UK's first non-binary priest felt 'God's love and acceptance' in vicar training

11 January 2023 , 15:07

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UK's first non-binary priest felt 'God's love and acceptance' in vicar training

The UK's first non-binary priest has spoken of how they felt God's love and acceptance when deciding about their identity.

Bingo Allison is thought to be the Church of England’s first openly non-binary priest and today, they spoke to This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield about their tough decision. They felt conflicted after reading the Bible and believed they could either choose their faith - having grown up in a very religious setting - or their identity.

They explained that they felt conflicted as they wanted to practice their faith but the Bible had referenced male and females.

Bingo Allison is thought to be the Church of England's first openly non-binary priest (Bingo Allison)

They said: "I was at vicar training college at the time and so I was choosing between my calling and this identity – everything about how I’d been brought up so far had said that this is a choice that you have to make."

As part of their studies, they were reading the beginnings of the Bible and how the word had created.

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"It has this verse that says, 'male and female, God created them' and I just kept coming back to this verse and thinking, 'Well, there it is, there’s my decision – I have to choose between this God that created just male and just female, or my identity that doesn’t feel male or female,'" they said as they discussed the tough decision they felt forced to make.

They spoke to Holly and Phil on This Morning today (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

However, as they worked on an essay, they realised God was not making them choose between their identity and their faith.

They shared: "In this very fry and dusty academic essay, I felt the presence and love of God – and I had to stop, I had to pray, I had to sing a bit. I just really felt that God affirmed me in who I was and that I didn’t have to make this choice."

They explained how they had an epiphany whilst reading Genesis (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

They had explained how Genesis 1:27 uses the terms 'from maleness to femaleness', rather than male and female.

"I was sitting there in the middle of the night when I realised I might need to run my life upside down. It was a deepening spiritual experience, I properly felt God was guiding me into this new truth about myself," they explained to Yorkshire Live previously.

Jasmine Allday