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“We come together tonight in the spirit to listen for tender wisdom, to listen for the stories of grit and resilience that heal, and to listen for how religion and sexuality might yet make a home together.”

With these words, the Reverend Cody Maynus opened his remarks in prayer at the Fourth Annual Grose Family LGBTQIA+ Lecture on October 23. The theme of this year’s lecture was The Role of Religion and Faith in LGBTQIA+ Culture and Community. The event featured keynote speaker the Reverend Hierald Osorto and a multifaith panel, both highlighting the world’s religious diversity within St. Olaf College’s “rooted and open” Lutheran tradition. 

“The idea behind the lecture series is that we continue to have a conversation about life in the LGBTQ community … and by having that, we could also focus on joy and the celebration of religion,” Taylor Center Director Martin Olague ‘04 said in his opening remarks.

Following an introduction by Kylee Knettle ‘26, Osorto — senior pastor at Iglesia Lutheran San Pablo (St. Paul) and longtime advocate for LGBTQIA+ communities — began the keynote with a tender memory of his baptism reaffirmation. 

“In reflecting on my own journey of faith, I’m drawn back to 2012, to the Easter Vigil at Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C,” he said. “I’m standing with my pastor at the front along with others who are reaffirming their baptism — a moment we have all come to understand as that reminder of our belovedness, a public affirmation of the community that commits to stand alongside us. My sponsor, Catherine Perry, leads us in song as we assemble for this moment. Her deep voice spelt out words I’ve known since childhood: ‘Como las aguas del río, cuando llegan a la mar.’  Just as the waters of the river arrive at the sea, so the glory of God arrives at my heart.”

Throughout the keynote, Osorto reflected on the theme of joy as resistance. “Our claim on joy is not a buffer from feeling the stress or pain of these times,” he said. In moments of hardship, faith can become a cornerstone that keeps communities rooted in joy — not to numb pain, but to approach it through the lens grace.

As he concluded, Osorto shared an encouraging story about how their congregation in St. Paul has flourished amidst political unrest, turning celebration into an act of audacious inclusivity. 

“In a season when a hostile government wants immigrants to be afraid to assemble, we open the doors of our sanctuary and crank up the amp,” Osorto recalled. “We had our first community dance party in September — that night, we danced defiantly against the forces of oppression.”

Osorto’s keynote encouraged the audience to grapple with the multifaceted nature of identity and to “use faith as a lens to embrace their identities.” That theme carried into the following panel discussion, which featured Osorto, Bishop Jen Nagel, Ameera Khan, and Rabbi Michaela Brown, who is the associate chaplain for Jewish life at St. Olaf.

Facilitated by Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community Interim Director Reverend Peter Schattauer ‘08, the panel discussion offered contemplative insights on the role of LGBTQIA+ communities in the past, present, and future — and on the forces that shape identity, history, and perspective. 

Nagel opened by sharing a biblical story she finds to be uplifting of queer communities and affirming of queer inclusion. 

“The story that I would lift up comes from the book of Acts in the New Testament,” she said. “It’s the story of Peter and Cornelius — Peter’s trying to keep the rules, but then the spirit opens him up to say, ‘You know what? These things are possible. These things are okay.’ I like how Peter is opening himself up to that; it makes a space for us to interpret that new things can happen, and new understandings are possible. That, I find, is really important.”

In a similar vein, Khan spoke about open-mindedness and “reading between the lines” as a means to uncover “the dark underbelly of history.”

“There is more to history than the books often mention, and we can find a lot of the beauty and the lessons living in the margins when we look at history with an open eye and make sure to look for what people leave out,” she says. “Just because people believe in the ocean and the land, does not mean that they don’t believe in the beach.”

The conversation turned to how faith can help individuals embrace their complex identities. Osorto touched on their time at Ithaca College, where he served as “their first director of religious and spiritual life.”

“What I found in that time was the capacity of these students, who had experienced such exclusion, to keep going,” they said. “They knew that the God that they believed in was a God that affirmed them fully for who they were. [It] was just a powerful affirmation of the role that faith can play in serving people in their journey.”

As the panel drew to a close, Brown spoke about engaging with one’s environment in ways that help communities flourish — and about confronting harm caused by religious institutions or laws. 

“It is our moral obligation to see when the law is no longer serving our community, and we have to change the law in order to serve our community,” she said. “The best religious communities that I’ve found are not necessarily connected to synagogues. They’re  groups of people finding each other and saying, ‘We know what our values are and we know the community that we want to build, and we’re not going to wait for anyone’s permission to do that.'”

The lecture ended with remarks of gratitude from Taylor Center Assistant Director Damian Waite for continuing the tradition of encouraging open conversation about LGBTQIA+ communities and what it means to approach gender and sexuality from an “open and rooted” perspective. 

As Maynus reminded the audience in closing: “May what begins here tonight help us remember that love is a public act and that your spirit is still making all things new. By your own grace, may it be so.”