Throwback Thursday: Raging Waters Revisited

When we first launched Prepared to Drown, we weren’t testing the waters. We were wading straight into them. Episode One, “Raging Waters,” opened with an invitation—and a warning. We were going to talk about faith, unfiltered. About God, justice, identity, and doubt. We were going to get soaked. We weren’t looking for easy answers or tidy doctrines. We were showing up with the full weight of our questions and asking: what happens when the faith we inherited no longer holds the lives we’re actually living?

At the time, that felt brave.

But listening back to that episode now—in May 2025—it feels even more urgent.

Because we’re not just talking about personal deconstruction anymore. We’re watching organized efforts to tear people down. To legislate them out of public life. To use faith as a weapon, again.

In Alberta, new anti-trans legislation took effect this past March. It’s already reshaping lives—restricting care, eroding dignity, and sending a loud, deliberate message: you don’t belong. Legal challenges are underway, but the damage has already begun. And once again, the tools of oppression are being polished with religious language.

We’re less than a week away from Pride Month, which much of the world will celebrate in June. (Here in Calgary, we hold our official Pride week in September—a reality shaped more by weather and logistics than resistance.) But the lead-up still matters. Pride is more than a party. It’s a protest. It’s a pastoral act. It’s a spiritual reclamation. And in a time like this, it’s needed more than ever.

I think often about something we said in that first episode: that deconstructing faith isn’t about abandoning belief. It’s about refusing to pretend. It’s about saying, “If this tradition can’t make room for truth, for justice, for my full humanity—or my child’s—then I have to ask: is this the faith I still want to follow?”

I didn’t grow up in a tradition that demanded that kind of deconstruction. The United Church of Canada gave me room to ask questions and grow into grace. But even in spacious churches, even in progressive pulpits, there’s still a temptation to whisper when we should be shouting.

Especially when it comes to 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion.

I’ve sat beside too many people who were told that who they are is a problem. I’ve heard the silence that follows when churches don’t know what to say—or worse, choose not to say anything at all. And I’ve watched as political and religious power gets braided together into something that looks holy on the surface, but burns everyone it touches.

I’m not neutral. I’m not trying to be.

I’m unapologetically an ally. And as a parent, I’m proud to be raising a teenager who is courageous enough to live authentically and name who she is, even in a world that doesn’t always make that safe. She reminds me that expansive faith isn’t just theology—it’s protection. It’s affirmation. It’s choosing to build a spiritual house where no one has to wonder if they’re welcome.

That’s what Prepared to Drown was always meant to be. Not a platform. A lifeboat. A place where people could tell the truth about their faith, their fears, and their hopes—without fear of being thrown overboard.

Back in Episode One, we talked about how faith isn’t supposed to be static. It’s meant to evolve, to respond, to grow more loving with time—not less. And when it doesn’t? When it hardens into something that harms? Then it’s not the people leaving who are in danger of drowning—it’s the people clinging to something that’s already sunk.

So here we are again, watching the waters rise.

And the question we asked back then still holds: What are we willing to let go of in order to find something more life-giving? What are we prepared to drown to protect? To proclaim?

If you’re someone who’s been pushed to the margins of your faith community—because of your gender, your orientation, your body, your politics—I want you to know: you are not the problem. You never were. And you are not alone.

And if you’re someone in a place of privilege—someone with a pulpit, a microphone, or a position of influence—this is your moment to speak. Not with safe words. But with clear ones.

Because neutrality is complicity. And faith that won’t take risks for the vulnerable isn’t faith. It’s nostalgia.

So may this Pride season—and every season—find us clearer, louder, braver. May we honor the stories of those who’ve had to fight for space in the pews. And may we keep showing up, soaked and steady, refusing to let the tide of injustice sweep anyone away.