Pride flags stolen from a Baptist church with long history of LGBTQ+ ministry
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
First Baptist Church decorated for Pride Month. Photo: Erin Alberty/Axios
Among the recent victims of Pride flag theft is one of Salt Lake City's oldest churches — one that's part of a denomination not widely associated with LGBTQ+ outreach.
Driving the news: Pride flags were stolen this weekend from outside First Baptist Church, a congregation whose LGBTQ+ ministry dates back decades earlier than many of SLC's other progressive churches.
The intrigue: Baptist churches are widely seen as politically and socially conservative.
- That's in part due to the size and power of the denomination's largest sub-group, the conservative Southern Baptist Convention.
Reality check: Baptist churches are exceptionally decentralized among Christian denominations.
- "Congregational autonomy was a central tenet of Baptist faith" since its founding in the 1600s, First Baptist's the Rev. Curtis Price told Axios.
- That means individual congregations may vary widely in worship style, orthodoxy and political ideology.
Catch up quick: First Baptist has been a Utah standout in LGBTQ+ acceptance at least since the early 1990s, when it hosted the Salt Lake Men's Choir and the first ecumenical World AIDS Day services.
- The congregation voted for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the early 2000s when various Baptist alliances and affiliations were splitting over the question.
- The church began performing same-sex weddings years before marriages were legally recognized. When a federal judge threw out Utah's ban on same-sex marriage, Price grabbed his rainbow-colored stole and ran to the county building to officiate.
What they're saying: "There were times along the way where the church did have to kind of make some choices. And every time they chose inclusion," Price said.
The latest: Pride flags are stolen from the church grounds almost every year, Curtis said.
- Project Rainbow replaced them before Sunday services last week.
What's next: The church is hosting Salt Lake's interfaith Pride service at 7pm Thursday.