Our Pride is Not a Sin — A Queer & Disabled Christian Lens

Blessed Are the Binary Breakers

June was Queer Pride Month, July is Disability Pride Month, and that means it's the prime time of year for certain people to remind us that "pride is a sin, didn't you know?" So I called up my dear friend Laura, a fellow disabled trans Christian, to discuss how the kind of pride that marginalized communities use as an antidote to shame is not sinful, but indeed essential in our pursuit of justice and abundant life for all!

Listen as Laura and I — interspersed with excerpts from Eli Clare's 1999 text Exile and Pride — contrast marginalized pride with nationalist, supremacist pride; explain why "awareness" and "acceptance" aren't enough; and emphasize the need to join pride with witness.

Click here for an episode transcript.

Hear more from Laura on their podcast, the Autistic Liberation Theology Podcast. Click here for their website of essays and biblical Playmobil art.

Talking Points:

(0:00) Intro to the topic, Laura, and Eli Clare's book

(4:37) Disabled & queer pride as an antidote to internalized ableism

(12:40) Why awareness & acceptance aren't enough

(17:48) Pride in the essential gifts we bring

(23:47) Pride as sin — opposite of humility vs. opposite of shame; "the last will be first"

(34:50) We need to join pride with witness, remember our history and those we've lost

(44:45) A Christianity we can be proud of? Reclaiming the cross; Autistic Jesus

(52:00) Wrapping up — a final excerpt from Eli Clare

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This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn. This episode also makes use of "His Last Share of the Stars" and "I Snost, I Lost" by Doctor Turtle.