'Queer Eye' Season 5: Gay pastor Noah Hepler and Bobby Berk bond over the church's judgmental attitude
'Queer Eye' returned with a new season and along came the Fab Five who set up camp in Philadelphia. The past four seasons had eight episodes each and the current season is the longest and features 10 episodes, meaning Season 5 tells the stories of 10 heroes from Philly whose lives are transformed by the Fab Five. Continuing to 'zhuzh up' the lives of these 10 people by imparting the importance of self-worth, importance of confidence, transforming them from the inside out as well as their houses are - Antoni Porowski (food and wine specialist), Bobby Berk (interior design), Jonathan Van Ness (grooming), Karamo Brown (culture) and Tan France (fashion).
Episode 1 of the season focuses on a gay pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Atonement named Noah Hepler. He's dedicated his life to the church but the church was not always accepting of who he was. He and Bobby connected on the subject as the latter too didn't have a great experience in the church and was judged harshly for being gay, so much so that he mentioned he would not want to bring his future children to church ever. They discussed how the church cloaks itself as a "safe space" but that is not how they grew up and they talked about how faith was used against them. Noah also talked about certain stories in the Bible that reference homosexuality but the church told them differently leaving that crucial bit out. For example, the story of the centurion who comes to Jesus and asks to heal his slave who's been ill. Noah adds that the Greek word that's used there is "my beloved" and mentioned that if historical distance were to be taken into account, the word means boyfriend. Jesus healed the person, no questions asked, and just like that, there are many stories like that, which are told differently.
In the episode, we also find out that Noah came out only in his 30s and even though he was comfortable with his congregation in the church, he was generally timid with the rest of the world. The Fab Five took it upon them to help Noah take the "past" out of the pastor and build his confidence enough so that he could be the leader that he's always wanted to be and help his church that is struggling to survive. In a conversation with Karamo, he also admitted to have a huge impostor syndrome which came from years of avoiding accepting that he was gay. After spending weeks with them, Noah was better in all aspects. He looked better, they transformed the church and his place and he was a lot more confident and it showed when he delivered a heart to heart speech to a larger and more diverse group that showed up at the church's 125th-anniversary celebration.
'Queer Eye' Season 5 is now streaming on Netflix.