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Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello and happy third week of Pride. It kind of feels like advent, where you’re like lighting the candles every, every Sunday of Advent, like marking, marking the weekends of, of pride. And I know in different parts of the country, not everyone or the world, not everyone celebrates Pride month in June, so people do it in August, September, October, but I, I know lots of people around the world are, are celebrating pride this month.

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And so it’s, it does feel kind of cool that like every weekend as it goes on, like somewhere in the world it is, it’s pride somewhere. It’s sort of like a, a pride is sort of rolling across the world. And so there’s, there’s something, I dunno, mystical, magical, but feeling connected to, to queer folks everywhere. And so keeping with a Pride month theme a few days ago inside of our online community Sanctuary Collective, one of the members posed a question. So the community that sparked some really interesting discussion in the comments there. And so we thought that we would sh bring that to y’all for today’s podcast episode. So Hannah, inside of Sanctuary Collective was asking about how churches can show up at Pride. Her church for the first time ever was going to be active in three different pride events they were doing, being a part of services and being the table, being in a table at the Pride in the Park celebration.

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And so she was asking, what are people’s experiences with churches and pride activities and how do, how do each person’s, each member’s church do to help with pride? And how do you make it more than just a token or a show of support? And what would we like to see churches do that would better enrich pride as queer people in general and as as queer Christians in particular. So there’s a lot of like, there’s a lot of fun discussions, the comments there. I know that Shay, you And I have both been involved in churches that have been in, been at, have, have had active, have had active presences at Pride. We’ve also been on like the receiving and we’ve just been at Pride and seen churches show up sometimes in better and worse ways.

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And so like as you think about churches and religious groups in general at Pride, let’s like start with high guiding principles and then like maybe like work down into some like nitty gritty specific suggestions. So what are some like guiding principles for religious congregations or religious groups at LBT LGBTQ pride events or during Pride events? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think a couple of, like, really, I, I have so many like tactical nitty and gritty thoughts, and so I’m trying to, trying to keep it really high level. You know, I, I think the first thing is to make sure that your church is there via invitation.

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Meaning that whatever your presence is, that you are being led by queer and trans folks in your community. So like, if you have queer and trans folks in your congregation, make sure that you are showing up in a way that like is led by and feels good to those folks. And if you don’t have any queer and trans folks in your congregation, then I might ask you to consider why you are showing up at Pride and what that means and what that looks like. And you know, how you might, that, that probably might not be the best way for you to begin to engage with the queer and trans community that you might have some work to do before showing up at Pride.

(3m 48s):

The other thing that I would say really high level is like making sure that your presence is centering the queer and trans community and not centering you. So I, we have seen, I’m gonna say it again, I feel like I say it every year, but like, do not show up to pride and apologize on behalf of Christians. Like, it’s not helpful, it centers you and your feelings. It, it’s like, it may feel meaningful in the moment, but like, it’s not actually meaningful change or practice. So I, I just like, stop doing that. It’s, it’s gross and it’s icky.

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And so I would say that like a message to, on a positive note, like to show up with is, you know, centering the fact that like queer and trans folks are beloved of God. Like, that is a message that you can center, you can talk about, you know, what your church is doing on behalf of, and queer and trans folks and how you are like fighting for queer and trans rights. Like, I think that’s another really great thing to do. I think lots and lots of folks tack and all are welcome here at our congregation logo on their sign or whatever. And I just, so I would encourage you to be like, how, how might we go even deeper into this practice?

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Maybe you show up and you say like, what have we learned from queer and trans folks? How have queer and trans folks like deepened our our sense of ourselves and and impacted our community? Like, those are all things I think to highlight. And, and, and then the other, like, this is both a a little bit of a tactical thing, but also a big picture thing like show up looking your best. I just, I’ve seen a lot of churches come to pride and have just the crappiest display and church stands and like, this is the, this is the time to put a little bit of money.

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And I put a little bit of thought and get some of the artists in your congregation involved and like do something that’s pretty, because like it’s pride and queer folks are, you know, not to dive into stereotypes, but lots of queer folks are very artistic. And when you show up with your wrinkly tablecloth that has bad coloring, it just makes you look bad. So yeah, show up, show up and show out for pride. Yeah, I think that