JUNE 2, 2023 PRIDE How Pastor Anna aligns queer advocacy with faith CHEN LYU Groundcover contributor I first met Pastor Anna Taylor-McCants near Liberty Plaza. There was a crowd of volunteers and other people who stopped for the meals her FedUp Food Truck provides. In a place that would otherwise feel desolate, they packed the sidewalk and the benches in the park, conversations and laughter permeating the air. For Pastor Anna, the first openly queer pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, FedUp was literally a vehicle to carry God's non-judgemental love to community members who might have felt alienated by conventional church practices. “I recognize that like this building that you came in for the first time, out there there are these huge steps, those are also barriers,” Anna said. “It is a home for so many people, but also a barrier for so many others who look at this space and think, ‘I don't matter or I'm wrong or I'm going to hell. I feel bad about myself because of what the church said.’ So they don't want to be in this space. And that to me is heartbreaking. “Part of my job is to go out and find those people and say, ‘I'm sorry that the church hurt you. I'm sorry that the church was wrong. God does love you, you are valuable and you are holy in your whole existence and all of your queerness.’” Originally from Tennessee, Anna navigated a relatively conservative Christianity landscape and didn’t come out until she was 26. She said she was fortunate to find the calling in queer theology and identify the denomination she was aligned with. However, she also related deeply with the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ members in the faith community, including her wife, Monique’s struggle to reconcile her gender orientation with her faith when they first met in Philadelphia. “God was releasing me from that harmful theology into something I was running to that was life-giving,” Anna said. “For [my wife], she just kind of rejected everything. And then it took her a long time, until she met me and found the Lutheran church, to realize maybe God is not who she was taught.” Zion Lutheran Church was adorned with rainbow heart stickers by Reconciliation in Christ, symbolizing its effort to transform into an all-inclusive church. This journey involves a queer theology teaching series that highlighted Bible stories that manifest God's unconditional love beyond binary. In Anna’s preaching — from the creation of earth to the Chronos time — nothing was ever binary. As a faith leader, Anna was instrumental in aiding the transformation to inclusiveness. However, another facet of inclusiveness is to reach the members who don’t welcome the change, albeit a minority in a progressive city. Even in Ann Arbor where residents are no stranger to rainbow flags flying over church buildings, attendees of Anna’s church still run the gamut of the political spectrum. While Anna was uncompromising in defending LGBTQ+ members, she told me she still needed Above: Faith leaders Sara Cogsil, Kristin McCarthy, Anna Taylor McCants and Julie Winklepeck (left to right). Below: Pastor Anna and her wife, Monique, serving salads from the FedUp Food Truck. to walk the tightrope occasionally to make her preaching palatable to those who might disagree with her views. “It's a balance of loving the people in our congregation who aren't necessarily ready to fully embrace every color of the pride flag all the time and at the same time, I have to also love people like me who need to hear that and need to hear it from the pulpit, you know, proclamations that they are holy and that God loves them,” Anna said. “I'm trying to care for everyone.” Outside her pastoral career, Anna is an active and extroverted community member who can be spotted in many public events. She is organizing a mobile showering facility and, further down the road, a brick and mortar cafe as a community “third place” where community members from all walks of life could come in and convene anytime of the day. “There are no third spaces other than libraries and parks, and even around here you pay money to go to some of the parks,” Anna said. “So we want to create a third space that is welcoming, because aside from a library, aside from a church building, which most of our buildings are not open 24/7, we want to create another space where people can have their needs met.” Pastor Anna and her wife Monique will both be attending Ypsi Pride on June 2 and Ann Arbor Pride in August. If you see them, say hello! GROUNDCOVER NEWS 7
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