Episcopal Church supports inclusivity through Red Door Jubilee Center

As Pride Month continues, the Episcopal Church promotes full inclusion of members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Red Door Jubilee Center is a LGBTQIA+ outreach program provided through the Christ Episcopal Church of Cape Girardeau. The program's ministry engagement states the "Episcopal Church has long embraced the gifts of the LGBTQIA+ community," according to the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri's website. The center also supports programs such as PFLAG Cape Girardeau, which recently hosted its annual Pride Festival with Cape Pride on Sunday. Bren O'Connor, missioner for LGBTQIA+ engagement said she noticed the diversity of people attending the festival as she preached.

"There were a lot of young people, a lot of families, older folks," O'Connor said. "That is important because Pride is the drive to gather a number of different communities with different needs and experiences, but we have a common experience of being part of the queer community and being able to find that community there."

O'Connor said it is important for churches to be a welcoming environment because many people's first experience of belonging to a community occurs as they begin to attend a church.

"Being rejected by your community, when you are at your most vulnerable, it's just absolutely horrible," she said. "My faith community was always there for me and that's been tremendous in allowing me to survive and thrive, so it is very important for the church to make sure that we are looking after the 'least of these,' as Jesus says. We absolutely have a responsibility to the queer community to be open and supportive."

The Christ Episcopal Church's Red Jubilee Center website provides informational resources including books, articles and podcast episodes, addressing issues LGBTQIA+ Christians face and church inclusion for all people. It also features a question-and-answer section answering common questions surrounding the church's stance on topics including marriage, gender transition and the Bible's interpretation of sexuality and gender.

Red Door is one of several outreach programs provided by the Episcopal Diocese, including programs created more recently aimed at gender and transgender issues and rights.

"The Christian Church has had a really long and difficult history marginalizing queer people, but I will say I have been so proud of the Episcopal Church in the ways that we have deliberately chosen to really try to rethink our faith and find all the places within church tradition, Scriptures that show queer people are absolutely created and loved by God and belong in the church. They are not second-class Christians, but leaders and deserve to be dignified and affirmed by the church," O'Connor said.

For more information on Red Door Jubilee, visit the organization's website at www.christchurchcape.org, and for more information on the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri LGBTQIA+ ministry engagement, visit www.diocesemo.org.