PREACHER ACTIVIST AND drag queen Marge Erin Johnson walked up to the wooden lectern at Fort Washington Collegiate Church in Manhattan wearing a sequin rainbow dress and high hot pink wig. “I want to give an extravagant welcome to the LGBTQIA+ community,” she said, “especially those of us that have been burned by the demonic homophobic and transphobic flames of the church. You are welcome here. And lastly, a special welcome to those who are here today — whether you are queer or straight — but for some reason, you feel more seen and comfortable and heard because there is a drag queen at the pulpit.”
Marge Erin Johnson is the drag persona of James Admans (they/them), a nonbinary minister, currently ordained, pending call, in the United Church of Christ. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary, Admans served as assistant minister at Fort Washington Collegiate Church where they coordinated an LGBTQ+ ministry called Beyond Labels, and edited the 2022 anthology Beyond Worship: Meditations on Queer Worship, Liturgy, and Theology. They are most well-known, however, for hosting drag church services where LGBTQ+ individuals can feel affirmed and welcomed back into spaces that may have caused immense trauma.
Marge told Sojourners that drag church “might be exactly what we need to remind us of the beauty and diversity and God’s infinite love for all.” But her ministry comes at a time when drag culture itself is under fire from U.S. conservatives. According to the ACLU, there are 319 anti-LGBTQ+ bills under deliberation or passed into law in the United States. These include legislation that would censor books with queer characters or ban trans youth from sports, and several anti-drag bills that could make performing drag to younger audiences illegal. These bills, often used to create moral panic by associating trans people and drag queens with sexual endangerment of children, are in large part created and supported by Christians.
Admans, who was raised in a Congregational church in Connecticut, dreamed of becoming a pastor ever since they were 13 or 14 years old. Although Admans will be ordained in the denomination of their youth (UCC), their childhood church was not a supportive space to be LGBTQ+. Their church rarely spoke about LGBTQ+ individuals, but when they did, everyone tensed up, Admans explained. The church refused to consider becoming open and affirming multiple times because they thought it would be too divisive.
“I want to be the queer elder I never had,” Admans told Sojourners. “And I want people to know that they’re loved and to give themselves permission to be ... who God created them to be. I can’t think of a better way than drag church.”
Admans felt called to enter Union Theological Seminary at the same time their drag persona — the defiant and divine Marge — took shape. An avid watcher of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Admans started drag during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’m a quarantine queen,” they said.
Previously involved in LGBTQ+ ministry at Union Theological Seminary’s chapel, they first learned about drag gospel services held at the First Church Somerville UCC from Molly Phinney Baskette’s manual Real Good Church: How Our Church Came Back from the Dead, and Yours Can, Too. However, Admans always imagined they would be the pastor who hired drag queens for services. But after a chapel minister asked Admans to perform in drag, Marge began showing up at the pulpit. Initially nervous, Admans felt more comfortable at Union, which has historically been a theological space open to experimentation. Marge’s ministry spread when a member of Fort Washington Collegiate Church invited Marge to preach. Now that Admans has graduated from Union, they are starting a new position at a Church of Christ, Congregational church in Massachusetts where they can further LGBTQ+ ministry — and continue preaching as Marge.
Admans views drag church as a tangible step toward collective liberation, modeling their work after fellow drag queen Divine and activist Sylvia Rivera, who worked and performed in the 1970s and 1980s. Two saint candles bearing their images adorn Admans’ home. As an active member of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, Rivera ministered to the unhoused, poor, and hungry; as her “dying wish” she founded Sylvia Rivera’s Place. Admans said they are proud to carry on this torch through their ministry — as Marge, challenging both the gentrification of drag culture and exclusionary church norms.
Given the ways drag queens have been at the forefront of political and cultural change — advocating for trans rights and HIV/AIDS ministries for decades — Admans doesn’t want drag culture to lose its “political edge.” The subversiveness of drag is what allows Marge to disrupt the “rules of church” whenever she walks up to the pulpit, Admans said. Marge’s presence shakes the foundational norms around gender and sexuality in churches, creating a welcoming space for individuals who have been harmed by the church. Drag church is not just for LGBTQ+ people either, Admans said: It is for every person who has ever felt shamed by purity culture. “Because when you get rid of all of those rules, you open up space for the spirit to move in a way that’s not restricted by the choreography of church ... a way that’s fluid and queer.”
Marge is part of a large subculture of spiritual and religious drag artists who perform in churches and other spaces of worship. In fact, some drag artists, including Ms. Penny Cost and Flamy Grant, have been sharing the good news in dresses and full face for years. Their ministry, like Admans’, draws on queer theology. This theological branch, established in the mid-to late-20th century (although queer religious leaders have practiced and fostered communities for centuries), was heavily influenced by liberation theology, which affirms the freedom and agency of the oppressed.
Drag ministry is the next tangible step in queer theology. It shows how religious deconstruction and reclamation is not always a private, devastating process; sometimes deconstruction is a bedazzled, joyous, communal happening. The second annual Drag and Spirituality Summit will be held this November in Toronto, welcoming drag performers, faith leaders, and those who fill both categories to perform, preach, and provide spiritual care with one another. The gathering was founded and directed by Bonnie Violet, a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist and digital chaplain, along with co-director King Julez, a drag clown, seminary student, and candidate for ministry with the United Church of Canada.
Earlier this year, King Julez shared a prayer “for those who are transphobic” on the TikTok page of the Ecumenical Chaplaincy at the University of Toronto. “Strengthen their relationships to allow for conversations and community,” they prayed. “Let us move past alienation and distrust and guide us towards empathy and compassion. Hear my prayer, oh God, call us forward into the world as a united body in flux — in transition.”
Emma Cieslik (she/her) is a queer, disabled religious scholar and museum worker based in Washington, D.C.
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