Pride Month and learning humility

Letting love override my need to be sure.

Jul 01, 2025

I spent much of June thinking I needed to write something about Pride Month, but wrestling with what to say. As a heterosexual cis male, the truth is there’s a sense in which I’m the last person who should be saying something. But as a Christian who’s trying to often reconcile past behavior with changes in his faith, and be a voice of hope in the times we’re living in, I felt like I had to write something. So please indulge my rambling, clumsy and imperfect musings.

Abandoning my best friend

Just a few years after high school, my best friend came out as gay. I was in college by this point and we had fallen out of the constant contact we’d once had. We’d been friends since middle school and were previously inseparable, particularly when it came to serving in our church youth group and leading an after-school Bible study. But I was a year older than him and, after we graduated, we kept largely separate schedules and ran with different crowds.

I heard some rumors and asked about them. He confirmed to me that yes, he was gay. He knew that went against what we’d been taught in our church and what we believed as Christians. I told him that while I didn’t approve of his lifestyle, he was my friend and I wouldn’t treat him differently. I would (say it with me now) love the sinner and hate the sin.

What I didn’t know then is that when you say you’re going to love the sinner and hate the sin, you will most likely just continue to identify the person with the sin, and you will stop seeing them as a person. I did keep in touch for a while, but whenever he would talk to me about his dating life, I would stop and say some version of “you can tell me anything, but you can’t talk about that.” And when you don’t allow your friends to be their full selves around you, they grow apart. We lost touch. And it stuck with me.

I believed I was trying to live out the values that my evangelical upbringing had instilled, but looking back now, the math doesn’t math. I had plenty of friends who didn’t share my beliefs. I was a pretty self-righteous young adult. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t swear. I didn’t listen to non-Christian music. I had quite the stick up my ass, and I let people know it. But I didn’t kick people out of my life if their actions didn’t line up with my beliefs.

Except for my best friend.

Maybe I felt blind-sided and betrayed that such a crucial piece of information had been hidden from me – although, given that my friend knew what I believed and that I could be a prick about it, I don’t blame him. I think the truth was more likely that I was uncomfortable. Would people see me with him and think I was gay1? What if he wanted me to hang out with his gay friends? Would I know what to say2?

But I think there was something deeper that I’m just beginning to understand. I was raised to believe homosexuality was a sin – and, growing up in the culture wars, it was portrayed as one of the big ones. I’d done the Sunday School homework and could toss the Bible verses out to argue my position. Now that it was flesh and blood, those arguments felt like they had less weight. I think part of me knew that if I kept this friendship, I might begin to question what I had been taught and might go down the proverbial slippery slope3 toward (gasp!) tolerance.

Lunch break

While I was working a full-time job as a reporter, I supplemented my pay by working a part-time job at Cost Plus World Market – I’m not sure if they’re still around, but they used to be everywhere, and they sold food, wine and furniture from around the world. I hated it and didn’t last long, but it was good for some money around the holidays.

By this point, I had begun to shake off some of my more entrenched fundamentalist views. I no longer believed that I had to vote for a Republican just because I believed in Jesus and lived in America. I hadn’t had my first beer yet, but I was open to conceding that drinking wasn’t a sin, so long as you didn’t get drunk. Sometimes, if I was mad and no one was around, I might mildly cuss. But the homosexuality issue? I was still pretty firm on it, although I had learned to keep my mouth shut.

One of my coworkers at World Market was gay. He was a nice guy. Very sweet to everyone and very funny. I don’t think I treated him differently than I treated my other coworkers, but I can see that I might have been a bit clipped or aloof, worried that overt kindness would somehow be seen as some kind of endorsement .

One day during our lunch break, I was sitting in the break room. I had some book open next to me; I can’t remember what it was – C.S. Lewis or John Piper sound about right – but it was a very overtly Christian book. My coworker came in, saw what I was reading and asked a question that still sits with me:

“Do I offend you?”

Like I said, I don’t believe I’d ever had much of a conversation with him other than workplace pleasantries, and I certainly hadn’t had a discussion about faith. But here he was, seeing the Christian book I was reading and assuming I was judging him just for existing. A few years earlier, I would have been all high and mighty about it, saying how dare he make those assumptions and try to make me feel guilty for my faith.

But I felt sobered. I felt uncomfortable. More than that – and this is what really made any changes down the road stick – I felt convicted.

Because the truth is, at that point in my life, his existence and his lifestyle did offend me. And for the first time, I was confronted with the reality that my faith’s position on this person’s life made them feel threatened, ugly and unwanted. And I knew that whatever Christianity was meant to do, that should have been the opposite feeling. In that moment, any surety I had about any of the preaching I had heard about homosexuality and any Bible study I had done on the issue dropped away. I didn’t know what I believed on that issue anymore.

I’m going to confess I still don’t.

A brief Bible digression

I sat down early this month and resolved that I was going to write something that spelled out my beliefs about scripture, Christianity and homosexuality. Because the majority of the Christians I know and the churches I’ve attended tend to be fairly traditional in their views, I knew this would be a thorny issue. And so I wanted to say “I truly believe this is what the Bible says about homosexuality and this is how Christians should act on this issue.”

I don’t think I can do that. And that’s okay. Maybe it’s the place I need to be.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: on the surface, what the Bible says about homosexuality initially doesn’t appear very affirming. The Old Testament uses the word “abomination.” In Romans, Paul uses it as an example of how people act when they turn from God and choose their own path. In 1 Cor 6, he includes homosexuals in a list of people who won’t inherit the kingdom (although, let’s be clear: That list also includes the [apparently heterosexual] sexually immoral, adulterers, slanderers, greedy people and drunks, and his list in Romans 1 also includes people who are envious, arrogant and disobedient to their parents, and I don’t see us kicking bratty kids out of our churches). Jesus never apparently discussed it, at least not as we see in the Gospels, but His references to marriage all refer to a union between a man and woman. These were the verses I knew and argued to my friends.

But what we don’t talk about enough is that, in Christian circles, there isn’t unanimous agreement about what all this meant then and what it means today. Although the word “homosexuality” appears in our English-language Bibles, it’s a relatively new term, and there’s disagreement about whether it would have meant what we think of today when we think of same-sex attraction, particularly in monogamous relationships. Some believe that the Biblical passages referring to homosexuality might be referring to one of many things: men whose sexual appetites were so out of control that they would have sex with anyone or anything; incest; or sex with temple prostitutes, many of whom were young men. Many believe the passage about Sodom and Gomorrah was actually a lesson about showing inhospitality to foreigners. And while “abomination” is a strong word, let’s not forget it was also used to talk about shellfish4.

I initially hoped I would be able to come away with some sort of final word on what I believed on the issue. But, I don’t. I’m sympathetic to the more progressive views, and I think there’s a lot of good insight and stuff to wrestle with. I understand those who take a more traditionalist view on these issues, so long as it does not preclude our command to love others. There’s a tension I can’t get past in my interpretations of those scriptures. Maybe one day I will. Right now, I don’t know enough to issue a “thus sayeth the Lord,” which is fine because I’m not the Lord.

And besides, I think being overly sure is where it started to go wrong.

On bearing bad fruit

I’ve written before about growing up in evangelical Christian culture, and particularly my fondness for the band dc Talk as a teenager. So it’s probably not surprising that I have been following the story of the sexual assault allegations against dc Talk vocalist Michael Tait with a great deal of sadness.

One thing I should state up front: If the allegations are true – and Tait has confessed to impropriety against other men, as well as drug abuse – then Michael Tait is responsible for his actions. Anything I might say next does not condone his behavior or let him off the hook. We’re all responsible for how we act toward others and how we wield any power that has been given to us.

But I’ve also felt that this was a tragedy that could have been prevented. Michael Tait was someone who had a musical gift and wanted to use it to tell others about Jesus. I believe that. And when Christian record labels saw that they could make money off that, they were happy to exploit it. When they learned that placing him at the front of the Newsboys could help argue people toward conservative causes and even put him alongside the President, they had no issue with that.

But it appears Michael Tait was also a gay man in an industry that wouldn’t let him be one. And while he is still responsible for his behavior, I have to believe that the pressure to live a lie contributed to it. Rather than let him be a model for other gay Christian musician and discuss it through his art, he was forced to hide. What does that pressure do to someone? To know that you’re in public and seen as a spiritual leader, but to know that if the truth of you came out, you’d lose your livelihood and be seen as a pariah?

While it’s important to understand the Bible’s words, the truth is that the motivation of too many people (including my younger self) in studying the (very few) passages about homosexuality was to use them to tell others about their sin and feel a smug superiority that, whatever we were struggling with, at least it wasn’t that. I’d rather focus on what’s expected of me, and how I am supposed to grow as a follower of Jesus and what it looks like to put His words into practice.

I believe that the truest evidence of someone truly following Christ is that they are identified by the Fruit of the Spirit. If I am trusting in Christ to lead me and I’m following his ways, I should be known for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. When I was worrying about fighting culture wars, proving myself on the “right” side and calling out others’ alleged sins just so I could distract from my own, those characteristics were not present in my life. I was divisive, angry and mean; as for self-control, I couldn’t control myself from wading into fights. The stronger I clung to my supposed moral superiority and being “right,” the less I looked like Jesus.

While I think this is good teaching on a personal level, it’s also absolutely essential on a corporate level. And it is rare that I’ve seen a case where Christians and churches have been able to live out non-affirming theology in a manner that looks like Jesus5. Instead, what I’ve seen is a divider slammed down that keeps people from wanting to follow Jesus or feeling like they even can come to Jesus. Instead of lifting up the Image of God in others, we’ve used it to tell them that they’re unworthy, unloved and unwelcome – in our churches, and in our families.

Yes, the Bible uses the word “abomination” in its Old Testament passages about same-sex interaction; wherever we land on what the authors were talking about, we can’t avoid that wording. And yet, our desire to hammer home this issue – something talked about so much less in the Bible than opposite-sex lust, adultery, greed, right treatment of foreigners and pride – has forced not just celebrities like Michael Tait but members of our own families and congregations to live a lie so that they’re not cast out. And it’s worth noting that lying is also referred to as an abomination in the Old Testament.

More than that, we’ve contributed to a culture that has made people feel unworthy not just of love, but of life. Transgender youth and members of the LGBT community are at higher risk of suicide – and yet, our government just took away needed support for them. Historically, Christians have fought – and fought hard – for dignity, life and hope for underrepresented people, even if those people don’t share their beliefs. And yet, it’s rare that I hear Christians voice concern about this epidemic, in which people would rather end it all than be honest about who they are, because they’ve been told that who they are is not good or right6. Maybe it’s time to put this doctrine on the shelf until we can figure out how to love others; maybe we’ve been wrong. Maybe we need to let our responsibility to love trump our desire to be “right.”

Just as I grew up loving dc Talk in my teens, I loved Caedmon’s Call perhaps even more in my twenties. And I particularly have enjoyed the solo career of Caedmon’s singer-songwriter Derek Webb. Webb no longer holds to the beliefs he once did, although he still maintains a dialogue with the Christian community. Earlier this year, he released an album called Survival Songs. Webb’s a heterosexual cisgender man, but he felt so concerned about the risks posed to the LGBT community that he wrote and recorded an entire album to tell them they were seen, they were loved and, around him, they could find a safe space. Whatever Webb’s beliefs, that feels like the more Christian response than we see from the evangelical complex.

On Pride and humility

Early in June, on a page highlighting local community events, I saw an announcement for a Pride Month celebration. A few of the comments caught my eye, suggesting “why not try humble month for a change” or “not in my town.” I finally jumped in, mainly because I don’t like bullies.

Pride Month exists because for too long people have been told they shouldn’t have any pride, any confidence, any joy in who they are. That rhetoric, often charged with anger and smugness, created unnecessary divisions between friends, family members and the Church. Pride Month exists because people have been denied rights – based on laws that ask them to follow the teachings of a religion they might not belong to. It’s left people crying in hospital corridors because they’re legally unable to sit by the bedside of a dying person they love. It’s made people never consider Jesus because His followers have preached some form of “change and then come to Jesus.” Pride, for the LGBT community, is resistance. It’s being loud toward a world that has told them to shut up and sit down.

Again, the biblical interpretations are varied on this, to a point where I don’t feel comfortable saying that I definitively know whether it is pro or anti same-sex attraction, relationships or marriage. I don’t hold it against my Christian friends who hold to traditional teachings – so long as they love and welcome the LGBT community – and neither can I jump in with my progressive Christian friends and say “the traditionalists are 100% wrong.” I don’t have a stance. I don’t think I need to. It’s okay to not know. I believe Christians need a bit more of a humble posture on this issue to say, “I don’t know what we do with this issue. But I know the way we’ve been living it out has caused too much harm and we need to find another way.”

And here are things I do know:

I’m sorry and ashamed for the way I treated not just by best friend, but for the ways I treated my friends in the gay community, both through smug judgment in my youth and staying silent as an adult when they need an ally and friend.
Followers of Jesus have a responsibility to continue his work binding up the brokenhearted, preaching good news, and creating communities of hope and joy. We have a command to nurture and protect the image of God in other people, and to celebrate who they are.
If there are people dejected, distraught and despairing – and especially if suicide or self-harm are threatened – followers of Christ must go to them, tell them they are loved, invite them into community and welcome them.
Over the past few years, I’ve had the joy to work with and befriend members of the LGBT community. They are joyful, funny, passionate and kind. I love them. And many of them are also followers of Christ. Despite what the louder drunk uncles of evangelicalism have told them, despite the fact that Fred Phelps once walked this Earth, they have found Jesus and his teachings beautiful, and in many cases have shown a willingness to take up their cross and follow Jesus – their cross sometimes being celibacy, sometimes being ostracization from their family or losing their church community – that humbles me.
I do believe there is a place for churches to wrestle with these issues. I do not believe it is in the realm of politics or in going out into the community to preach on these issues. I strongly believe gay men and women should be welcomed into churches. They should be free to be open about who they are. And there will come a point, in community, where they and their fellow believers will need to come to these texts and prayerfully wrestle with them. Some communities will hold to traditional beliefs; others will land in more progressive paths. The important thing is approaching these issues as a community, with a desire to follow Jesus and model his love above all.
The longer I follow Jesus, the more I see that the Kingdom of God is less about creating a small cloister of people on the inside and more about welcoming others and inviting them to join us. God’s grace and love continually are greater, not less, than I have anticipated. It’s something for us to remember.
In my twenties, I had thousands of hills to die on. On many of those issues, I don’t know that I would put up a fight any longer. The ones that remain focus on Jesus being my only hope, Jesus being my only joy, and following Jesus being a path to infinitely more happiness and meaning than anywhere else.
If you are a member of the LGBT community, the world is better with you in it. No one has any right to make you feel like you don’t exist. You are loved, you are welcomed, and there are safe spaces for you. I fervently pray the church can be one of them.