Gathering focuses on inclusion in Black churches

Pride in the Pews holds LGBTQ+ symposium at HBCU Spelman.

The faces in the 13 photographs stare out at you.

Photographer Ralph Basui Watkins doesn’t want you to look away. He purposely shot them to lock eyes with the viewer.

These are his LGBTQ+ “siblings.” People he sees in the classes he teaches at Columbia Theological Seminary or sits next to in the pews at various churches in metro Atlanta. They are his brothers and sisters in Christ but are often held at arms length or outright shunned by many in the Black Church.

“Stand in front of then and look at these folks God made in God’s image,” he said. “Do you believe everybody you lock eyes with is a child of God?”

The exhibit is on display at Spelman College as part of a “The State of the Black Church” symposium on LGBTQ+ and the Black Church, organized by the Chicago-based nonprofifit Pride in the Pews, which advocates for inclusive, safe spaces and healing in the faith community.

Between 75 and 100 people attended Friday, the fifirst day of the two-day event that ran through Saturday. It included a fifi fifi fifi reside chat with state Sen. Shevr in Jones and state Rep. MicheleRayner, twoopenlyLGBTQ legislators from Florida; and actor Nicholas L. Ashe, who will screen

“The Spirit God Gave Us.”

Ashe, who had a role on the TV series “Queen Sugar”, will demonstrate how to use storytelling to create more inclusive spaces for Black LGBTQ communities.

This is the fifirst time the organization has held the symposium at an HBCU. Spelman, say organizers, was a good choice because the institution has graduated some of the most powerful women inflfluencers in business, nonprofifit and politics, including Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children’s Defense Fund; corporate executive Rosalind G. Brewer; and Stacey Abrams, a political activist and former candidate for Georgia governor.

HBCUs also have traditionally been a place to aid the marginalized in society, but even they have not always been welcoming to the gay, lesbian and trans community, but that is changing in some places.

Last year, Spelman joined many other colleges and universities by holding its fifirst Lavender Graduation Ceremony honoring the contributions and accomplishments ofLGBTQIA+ graduates. Seventeen graduates received their lavender stoles, a certifificate and received the inaugural bell hooks award for their courage and tenacity in creating a campus that supports all students and their identities, according to Spelman.

“My wife and I can walk in church holding hands and we’re celebrated,” said Watkins. That might not happen for gay couples.

“That’s one of the blind spots of the Black church,” said Watkins 61, who has designed a series of courses on the theology of radical inclusion.” I argue that from a Black theological perspective, God is a God of the oppressed and that God does his most faithful work in the margins. We consistently see Jesus operating in the margins of society ... my LGBTQIA siblings are in the margins.”

Same sex marriage and full inclusion of the LGBTQ community has been a divisive issue among many Georgia houses of worship.

The United Methodist Church, for instance, lost a quarter of its total churches between 2019 and 2023 largely over the issue of LGBTQ inclusion and performance of same sex weddings, according to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary.