The recent ‘Hearts Set on Pilgrimage’ training brought together LGBTQ+ individuals of faith to reflect, reframe, and renew their spiritual journeys. A key objective of the two-day session was to equip past retreat participants to become trainers themselves, empowering them to carry forward a message of healing, affirmation, and theological inclusion within their communities.
“This training is about transformation,” explained Reverend Chantell Fortuin Program Manager for Engaging with Faith Program at the Global Interfaith Network (GIN), one of the orgainzers of the session. “We challenge traditional interpretations, engage in contextual Bible study, and create space for people to see that their identity and their faith are not in conflict.” At the heart of the training is a commitment to shifting the harmful narratives often used to marginalize queer individuals within spiritual spaces.
For Dane Lewis, long-time LGBT activist, the pilgrimage is both personal and political. “It has allowed me time for reflection and building strategies to engage faith leaders and communities,” he shared. “Many in our LGBTQ+ community are people of faith. But because of painful experiences, they’ve distanced themselves from religion. This process offers them a new lens, a new way to reinterpret scripture and reclaim space in faith communities,” Lewis added.
He emphasized the importance of the training’s contextual theological analysis, “To witness how the Bible itself has shifted in its treatment of sexual and gender minorities is eye-opening,” he said. “It’s a narrative many of us have never heard, and it gives us the power to say we belong in church, too.”
Participant Khavor Brown echoed that sentiment, “I grew up believing I had to be straight and masculine to be accepted by God. This retreat reintroduced me to a God I can know for myself, who created me as I am.”
Identifying as a bisexual man of faith, Khavor shared that the experience also helped him shed years of stigma and find peace with his identity.
As the training ends, the mission continues. These participants are now better equipped to facilitate dialogue, spark reflection, and extend the invitation to others: to walk the pilgrimage of faith and truth.
The Hearts Set on Pilgrimage is an initiative, being implemented by CVC, to prepare LGBTI people of faith to participate in dialogue with religious leaders.
The pilgrimage is expected to help LGBTI people of faith to represent the lived experience of their community in conversations about the intersectionality of spirituality and sexuality, whenever opportunities arise.
