Max Spencer finds community an important aspect of religion

Sophomore Max Spencer, while more scientifically and rationally-inclined, regularly worships with his family at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul. His parents, originally members of the Catholic Church, left to join the Episcopalian community after several disagreements with the Church’s policies, including ones surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. Spencer himself does not believe in God but instead relies on his faith for personal guidance.

“[The Episcopalian] belief in the Bible is a lot looser, however, the moral foundations on which the Bible was created like “love thy neighbor,” and all of those really important messages on morality, that’s something we value above a lot of the religion stuff like believing in God, and that’s something that I actually take from the Episcopal Church,” Spencer said. “That part of my moral compass, I guess, it’s developed in community and I value it because it keeps me morally grounded.”

One aspect of his church community Spencer especially appreciates is one of its pastors, Rev. Craig Lemming from Zimbabwe, who is an openly gay man. Spencer has often found solace in having an openly queer adult as one of church’s primary worship leaders, especially when Rev. Lemming finds ways to incorporate queer culture into his teachings.

“[Craig] gave a sermon one day about drag queens, and if I had the balls to do so I probably would have talked about how great that sermon was, and how awesome is that we can have in our church community a sermon about drag queens and learning to be yourself rather than some boring stuff by some dad or whatever. It’s more interesting to listen to that than it is to hear ‘I did this with my son this weekend and I thought of Jesus.’”

And while Spencer continues to take pride in his religious community, he still takes issue with some aspects of religion as a whole, especially when interpreting scripture.

“It’s important sometimes in modern religious communities to remember what your religion was founded off of. Like, say if you have a holy text and that is the base of your religion, like Christianity with the Bible—consider who was writing the Bible. Like, what were their beliefs, what would they want to say in there, and how would they have put that in there? You have to think about stuff like that analytically.”