It is a busy Sunday afternoon, and while most churches in Nairobi are wrapping up their Sunday service, the Cosmopolitan Affirming Community is about to start theirs. This is not your typical Sunday service. It is a fellowship of people of faith who are a part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Nairobi. Some of them have left their churches because they had been told they couldn’t serve God and be queer, so they have found a safe space where they can actually ‘come as they are.’
The CAC Story
Cosmopolitan Affirming Community started as a young fellowship by six Kenyans in the LGBT community trying to understand God and spirituality. According to their website, they met Bishop Joseph W. Tolton of Radically Inclusive, who is an openly queer pastor. He helped teach and mentor them, growing the church to be one of Kenya’s prominent inclusive churches for people in the LGBT community.
Mawejje Sulah is a refugee from Uganda living in Kenya, and CAC has become his church home. He is also the Secretary of The Nature Network, an organization for LGBT refugees living in Kenya. Sulah, who was raised Muslim, joined CAC when he came to Nairobi. According to him, he loved that he had found a place that humanized his experience as a gay man.
“Their messages are about inclusivity and giving hope which is different from other churches that use the Bible to discriminate against gay people like me or people in the LGBTIQ community. This church comforts people, and it makes us understand that even though we are gay, we are loved by God, and we have every right to praise God.”
“Where two or three gays are gathered, God is in their midst”
Located in the heart of Nairobi’s city center, the fellowship uses an office meeting room converted to a church. Outside, the streets are bustling with activity, and a street preacher is by the sidewalk, warning pedestrians of the end times in Swahili.
However, the energy is different inside the room.
Like the regular Pentecostal church, worship music plays as the congregation speaks in tongues. Some of the songs are in Swahili, and others are popular English worship tunes like the infamous ‘You are the Pillar that holds my life.’
This particular service is a special one. Cosmopolitan Affirming Community had partnered with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries to host the Womanist Theology Conference. The conference was aimed to encourage women to see God through their perspective. One of the visiting pastors, Reverend Andrea Vassell, was the one who preached that Sunday at the Cosmopolitan Affirming Community. Preaching on love and inclusion, Reverend Vassell’s message seemed to resonate with the congregation as in regular Pentecostal fashion. They stood up, shouted, and raised their hands in agreement to sayings like “Where two or three gays are gathered, God is in their midst.”
Vaswell’s fiery message is one that was centered on radical inclusion. Using the female pronouns for God, she emphasized that everyone is invited to the love of God, adding that ‘the law was never made to exclude you from the community and it should not be used to oppress you.’
“I believe that human beings who are in marginalized communities such as the LGBTQI community have been harassed and marginalized in ways that have them not living life fully lived out. What does it mean when people are told that somehow they are not included in the love of God? What does it mean when someone tells you God doesn’t love you the way you are?” Reverend Vassell shared in a conversation with The Rustin Times after the service.
“Here we preach that where God is, there is love, and you are not perfect but it is not required. What is required is that you come in understanding that God loves you, and you can journey with the God of your understanding.”
Reverend Andrea Vassell believes that Christianity will evolve to be more inclusive of LGBTIQ people.
“Christianity, if you look at the history of it, has not always been what it is today. Christianity was that same faith that could not decide whether Jesus was God or not, couldn’t decide whether Jesus was fully Spirit or human. We come down to history before the Reformation; the Catholic Church charged people to have their sins removed. Our faith has evolved and Christianity continues to evolve. We continue to expand into God to the bigness, the grandness, the generosity of God and I think this is another step as we evolve and bring more people into the love of God. There are no barriers here. God created all of us and we all contribute beauty to that garden.”
For the Christians in Kenya’s LGBTIQ community, this is a safe space for them to love God and practice the faith that mainstream Christianity has said they couldn’t have because of their sexuality and gender identity. The church is also working with other faith leaders to fight discrimination against LGBTIQ people in religious institutions and fight for the rights for people to have freedom of expression, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
