Pride in El Salvador

A Letter from Joseph Russ, mission co-worker serving in the Northern Triangle

Summer 2024

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Dear friends,

I was talking to one of my Salvadoran friends in the U.S. a while back, and I was telling her about some of the activities I was participating in during June for Pride month.

She looked at me dumbfounded.

“They have Pride in El Salvador?!?!”

—

The historic churches of El Salvador like the Lutherans, Anglicans and Reformed Calvinists in general tend to be more open on sexual diversity than other evangelical and protestant churches in the region, though there are individual churches and many church members in Guatemala and Honduras that are open and affirming of all people. Several Lutheran pastors have expressed that their church has no issue with LGBTIQ+ people, openly LGBTIQ+ people have taken on leadership roles in the Reformed Calvinist Church, and the Anglican Church of El Salvador has a thriving Sexual Diversity Ministry and the first shelter and comprehensive support center in Central America for LGBTIQ+ youth and young adults fleeing violence: the Santa Marta Anglican Center.

Of course, in a country with high rates of violence and pervasive religious discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people, not all churches and not all people are on board with this liberating message. And even those who want to be supportive and love their LGBTIQ+ neighbors dearly may not have a good understanding of what it means to not be straight or cisgender. I think a lot of us can understand feeling moved by our faith to support people even before we fully understand their experience intellectually.

It’s a very different context than much of North America, to be surrounded by homophobia and transphobia, and yet to share the gospel of God’s love and liberation for LGBTIQ+ people. At least where I’m from, Los Angeles, we are all too accustomed to churches that embrace bigotry as something “Christian” or resist movements for liberation with calls to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people.

So what does Pride look like in El Salvador?

—

This year was especially powerful, as the annual Conference for Queer Theologies in the Americas was held in El Salvador for the second time, culminating with participation in the annual Pride march that my friend was shocked El Salvador had. It was sponsored by Loyola University Chicago, the Sophia Institute of St. Louis, the Council for World Mission, the Ministry of Sexual Diversity of the IAES, and the Iglesia Peregrina, a Latin American church that ordains LGBTIQ+ people and advances queer theologies in the Americas.

Theologians from across the Americas joined together to present the first volume of Mysterium Liberationis Queer, share excerpts from their essays, and build liberating queer theologies together. English, Spanish and Portuguese filled the room with people from the U.S., El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica and beyond, weaving together academic theories from leading universities in the region with experiences of people performing drag on the streets. Among those present were representatives from the Latin American Bible University of Costa Rica, where many people from the Calvinist Reformed Church of El Salvador have been trained or collaborated, the Evangelical Presbyterian Mission of Honduras and the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America (CEDEPCA Guatemala); people from the Jesuit University Loyola in Chicago; the Community of Ecumenical Theological Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CETELA), an accrediting organization that brings together 24 institutions of theological education and therefore one of the most important centers of theological training in Latin America and the Caribbean; Bishop Hugo Cordova Quero and Reverend David de Jesús of the Iglesia Peregrina; and Anderson Fabián Santos Meza as keynote speaker from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.

Of course, I would be remiss not to celebrate the primary hosts in El Salvador, theologians from the same Iglesia Peregrina who have led the continent in developing robust queer theologies for the challenges of today, Mercy Aguilar Contreras, Mario Luna and Vicente Rodríguez. This group includes several people from the Sexual Diversity Ministry who inspired the Santa Marta Anglican Center, calling out the need for shelter and support for youth and young adults who had been forced back home with their parents (and into the closet) during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to be kicked out onto the streets. The church then worked with activist, researcher and human rights defender Eduardo Madrid to launch the first comprehensive support center and shelter specifically for LGBTIQ+ youth and young adults in the region.

It is auspicious that this gathering and this work happen in El Salvador, the land of martyrs like San Óscar Romero, the Maryknoll sisters and Jesuit priests who were murdered during the armed conflict in El Salvador (1980-1992). This is a place where the two volumes of the original Mysterium Liberationis were published by the Jesuit Central America University José Simeón Cañas, becoming fundamental texts for liberation theology. Still, as Jorge A. Aquino notes in the introduction to Mysterium Liberationis Queer, those essays’ “revolutionary fire” was limited by the minimal exploration of gender issues and sexuality as topics for discussion or loci for liberating theological reflection. Similarly, places like the Santa Marta Anglican Center provide direct support, care, empowerment, advocacy and community to those who face violence and discrimination, bringing a new, updated version of liberation into practice.

—

There is a church in downtown San Salvador called the Church of the Rosary, where stained glass windows cast a rainbow of light through the building to represent the Holy Spirit. While the church’s design is clearly inspired by a celebration of the working class, indigenous people and activists, it’s not clear the rainbows are an intentional allusion to sexual diversity. But when I see the rainbows streaming in behind the risen Christ, it’s hard not to see this as a powerful symbol for LGBTIQ+ liberation, salvation and resurrection. In a certain sense that is what this work means; to look at the messages of liberation of the past and integrate a vision for gender and sexuality into these discourses and efforts for liberation in the present.

In the midst of social and religious homophobia, transphobia and discrimination, local churches and religious institutions from throughout Latin America are working for justice and sharing a prophetic word. They are not waiting for the rest of the world to catch up, but are forging ahead and following God’s call.

.–

At the Pride march this year, we marched up Los Héroes Boulevard to Salvador del Mundo, one of the main centers of protest, migrant caravans and other major events in San Salvador. This was the final day participants in the conference were here. But this year, we were greeted at Salvador del Mundo with Christian protesters holding massive signs condemning LGBTIQ+ people, supposedly in the name of God. It was such a stark contrast from the ways people are treated in our churches, the conversations that week at the conference, and the queer protesters in the march holding colorful, inviting signs proclaiming, “God is not homophobic” and “Don’t use your God as an excuse to promote your hate.” The vision of those believers in the march was a God of love, not a God of hate or discrimination.

At first, I thought the Christians protesting against the march were maybe from a local anti-LGBTIQ+ church, but as I got closer, I heard them speaking English in U.S. American accents.

They were from the U.S. And they didn’t even speak Spanish.

As activists including several of the theologians present that week chased them off to the sidelines, they passed the kiosk for the Santa Marta Anglican Center for LGBTIQ+ Youth and Young Adults. There, rather than hatred, discrimination and bigotry, volunteers handed out flyers, condoms, water and brochures, telling people that this was a church program that included them, cared for them, loved them and celebrated them. Telling people that if they were ever kicked out of their homes because of the same hurtful theologies being promoted by those protestors coming from the U.S., this was a place they would be safe.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that all churches in El Salvador are safe places for LGBTIQ+ people. But on June 29th, 2024, a U.S. American church showed up to promote a toxic theology of discrimination.

By contrast, the Latin American churches, institutions and theologians showed up that day to preach a queer gospel of love and liberation.

May we do likewise!

Joseph