I had the opportunity to hear Rev. Dr. Naomi Washington-Leapheart give a powerful keynote sermon at the Q Christian Fellowship Annual Conference earlier this year. I am certain that if I filled this entire column with only quotes from that powerful sermon, you would be a satisfied reader.
But there is one that has remained with me in the weeks since the conference: “The thing I love most about being a queer person is it made me practice telling the truth.” I don’t remember ever feeling more seen.
As a young adult in seminary, I came to understand my queerness later than many of my peers. As a teenager, I never really understood when my female classmates gushed over whomever the current teenage heartthrob was. When I started dating, I dated guys with similar interests–namely, marching band. Sure, we kissed (teenage hormones are still going to do their thing), but we spent most of our time talking, practicing our instruments, or nerding out in other ways.
As someone who was inundated with purity culture standards, I just assumed I was good at Christian dating. I thought, “I’m with these guys because I appreciate them for who they are, not because I’m lusting after them. Yes. A+. Go me.”
Obviously, I was also incredibly humble about it.
But if I had been honest with myself, I would have noted why butterflies stirred in my stomach when one of the girls in my youth group held my hand for prayer. In college, I would have acknowledged what it meant when my heart skipped a beat as my dorm mate across the hall stepped out of her room in the mornings. I would have understood why I felt so personally uncomfortable when one of my classmates in the religion department spoke negatively about gay people.
If I had been honest with myself, I would have admitted a long time ago that I’m queer. It grieves me that the faith of my youth convinced me that this was something acceptable to lie to myself about.
Accepting my queerness has made me a better follower of Jesus. It has made me more curious and willing to question how and why the Church does what it does. It has made me more available to listen to other people’s stories without judgment. (If there’s one thing evangelicalism taught me to do well, it was to judge anyone who it said was “sinning”).
My queerness has allowed me to be more gracious with people who are in the process of figuring out who they are. Ultimately, it has done for me what Washington-Leapheart said it did for her: It has made me more honest.
Embracing my queerness has charged me with the task of speaking the truth in all aspects of my life and ministry, influencing how I minister, preach and love. That’s why I understand my queerness as an extension of my faith. “Faithful pride,” if you will.
When I say “faithful pride,” I mean a pride that empowers individuals to authentically integrate all parts of who they are into their faith journey. It is a charge to be honest about what those parts mean to us and to be honest about any questions we may have.
As we continue to grow the Faithful Pride Initiative at Good Faith Media, I hope these stories of LGBTQ+ people of faith will inspire you, whether you are queer or not, to live out your faith in ways that make you proud.
To clarify, I hope it doesn’t make you arrogant. Lord knows we need less of that in the world.
Instead, I hope you can walk with the confidence that you’re doing a good job. When so many Christian narratives about how we inhabit the world are shame-based, this kind of pride is the cure.
Come to the water. Let’s be healed of this shame together.
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A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
