Is “Pride” Christian?

Friends, I deeply hope you will come this Sunday for St. Gregory’s first own LGBTQ+ Pride Sunday. I hope you will come, whether you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, consider yourself an ally, are curious to keep learning more, and/or are skeptical about this whole thing. Like all our best Sundays, it will be a day of special and gorgeous music, meaningful reflection, and, of course, lots of tasty food.

Oftentimes, good churchgoing folks stumble over the very word “Pride” as something the church should be endorsing. After all, “pride goeth before the fall,” we often say (a slight misquote of Proverbs 16:18). That meaning of “pride” goes with ideas like egoism, self-centeredness, conceitedness, haughtiness, and such. Yes, we certainly don’t want to endorse that for anyone: queer or straight, our neighbors, our families, or our leaders.

The “Pride” we will celebrate and affirm this Sunday has a different meaning: pride which is the opposite of shame. This sense of Pride goes with ideas like dignity, respect, love, freedom. It’s not about egoism – quite the opposite. It’s about human lives fully lived in community with one another. It’s about affirming this as God’s vision for every human being.

It is for this reason that LGBTQ+ Pride is not just about being welcoming to — and even advocating for — a particular set of minority people. We’re not doing this to be political correct, trendy, or because your rector happens to be a gay man. Like every liberation movement, LGBTQ+ Pride is about everyone’s liberation – liberation from a world in which the exclusion of particular people ends up dehumanizing everyone else, too.  

In fact, this Sunday I hope to show you just how deeply this kind of exclusion goes against the core of the Christian faith. And, in this, we will find the most surprising ally of all: my frenemy, St. Paul.