What does Pride mean to me? Community and Imago Dei
What does Pride mean to me? Community and Imago Dei
June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. What does it mean and why should we, as people of faith, celebrate?
By Rev. Regan Saoirse, KO Conference Consultant with LGBTQ+ Clergy
"Pride is imago dei to me because I know what it is to not live into the imago dei that God imagined for me, the full embodiment of who God created me to be.”
Community is an important part of the LGBTQ+ experience, especially because we often don’t feel we quite belong in other communities we are a part of. Don’t get me wrong, I love my church community and always choose them well, from my first progressive church at Plymouth Congregational in Lawrence in 2000, when I chose to be UCC after 8 years of not being Christian, to my current church home 26 years later at Wichita UCC. What is difficult is that I know that there are still church members who are “undecided” about the “gay issue”.
Some church members may know God loves me, a queer person, as a child of God, but they also may not be sure if I’m going to heaven because I dated people of my same gender and actively embrace an expansive view of my gender. They stay silent when LGBTQ+ rights are being challenged in the government and judicial system. They don’t care to understand the bible in any other way than what was told to them when they were children 10, 20, 50 years ago. And that hurts me not just as a personal slight, like someone who doesn’t invite me to the party, but as a denial of my image dei, my embodiment of the image of God in this world. It’s been a passion of mine to study theology about gender and sexuality, especially queer theology, deeply and with valued scholars, including Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis, who is UCC, and I welcome discussions about other ways we can affirm and accept our LGBTQ+ members better into our faith communities, ways we can support our doubting friends and family.
Being LGBTQ+ is a part of being imago dei, the image of God, in this crazy and scary world. It ia reflecting back a part of who God is in this world. We may not be perfect, and no one in church is, but Pride Month is about celebrating the vibrant colors, beautiful beings, various gifts, and unique ways queer people live, love, work, play, and believe in this world of ours… not because straight cis people don’t have similar or unique gifts, but because ours have been silenced, traumatically abused, beaten, murdered, even mass murdered in the Holocaust and beyond.
We celebrate because we have allies that celebrate with us. Without our allies, we could be right back where we were 20, 40, 60, 90 years ago when Adolf Hitler was on the rise. We celebrate because throughout history there were thriving communities of LGBTQ+ people who lived and worked and worshipped. We celebrate because there are people who sacrificed their lives for queer people to continue to be at the table.
Pride is community to me because I tried to be community without pride in my inner life and I was left not whole, incomplete. Pride is imago dei to me because I know what it is to not live into the imago dei that God imagined for me, the full embodiment of who God created me to be. Now, not only do I celebrate with my peers as community, I celebrate myself, as a person living completely into my gender and sexuality, living living wholly into my imago dei. I invite you to celebrate with me and to celebrate with all our friends, family, loved ones – all LGBTQ+ people who are living fully into their imago dei! Enjoy Pride Month!