A Moody Bible Institute graduate with 400,000 social media followers and 10 million viewers is redefining biblical sexuality for a generation. He trained under sound doctrine. He chose to reject it.
This is the second installment in the Wolves Among Us series. Read the first installment: Beware the Wolf: James Talarico Weighed Against God’s Word. For the full pastor-grade reference document, read Thus Saith the Lord: A Biblical Defense of God’s Design for Human Sexuality.
The TikTok Pastor
Dear Christian:
In our first installment, we showed how a seminary-trained politician named James Talarico told Joe Rogan and Stephen Colbert that Jesus never addressed homosexuality. We weighed his claim against God’s Word — and it collapsed. But Talarico reaches adults through cable television. The man you are about to meet reaches your children through TikTok.
His name is Brandan Robertson — an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, a published author of more than 25 books, and a PhD candidate in biblical studies at Drew University. Across social media, he commands 400,000 followers — nearly 290,000 on TikTok alone — and has reached more than 10 million viewers worldwide. He has been featured by Rolling Stone, Out Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and CBS, and is regularly held up as one of the most influential LGBTQ Christian leaders in America.
They call him “The TikTok Pastor.” And in 60-second videos, he is teaching a generation that the Bible does not mean what it says.
Trained at Moody. Chose to Reject It.
Robertson earned his bachelor’s degree in pastoral ministry and biblical studies from Moody Bible Institute — one of the most theologically conservative evangelical institutions in America. He was mentored there by Christopher Yuan, a scholar who holds to biblical sexual ethics. Robertson sat under sound teaching, learned the original languages, and studied the text.
Then he chose to contradict it.
This is not ignorance. This is a man who knew the truth, walked away from it, and is now leading 400,000 people to do the same.
In His Own Words
On X, Robertson has written that Romans 1 “says nothing about consensual same sex relationships” and that anyone who reads it otherwise is “either ignorant or intentionally twisting the Bible to justify their own homophobia.”
He wrote on his Substack: “After 10 years of critical study, I have become utterly convinced that the Bible does not condemn LGBTQ identities, sexual expression or relationships in any form.”
And in his 2025 book Queer & Christian, published by Macmillan, he declared: “To follow Jesus of Nazareth — to be an authentic Christian — is to be queer.”
A Moody Bible Institute graduate telling 400,000 followers that to be a real Christian is to be queer. He is not misreading the text. He is replacing it.
What God Actually Said About Biblical Sexuality
Robertson claims Romans 1 addresses only idolatrous sex in pagan temples — not consensual same-sex relationships. But Paul’s argument in Romans 1:26–27 is grounded not in cultural context but in creation itself: men and women abandoning “natural relations” for “unnatural ones.” The phrase Paul uses — para physin, “contrary to nature” — appeals to the created order established in Genesis 1:27 and affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:4–5.
Moreover, Paul was not addressing a pagan audience unfamiliar with God. He was writing to the church in Rome, warning believers about the consequences of exchanging God’s truth for a lie. The Holy Spirit inspired every word. And Robertson — a man who studied these very texts at Moody — knows it.
In other words, Robertson says the Bible condemns only exploitation, not love. But Scripture does not define sexual morality by the feelings of the participants. It defines it by the unchanging design of the Creator. One man. One woman. One flesh. Everything outside that covenant — regardless of sincerity or consent — falls under porneia.
The Danger No One Is Naming
By contrast, Talarico speaks to adults who already have some theological formation. Robertson speaks to teenagers — in their bedrooms, on their phones, in 60-second clips that offer no room for the careful examination of Scripture. A young believer scrolling at midnight encounters a credentialed, charismatic pastor telling them God affirms what God forbids. No context. No rebuttal. No elder to ask. Just a man with 10 million views and a Moody degree telling them the Bible is on their side.
This is a pattern the church must learn to recognize. The wolves are no longer just in pulpits. They are on the screens your children carry in their pockets.
A Word to the Believer
If you or someone you love has encountered Robertson’s teaching, know this: a man’s credentials do not validate his doctrine. A Moody degree does not make error true. 400,000 followers do not make a lie less dangerous — they make it more so.
But also know this: Brandan Robertson is not beyond the reach of God’s grace. Neither is anyone who has followed his teaching. In fact, the same verse that answered James Talarico answers Robertson: “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).
Were. Past tense. Changed. Redeemed. The gospel Robertson denies is the gospel that can still save him — and anyone listening.
God said it. He meant it. His Word stands.
For the full biblical and theological case — including complete exegesis of every key passage and the witness of 2,000 years of church history — read: Thus Saith the Lord: A Biblical Defense of God’s Design for Human Sexuality.
