Boldness before God

Andrew Guffey • June 5, 2026

Christians and (Gay) Pride

June is Pride Month, a month of affirmation for LGBTQ individuals and communities. Pride celebrations coincide with, and to a degree commemorate, the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a major turning point in the struggle for the acknowledgment of gay rights and acceptance in America. For those of you intimately connected to LGBTQ folks, none of this is news, and you do not need me to say anything about the meaning of Pride, but I have encountered a number of people in my years of ministry who wonder: how should Christians think about Pride Month? Note: I am not talking about whether being gay is a sin. It's not. That's a place I'll plant my flag unequivocally, and if you disagree I'm happy to have a biblical discussion about that anytime. Still, even some very well-intentioned folks have questions about Pride. Some have asked me, for instance, isn't pride a sin? Why, then, celebrate queer identity with pride? Some have suggested that Pride celebrations are often a hot, drunken mess. Having served at a restaurant in Boys Town, Chicago, there's a measure of truth to that characterization in some places. But instead of asking about the legitimacy of Pride, what if we were more prone to wonder? What if we asked ourselves what we, as Christians, might stand to learn from the celebration of LGBTQ Pride?


In some ways this is really not a conversation we desperately need to have. No one seems to mind when the Irish (and those who pretend to be Irish or wish they were Irish or are 1/284 Irish) have their pride on when they celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We don't get similarly squeamish when people wrap themselves in red, white, and blue around July 4th and announce their pride in being American. So why single out LGBTQ Pride? (By the way, in case you are unfamiliar LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. Sometimes it is augmented with further initials like "I" for Intersex and "A" for Asexual.) Well, in part because, just like with the Black is Beautiful or Black Lives Matter movements, it is queer lives (I use that term broadly to refer to the several communities represented in Pride, not as a derogatory slur) that have been repressed, oppressed, hidden away, denied, and delegitimated--that is, historically it is people who happen to be queer who were discriminated against because they were queer. And since it is Pride month, let's lean into our wonderment again: What can LGBTQ Pride teach us as Christians? What do we stand to learn about who we are and how God is moving through humanity in this world.

The first thing that cannot be missed is that Pride events are wonderfully embodied. The Pride events I have attended are all people physically gathered in celebration, and attention is drawn to our bodies. In the Diocese of Chicago I marched behind our Diocesan banner at one Pride parade, wearing my collar. My body mattered, how it was presented mattered. It mattered that I was there, marching. It mattered that I was wearing a collar. It mattered that I could give and receive hugs. And our bodies matter, too. Life is not disembodied. That's what made parts of our COVID experience so hard--we couldn't be embodied together, couldn't hug, couldn't draw close. And didn't we all feel a little (or a lot!) more isolated? Pride can be a reminder that while we are not simply our bodies, apart from our bodies we are not. This is not a fact to be lamented, but a fact to be celebrated. Sure they can be frail and fail us, and they are the conduit of pain and aches, but they are also sources of our joy, the electricity of being alive courses thought our bodies. God gave us bodies, thanks be to God!


Secondly, we were made for joy. While it is true that some Pride celebrations are a little over-joyful, as is true with any kind of party--occasionally one does get over-served at weddings, for instance--the joy itself is palpable. The Westminster Catechism begins with the question, "What is the chief end of man?"--what are humans made for? The answer is "to glorify God and enjoy God forever." We were made for delight, and Pride can be a reminder of that fact. Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the preeminent Jewish figures of the twentieth century wrote a beautiful book on the keeping of the Sabbath. Among other things he reminds his readers that "it is a sin to be sad on the Sabbath day." What? How can we control our sadness or happiness? I don't think the good rabbi meant that one must repress all negative emotions, but that the Sabbath is a reminder that we are not made for despair, and when we live toward despair we live in a direction counter to what God made us for. The Sabbath, Heschel says, is a palace in time. To use somewhat more Christian language, it is a day to live as though the kingdom of God has come:

All week we may ponder and worry whether we are rich or poor, whether we succeed or fail in our occupations; whether we accomplish or fall short of reaching our goals. But who could feel distressed when gazing at spectral glimpses of eternity, except to feel startled at the vanity of being so distressed. The Sabbath is no time for personal anxiety or care, for any activity that might dampen the spirit of joy. The Sabbath is no time to remember sins.... It is a day for praise, not a day for petition. Fasting, mourning, demonstrations of grief are forbidden.

And why are all of these to be avoided on the Sabbath? Because "the Sabbath was given to us by God for joy, for delight, for rest. Pride at its best can be the same--a glimpse of eternity, where all of God's children are at harmony, at peace, because all are cherished, honored, and loved just for who they really are.


And that brings me to the third thing I think we might learn from Pride: joy in being honest about who we are. I don't mean joy in our rough edges and vices. But joy in how we are fashioned, joy in being "wonderfully and fearfully made" (Psalm 139:14) by a God who knows us as he knew Jeremiah, from our mother's womb (Jeremiah 1:5), when we were woven and spun in secret (Psalm 139:15), and who knows the plans God has for us, plans for good and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11). Joy in being created in God's own image, after God's own likeness. Joy at being a living spirit, a living body. Pride might teach us what it means to regard ourselves with the love that God bears us, with all the glory and shame that we carry.


I have never needed to question my sexuality or my gender. I understand myself relatively well, and I have never had occasion to question those basic things that I have taken for granted since my earliest days. But our queer siblings have. Some of them have had to wrestle and fight bravely the battle to be honest with themselves, their families, their friends, and their God about who they are. Pride honors that struggle to be honest, to be and live truly. And we should honor that also. Because many of them are living truer lives than those of us who have never needed to question basic structures of who we are. One priest and author once wrote about this experience as one of discernment, that LGBTQ folks necessarily undergo a deep process of discernment to arrive at peace with themselves, the world, and God. She likens it to the call of Isaiah, when Isaiah is overcome with a vision of God in the Temple and hears God say, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us, " and Isaiah says, "Hineni! Here I am! Send me!"


In the New Testament, the word parrhesia comes up in several key places. It means "boldness." The Acts of the Apostles (ch. 4) speaks of the boldness of the apostles as they proclaim the Gospel of God in Christ. First John says that if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God (1 John 3:21), love perfected among us "that we may have boldness on the day of judgment" (1 John 4:17), and the "boldness we have in him" that we might ask anything that accords with his will and God will hear us (1 John 5:14). Paul talks about his boldness in sharing the Gospel (Philippians 1:14, 20). But it is Hebrews where the theme rings out the loudest: "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (4:16); "Do not, therefore, abandon that boldness of yours; it brings great reward" (10:35). Boldness is living unafraid of who we are, with delight in who and how we are created to be. And Christ shows us this boldness in living his life in the face of those who wanted to tone him down. But, as Hebrews says, "Christ, however was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the boldness and the pride inspired by hope."


Pride is about living our lives out loud. Not with dishonest noise or distracting static, but with the clear melody of the song woven into each of our lives, drawing from the deep reservoir of the Love that fashioned us before we were and will hold us forever. Pride is boldness before God to live our lives honestly. Pride celebrations can, I think, remind us how to live like that. It's not easy: it takes patience, and reflection, and not a little courage. But if we can find our way to it we might just find the joy we were made for.

All Saints' Sunday | November 1, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • November 1, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.

Pub Theology 10/27/26 -- 'Tis the season, spooky season!

By Peter Trumbore • October 26, 2026
"From ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us!" This very old folk prayer, which has been tied to both Scotland and Cornwall, used to hang on the wall of my childhood home, and it often comes to mind for me at this time of year. A little trivia -- the first known publication of this prayer was in 1926 in a volume titled "The Cornish and West Country Litany," but it is thought to be far older. That it can be traced to regions of the United Kingdom that are quite distant from one another may be a testament to its antiquity. Anyway, we're right up to the climax of what some call "spooky season," the weeks from the end of summer up until Halloween, which this year falls on Saturday. Apparently this idea of "spooky season" is a relatively recent development, becoming popular on the internet as a way to talk about stretching the adult of fun of Halloween from a single day of dress-up shenanigans to something akin to the more well-established holiday season we're now rocketing toward. This is a far cry from what I recall growing up, where more than a few of the local churches in our area very actively sought to discourage observance of Halloween, labeling it a pagan celebration of witchcraft, devilry, and superstition that was incompatible with being a good Christian. Of course that didn't really dissuade anyone. But with the holiday just a few days away, I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to talk about the nature of spooky stuff, ghoulies and ghosties, and other such things. So tell us, what do you love about Halloween? How do you mark it? Does anything give you pause? What do you think about this claim that you can't be a Christian and still participate in or enjoy Halloween? Finally, what do you make of that old Scots and Cornish prayer? What real fears do you think it reflects? And what might a modern version look like? Join us for the conversation tomorrow evening, Tuesday Oct. 27 starting at 7pm at Irish Tavern in downtown Lake Orion.

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost Sunday | October 25, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • October 25, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.

Copy of Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost Sunday | October 18, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • October 18, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.

Pub Theology 10/13/26 -- A series of quick hits

By Peter Trumbore • October 13, 2026
Some weeks inspiration hits and we stumble onto a single topic that has enough going for it that our Tuesday evening conversation revolves around it entirely. Some weeks, like this one, we take a different approach. Tonight, rather than chew on one big idea, we've got a couple of interesting, but generally unrelated questions to animate our discussion. We'll take them on one at a time, in no particular order, and see what develops. Nine years ago New Yorker cartoonist David Sipress drew a cartoon with this caption: "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” Do you experience this tension in your own life, and if so, how do you deal with it? Are you more interested in buying things, or experiencing things? How far will you go to experience something for the first time? What is an example of that? Are you a thrill seeker? An adventure traveler? Something else? Lutheran pastor and writer Nadia Bola-Weber said this: "People don't leave Christianity because they stop believing in the teachings of Jesus. People leave Christianity because they believe in the teachings of Jesus so much, they can't stomach being part of an institution that claims to be about that and clearly isn't." What is your take on this? Do you agree with her? Why or why not? Podcaster Joe Rogan: "Jesus was born out of a virgin mother. What's more virgin than a computer? If Jesus does return, you don't think he could return as Artificial Intelligence? AI could absolutely return as Jesus." OK, is he off his rocker, or do you think he might be on to something? If all else fails, what's on your mind this week?  Join us for the conversation this evening, Tuesday Oct. 13 starting at 7pm at Irish Tavern in downtown Lake Orion.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday | October 11, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • October 11, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.

Pub Theology 10/6/26 -- Finding peace, finding God

By Peter Trumbore • October 5, 2026
It escaped my notice, so perhaps it escaped yours as well. Back on August 31, the lauded poet, farmer, essayist, and deeply influential thinker Wendell Berry died at the age of 92, in the place he loved best, his farm in Kentucky. Over the years, several of our conversations have been inspired by or touched on Berry's ideas and writings. While Berry has influenced countless Christians through his poetry and fiction, he described himself as a "bad-weather churchgoer." In the preface to his collection of sabbath day poems titled "This Day," Berry explains it this way: "But I am a bad-weather churchgoer. When the weather is good, sometimes when it is only tolerable, I am drawn to the woods on the local hillsides or along the streams… In such places, on the best of these sabbath days, I experience a lovely freedom from expectations — other people’s and also my own. I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration.." One of the things this quote brings to mind is how important the concept of "place" was in Berry's work and, more importantly, the way he saw the world and how he sought to live in it. Way back in 2017, we talked about the idea of place, with Berry as our guide. "Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are your neighbors in it ..." This is a very small portion of Wendell Berry's "A Poem on Hope". In his poem, "The Want of Peace," reprinted in the illustration above, Berry writes: "I lack the peace of simple things. I am never wholly in place." So in our conversation this week we're going to revisit this idea of "place," of finding it, belonging to it, and perhaps losing it. There are many ways we can think about this notion. Where do we find peace? Where do we find God? Where do we find ourselves? Where do we find our people, or our purpose? Join us for the conversation tomorrow evening, Tuesday Oct. 6 starting at 7pm at Irish Tavern in downtown Lake Orion.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday | October 4, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • October 4, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.

Pub Theology 9/29/26 -- There's an app for that

By Peter Trumbore • September 28, 2026
You're probably aware of this already, but for years now, we've been hearing that Americans in particular are suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. Which is different from simply being alone. I think we're all aware that it is perfectly possible crave alone time without feeling lonely, and to feel intense loneliness even when surrounded by people. Sometimes this can be a result of things that are out of our control. But often, it's the choices we make in the name of convenience that lie at the heart of this. Journalist Gabe Bullard's new book, "Against Convenience," argues that our pursuit of ever faster and frictionless experiences comes with invisible costs, and that we unthinkingly accept those as the inevitable price we have to pay to make things easier, Reviewing the book in The Atlantic , writer Julie Beck argues that many of those costs are social. Beck writes: "Once you open your eyes to the tradeoff between convenience and community, you start seeing it everywhere. It’s more convenient to ride a Peloton bike at home alone than to go to a spin class full of other sweaty bodies (whom you might end up chatting with). Zoom meetings make working with distant colleagues much easier, but aren’t very socially nourishing. The gig economy is rife with this bargain. Ubers and Lyfts replace rides given by friends and trips taken on public transit. Delivery replaces meals out at local restaurants and time spent in stores of all kinds." Sometimes, she continues, the whole point of an innovation is that it allows you to do something in isolation that once required interaction with others. Think self-checkout at the grocery store, or the "quiet ride" option that Uber introduced. One of the things we regularly talk about in our conversations is the importance of community. It's why some of us come to church, or, for that matter, Pub Theology. But I think we all also recognize that we engage in this tradeoff of convenience over community all the time, and in all kinds of ways. So that's what we're going to talk about in our discussion this week. Thinking about your life, your-day-to-day, how do you experience this convenience vs. community dynamic? Sure, when we're streaming a new movie in our living room, we're trading that for sitting with a bunch of strangers in an actual theater. Or when we get our meals or groceries or other purchases delivered to our door we get to spare ourselves the hassle of interacting with wait staff and cashiers, or dodging around other shoppers blocking the cereal aisle. But what about the impact of convenience on the relationships we really care about? And what is the impact of avoiding interaction, not just on ourselves, but on society?Finally, how much convenience are you willing to give up in order to build, or rebuild, or sustain community? Join us for the discussion tomorrow evening, Tuesday Sept. 29, starting at 7pm at Irish Tavern in downtown Lake Orion.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday | September 27, 2026

By Andrew Guffey • September 27, 2026
This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our service is at 9:30 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream.