When Texas state representative and current U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico said in a 2021 floor speech, “God is nonbinary,” he was certainly trying to be provocative.
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, was speaking during a heated political debate about transgender athletes. He described God as “both masculine and feminine and everything in between” before summarizing his point in the phrase that has since gone viral: “God is nonbinary.”
The controversy that followed underscores how the truths of the restored gospel speak to the hearts of so many individuals. For many Christians, the phrase sounded downright blasphemous, even though it represents the rather uncontroversial theology of most Christian denominations, including Presbyterianism, Catholicism, and The United Church of Christ.
I should add, as an aside, that Christians in those traditions might well understand that their doctrine is that God transcends sex and still feel upset that Talarico described that understanding as “non-binary” since that description has become a controversial description of human gender identity. But while it may have evoked controversial phrasing, the actual idea, that God is neither male nor female, is both widely accepted and apparently deeply controversial.
Enter the restored doctrine of Jesus Christ.
Latter-day Saints React Differently
Latter-day Saints have good reason to be uneasy with the phrase “God is nonbinary.”
For us, God is more than a transcendent spirit or an ultimate reality, He is a literal father. We believe God is personal, embodied, parental, and knowable. We don’t pray to Him as a metaphor, but in relationship with Him. And that conviction is not a footnote to our faith; it is foundational to the way we understand and worship God.
In our worldview, embodiment is not a limitation to overcome.
Doctrine and Covenants 130 teaches that “the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also.” This is one of the most distinctive doctrines of the Restoration. God’s embodiment is not an embarrassment, a concession to primitive imagination, or a temporary appearance accommodated to human weakness. God appears to have a body in the Old Testament because He does have a body.
In our worldview, embodiment is not a limitation to overcome, but part of becoming more like our Father in Heaven. And when Genesis proclaims that we are created in the image of God, “male and female,” we believe. And we believe that a gendered embodiment is an essential characteristic of eternal identity.
So when Latter-day Saints hear a statement such as “God is nonbinary,” we don’t just feel a generic discomfort. We understand precisely how and why it is inaccurate to our eternal worldview.
Of course, Latter-day Saints can still choose to vote for Talarico, because they prioritize avoiding corruption or policy alignment over doctrinal agreement. But when it comes to the doctrine, it’s clear that we simply don’t agree, and we know why.
Something Deeper
Romans 8:16 teaches that “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” When it comes to our relationship with God, our instincts often go deeper than theological argumentation or doctrinal lists. God’s children understand a relationship with our Creator instinctively. In our most vulnerable moments, we understand that relationship as parental. When we cry, plead, and worship, we feel the kinship of a child to its parent. We call Him Father not because it is merely one more metaphor, but because He is our Father.
We have a unique opportunity when the public square offers a forum to provide those answers.
A good number of those who have been scandalized by the phrase formally belong to religious traditions that already deny that God the Father is embodied, biologically male, and physically sexed. In my view, this most likely comes because the objection to Talarico’s declaration goes much deeper than mere doctrine to something so many of us feel instinctively.
A Restored Answer
This controversy is an opportunity for Latter-day Saints to enter a religious conversation to witness, rather than to mock.
The restored gospel offers answers to the questions that undergird this debate. It answers the longing of so many hearts.
Is God personal or abstract? Is the body temporary or eternal? Do I have a Father in Heaven? Am I made in God’s image? Is God gendered?
Latter-day Saints have unusually powerful answers to these questions. And we have a unique opportunity when the public square offers a forum to provide those answers. But only if we can avoid the temptation to try to score points for whatever side of the political debate we are on.
The controversy over Talarico’s phrase will likely continue in the usual ways. People talking past each other. Lots of political parties shouting, so no one notices their own candidate. Clipped videos, angry posts, defensive interviews.
But behind it are people hungry for a God who is more than an idea. They may not have a theological language for that hunger, but Latter-day Saints do. And we can offer it to them.
The world is full of abstractions. The restored gospel gives us a Father.
