The Rev. Katie Hays

Denomination: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (CC(DC))
Organization: Galileo Church, Fort Worth, TX

The Rev. Dr. Katie Hays was educated for congregational ministry at Yale Divinity School (M.Div. 1994) and Princeton Theological Seminary (D.Min. 2010). She served small, traditional churches for almost two decades before planting Galileo Church, a next-church community on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas, in 2013. Galileo Church seeks and shelters spiritual refugees, especially LGBTQ+ people and the people who love them, and you can read more about it on their website, galileochurch.org.

Katie is the author of four books that have grown out of her experiences with Galileo Church:

We Were Spiritual Refugees: A Story to Help You Believe In Church (Eerdmans 2020), a memoir of Galileo’s first five years;

For the Bible Tells Me So: The Biblical-Theological Necessity of LGBTQ+ Inclusion in the Church (KDP 2020);

Family of Origin, Family of Choice: Stories of Queer Christians (Eerdmans 2021), with co-author Susan Chiasson, featuring first-person narrations by LGBTQ+ Christians whose coming out disrupted their families of origin;

God Gets Everything God Wants (Eerdmans 2021), a theological rehabilitation for Christians and the Christ-curious who want to believe that God’s love is the realest thing in the world.

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Katie went to M.I.T. before she moved on from engineering (which she was really terrible at, but really liked) to theology. She was educated for traditional church ministry at Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary. She did traditional church ministry for almost 20 years. Galileo Church is her attempt to do something completely different, because she had an epiphany while sprawled on the floor of a Spring Creek BBQ. You can ask her about that when you meet her in person.

Katie has a husband of maaaaaaany years, Professor Lance Pape of Brite Divinity School, whom she has repeatedly asked to call her “Reverend Doctor.” And they have two kids, both in college studying computer science — wicked smart, super nerds, unusually kind. Lydia and Jack will make your life better just by knowing them.

Katie has learned to love it when God takes an unexpected hard left turn, tires squealing, seat belts locking, cars all around God honking in indignation. She imagines God shouting, “Buckle up, suckers!” every time God gets another one of us in God’s muscle car. Or does God drive a Subaru? She’s pretty sure it’s a Subaru.

Recently Katie has been writing books, mostly about or inspired by Galileo Church. Find out more about her writing and other stuff at katiehays.net.