Standing in the River

In 2018, a small congregation in Nashville voted to become a fully affirming church. The pastor knew what it would cost — denominational funding, longtime members, the approval of colleagues she had loved for decades. The Sunday after the vote, half the parking lot sat empty.

Joshua 1:9 says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." We often read this as a warrior's charge — take the land, conquer the enemy. But the Progressive tradition invites us to ask: what if the promised land is not a territory to seize but a wider table to build?

That Nashville pastor did not feel brave. She felt grief. But she had listened to the stories of LGBTQ+ teenagers in her youth group who described church as the most dangerous place in their lives, and she could not unhear them. As Rachel Held Evans once wrote, the call of the Gospel is not to be comfortable but to be faithful.

Courage in the way of Jesus rarely looks like conquest. It looks like a pastor standing in the pulpit with a shaking voice, choosing the vulnerable truth over the safe silence. It looks like following God into the unknown — not because the path is clear, but because the Christ who walks ahead has always moved toward the margins.