languages. The drag queen's bright red hair represents the tongues of fire, while her appearance is that of a "1960s church lady."
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