S.P.R.K.L. is probably the only song I’ve ever written via dictation to my smartphone. I wrote it while driving around on tour last year. It was just a vague melody and a jam-packed lyric when I brought it to the studio in Nashville, and the band transformed it into a country-funk earworm that became my Pride month single this year. It’s essentially my answer the a question I get all the time: Flamy, how do you handle all those haters?

In July of 2023, self-proclaimed “superspreader” worship leader Sean Feucht declared that it was “truly the last days” when he posted a picture of drag queen Flamy Grant with other current and former Christian musicians Derek Webb, Jennifer Knapp, and Plumb on X, formerly Twitter. That tweet ended up launching Flamy’s debut album, Bible Belt Baby, to the top of the iTunes Christian music charts for nine consecutive days. A year later, Flamy is releasing a new single from her forthcoming sophomore album CHURCH that directly addresses the controversy. “Last Days” is an unflinching country-rock anthem that celebrates the “last days of mediocre men with no imagination whatsoever.” It’s not hard to guess who she’s singing about.

From Flamy: “If these truly are the last days, let them be the last days of bigotry, shame, and gatekeeping. American evangelicalism and the people like Sean Feucht who still carry its torch are laughably impotent when it comes to spiritual integrity. But they are also deeply dangerous in their ability to oppress, vilify, and ostracize the gifts of queer Christians. As we witness the bloat of Christian nationalism in America, I’m resolute about making art that invites people of conscience to stand up to this distorted, demented form of Christianity.”

It is not the job of every queer person who comes up in an oppressive faith to stick around and try to fix it. It's not the job of every queer person to elbow their way into spaces that don't want them. It's not the job of every queer person to try to worship with people who are hurting them.

It's hard to heal where you're being harmed every single week. Sometimes, maybe even most times, the bravest and best thing a queer person can do to save themselves, to heal, to find hope, to find authentic, loving, welcoming community... is to leave the one they’re in.

Until the Christian church and its God have figured out how to love queer people properly, I'll be here in the middle of it all doing that job for them. And I'll also be pointing the way to the exits.