A lesbian bishop is turning heads with her call for a “Third Testament” to the Bible. Yvette Flunder is the lead pastor of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland. The 70-year-old is married to a woman and has been lauded as a queer advocate. She is also the presiding prelate of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. During a recent talk, she called parts of the Bible, “problematic.” “This is a very dangerous thing that I’m about to say now, … a bit dangerous. I’m of the opinion that we need a third testament because the Bible has become problematic,” she said during the 2026 Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference.

Flunder cited Ephesians 6:5, which states, “Slaves obey your masters as you do the Lord,” and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, which states, “Let the women keep silent in the churches and if they have any questions let them ask their husbands at home.” “Now I’m a believer. My whole heart, I trust God with my whole heart. I wake up in the morning talking to God and God talking to me. But I am completely frustrated with the ways in which the text speaks to the kind of vitriolic God that makes those kinds of things,” she said. “And people will say, ‘Well, it’s in the book.’ And I said, then we need to pull that page out. And they said, ‘Well, you can’t do it. It’s the Word of God.’ I said, ‘No, it’s words about God.’ Come on now. But is it the Word of God?” She then responded firmly, “No. It is not the Word of God.” Flunder did not offer an opinion as to how these particular “problematic” passages made it into the Bible in the first place, nor did she express how she knows these passages ought to be removed.

Flunder’s words quickly went viral on X after Christian watchdog Protestia shared a clip of her speaking. “Bishop Yvette Flunder did not merely question a passage. She told the church, in plain words, that parts of God’s Word should be torn out,” decried one pastor on X. “You can almost hear it. Thin paper tearing. A hand reaching for the Book that has outlived empires, buried tyrants, steadied martyrs at the stake and carried dying saints across the final river. That sound is more than rebellion against ink and paper. It is rebellion against the God who speaks,” he warned, referencing 1 Timothy 4:1, which states, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”

He warned against the “false teaching” of Flunder. “She did not merely mishandle a difficult passage. She set herself above the canon, as though she held the editor’s pen. In that moment, she followed the serpent’s old path, shifting the issue away from what God has spoken and toward what fallen people will tolerate,” he said. “Flunder’s statements are not simply offensive. They are spiritually murderous,” he added. “Read the Scriptures in public. Explain them. Press them on the conscience. That is the path. Churches do not become holy through clever revisions and souls do not ripen under theological vandalism.”