Yvette Flunder isn’t just your average Sunday morning vicar sipping Earl Grey; she’s the high-octane Senior Pastor of the City of Refuge UCC over in Oakland and the Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.

She’s a self-proclaimed womanist, a champion of liberation theology, and she’s out there living her truth, “gay-married” and pushing the boundaries of progressivism until the boundaries themselves start to sweat.

She recently dropped a bit of a spiritual hand grenade during a talk for the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy. She leaned in and said:

“I’m about to say something a bit naughty, a bit dangerous, actually. I reckon we’re due for a Third Testament. Why? Because the Bible, as it stands, has become a bit of a nightmare, hasn’t it?

You’ve got bits in there like, ‘Slaves, do what your masters tell you like you’re doing it for the Big Man upstairs.’ It’s right there in the ink! Or, ‘Ladies, put a sock in it during church, and if you’ve got a question, wait ’til you get home to ask your husband.’

Now, look at me—I’m a believer! I’m all in! I wake up, I’m chatting with the Divine, the Divine is chatting back, we’re having a lovely time. But I am absolutely fed up to the back teeth with the way these ancient scripts paint God as some sort of vitriolic, narrow-minded headmaster.

People wag their fingers and say, ‘But Yvette, it’s in the Book!’ And I say, fine, let’s rip the page out then! And they gasp, ‘You can’t do that, it’s the Word of God!’ And I say, no, darling. It’s words about God. There’s a massive difference, isn’t there? Is it the literal Word of the Infinite Creator? No. It’s just not.”

She’s really poking the hive there, isn’t she? Challenging the very scaffolding of the institution to find something more authentic, more inclusive, more… human.

What do you lot think? Are you ready to tear out the pages that don’t serve the vibration of love?