Neil G. Cazares-Thomas (born April 16, 1966) is the senior pastor of the Cathedral of Hope in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

, the world’s largest liberal Christian church with a primary outreach to

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

, and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

people. Cazares-Thomas is a former senior pastor of the Founders

Metropolitan Community Church The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international LGBT-affirming mainline Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 37 ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, California.

Life and ministry

A native of

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Cazares-Thomas was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but his family left the church in his early years. On his fifteenth birthday, he joined the Metropolitan Community Churches, an international movement of churches primarily reaching out to the

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community. He attended St John’s Theological College, La Saint Union and King Alfred’s College and graduated with a BA. Following ordination, Cazares-Thomas served as the senior pastor of the

in Bournemouth for 12 years, helping found churches in

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, Dorchester, and

Torquay Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton ...

during that time. In 2002, he moved to

to serve as senior pastor of Founders Metropolitan Community Church. He graduated with a Doctor of Ministry degree from the

San Francisco Theological Seminary The San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) is a seminary in San Anselmo, California with historic ties to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). SFTS became embedded in a new Graduate School of Theology of the University of Redlands in 2019. It was ...

in 2009 and was later appointed an adjunct professor at the

Claremont School of Theology Claremont School of Theology (CST) is an American graduate school focused on religion and theology and located in Claremont, California. CST is fully recognized and approved as one of thirteen official theological schools of the United Methodis ...

. On April 12, 2015, Cazares-Thomas was elected senior pastor by the 4,500-member congregation of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas.

Social activism

Cazares-Thomas is known for his social activism, having been instrumental in developing feeding programs for the homeless, night and day shelters, safe sex initiatives, establishing relations with police, challenging discriminatory laws and providing LGBTQ youth services, including his "Over the Rainbow" initiative, a drop-in center founded during the AIDS pandemic offering counseling, support and information. He has served as chaplain to the Mayor of Bournemouth, the Sanctuary (an

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

hospice), a women’s refuge and five drug and alcohol rehab houses. He is a past president of California Faith for Equality and the Los Angeles LGBTQI Clergy Council.

Honors

In 1998, Cazares-Thomas was invited by Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in recognition of his work in the Bournemouth community. In June 2010, he was presented with the

Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in N ...

Award and was honored by his denomination with the Ecumenical Award in July of that year.

Other work

Cazares-Thomas is a contributing author of ''Daring to Speak Love’s Name'' (Penguin Books, 1993), ''From Queer to Eternity'' (Cassell, 1997), and ''The Queer Bible Commentary'' (SCM Press, 2006). He is contributing a chapter for a book entitled ''Jesus Acted Up: Then and Now''. He has been featured in a number of journals relating to queer theology and ministry to the LGBTQ community.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cazares-Thomas, Neil G. 1966 births British people of Spanish descent LGBT Protestant clergy Living people Metropolitan Community Church clergy Clergy from Bournemouth