Baptist Church Ordains First Openly Transgender Preacher

Veronica Neffinger | iBelieve Contributor | Updated: Apr 19, 2016

Baptist Church Ordains First Openly Transgender Preacher

The Baptist church has ordained its first openly transgender preacher, a man who believes he was always meant to be a woman.

Charisma News reports that Allyson Dylan Robinson was born a man, but after a long struggle with identity, became a woman.

Robinson told the Alliance of Baptists he was a “white, straight, lower/upper middle class, European-descended man” when he first arrived at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary where he was ordained.

Robinson said he prayed for 30 years for God to change his feelings of being born in the wrong body. He even tried deliverance ministry, but nothing changed.

"I have known my entire life that the world was wrong about me, that on the day I was born, when the doctor took a cursory glance between my legs and authoritatively declared 'It's a boy,' he was wrong—dead wrong," Robinson said.

At a very low point in his life, Robinson even pondered suicide, but said “an angel of the Lord” named “Reason” kept him from going through with it.

"What if God hasn't fixed you because you're not broken?" an inner voice asked.

"That can't be true," he protested. "The Bible says I'm broken."

"What if the Bible is wrong? What if you've been reading it wrong?"

"I don't know," he said.

After this revelation, Robinson embraced what he believes is his true identity as a woman, got re-ordained, and began to pastor a church.

Although Robinson had to go against many things he affirmed in his initial ordination, he believes this is the path God is leading him down.

"Once I let go of all my folk theology and my fairy tales about God and started taking God at God's Word, and started using the meager faculties that God gave me to ponder it all, I could do no other," Robinson said. "What would it mean for the church to embrace all of this? I don't know. I think it would look a lot different than it looks today. All I know is that it would mean a lot to a lot of the people who are sitting in your pews every week."

Publication date: April 19, 2016



Baptist Church Ordains First Openly Transgender Preacher