On June 7, the school held its first-ever Pride Chapel event for its lower school, in which Grace Church Schools chaplain Rev. Mark Hummel began the service by sharing a few words on the importance of Pride. Students also learned about the history of the rainbow-colored Pride flag and sat through a reading of “Twas the Night Before Pride” with their parents.

Grace Church High School — a progressive independent Episcopal school in the East Village that charges over $59,000 for yearly tuition — invited renowned New York City drag queen Brita Filter to its sixth annual “Pride Chapel” event for a live performance on April 27.
The event was sponsored by the school and organized with the help of the students and faculty advisers in Spectrum — the high school’s LGBTQ+ support club.
Brita, whose real name is Jesse Havea, performed a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The artist then sat down with the school’s queer director of vocal music, Andrew Leonard, to answer students’ questions about drag performing, queerness and the importance of pride, according to the school.
Video posted on TikTok shows Filter entering the back of the church in full drag, dancing up the aisle in a short-cut orange and blue dress and matching go-go boots as students clapped and cheered him on from the pews.
“I literally went to church to teach the children today,” the performer wrote in the video caption. “A Catholic High School here in NYC invited me to their Pride Chapel. Visibility matters and I’m so honored to have had the chance to talk to you about my work as a LGBTQ+ Drag Queen Activist.”
In another clip of the performance posted to Instagram, Filter — who was a contestant on Season 12 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — can be seen singing a rendition of the classic “The Wizard of Oz” tune, dancing up and down the aisle and up to the altar while students stood and watched.
“Who said you can’t have a drag queen at church? Would you go to this service?” Filter wrote in the post, adding it was a great experience to hear “the beautiful brave queer stories and songs from your students and faculty.”
“I will never forget this beautiful moment,” the performer concluded.
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A measure of how much more difficult it is to plant and maintain a church in Russia, as opposed to Ukraine can be seen in what happened to existing evangelical churches in Crimea after Russia seized that area from Ukraine in 2014. Pentecostal, Baptist, and other Protestant churches that had not previously been subjected to persecution from the state suddenly found themselves the targets of government raids, fines, and intimidation. Conditions in the Donbas pro-Russian separatist region which is under defacto Russian control were even worse.

Recently I shared a request from ARP NEWS for prayer and donations to help the refugees who are fleeing the war in Ukraine. Earlier I had shared a prayer request asking for prayer for the people of Ukraine and had added my own request for people to please also pray for the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine and their teachers, families, and students.
Apparently, these two requests were too much for one of my Reformed Christian Facebook friends who sent me a message demanding to know why the ARP and I were praying for and supporting the Ukrainians who are, according to him, abortion loving, “Globohomos” instead of the Russians whom he characterized as a Christian nation under a Christian leader who had outlawed abortion and homosexuality.
I wrote the following answer to him but was unable to send it as he blocked me soon after sending his message. Since I’m finding that there are many other Reformed Christians on Facebook who have similar views, I’ve decided to publish my reply publicly.
“Thank you for writing to me, I have tried to answer the concerns about Russia and Ukraine that you raised in your message, I have also tried to include links backing up everything I’ve stated here.
To call Russia “a Christian nation” is extremely problematic, to say the least. It is true that the Putin regime has extremely close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Russian Orthodox Church is almost the established church of Russia but like many established churches, the ROC uses its strong ties to the state to try to eliminate other religious groups within their country.
In recent years the Russian government has imposed laws that make it illegal to evangelize outside of an officially recognized church and attempts to get outsiders to join your church is considered illegal missionary activity. As a result, attempting to plant a new Reformed church in Russia is very difficult as the process of persuading non-members to join it is technically illegal.
The Russian laws restricting non-ROC religious activity got much worse in 2021 when Putin signed an amendment to Russia’s religion law aimed at “protecting the spiritual sovereignty of Russia.” The law requires that if a missionary or pastor received their religious training outside of Russia, say at a Reformed seminary in America or Europe, they have to go through a process of mandatory state re-education, and then be certified by local authorities.
Other laws make it illegal for religious organizations to use their own religious identifiers in their names unless they are permitted to do so by the government. Churches and church members frequently find themselves under surveillance by the state and Protestant churches and seminaries have been closed by the government and their congregations banned from using them. Because of the increasingly hostile attitude of the Russian government to any non-ROC religious activity in Russia, it was added to the Open Doors World Watch list of the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian in 2019 and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s tier 1 list of religious freedom violators in 2017 (please note this was when USCIRF was still working under the Trump administration).
True Freedom of Religion exists in a country when:
1) The government does not give preference to any one religion or anti-religious group above the others.
2)  Clergy may perform all of their religious duties without violence or danger.
3) The laws of that country do not interfere with or hinder the free exercise of the religion of ordinary people and all citizens are free to conduct their lives according to their own profession of faith.
4) The civil magistrate takes care to actively protect the free exercise of religion and as a result, religious assemblies may occur without molestation, violence, or disturbance.
All four of the principles above are actively violated in Russia, and therefore we can safely say that Freedom of Religion does not exist in Russia.
It is also important to note that the Russian Orthodox Church, which is virtually the Russian State church, formally denies all of the Solas of the Reformation including Justification by Faith Alone, and just about every tenet of the Reformed faith including all five points of Calvinism. The Russian Orthodox Church also has seven sacraments, not the two given by Christ in the Bible. As Reformed Christians, we can therefore affirm that the Russian Orthodox church does not have the marks of a true church and that we do not believe that people can be saved by believing what they teach.
By contrast, there is far greater religious freedom in Ukraine and setting up churches and seminaries and evangelizing is much, much easier than it is in Russia. And while the Ukrainian Orthodox church is also not happy about new non-Orthodox churches being planted they do not have the same hand-in-glove relationship with the Ukrainian state that the ROC has with the Russian state. For this reason, many Reformed organizations have established their church plants and seminaries in Ukraine where it was also possible to train Russian pastors even though they would be subjected to restrictions when they returned to Russia. Many other North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches (NAPARC) have strong ties to Ukraine and were a vital part of helping to establish the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine in 2008.
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In the midst of the Book of Comfort is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Isaiah 55 begins with a plea from God: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (v. 1). The invitation—echoed later in Jesus’ words in John 4 and 6—is almost too good to be true. Who would believe that someone would offer food for free? And if someone did, surely the food would not be worth eating.
But no. God goes on to plead with His hearers to forsake their practice of pursuing food that does not satisfy: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” He then reveals the goodness of the food that He offers: “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isa. 55:2–3). The food is rich, and it is good. It is no earthly food; this food, the food that truly satisfies, is the Word of God. The one who listens to God will be filled.
This is not a call to abandon all other interests than the Lord but rather a call to recognize Him as the highest pursuit. Where are we ultimately finding satisfaction? In success, money, or power? Or in the One who made us, who knows us, and who calls us to Himself? The things of this world cannot ultimately satisfy, because they were not made to. We are called to forsake our empty, unfulfilling, self-focused endeavors and to come to God and be satisfied.
God offers this rich food to His people, the Israelites. The offer is in keeping with His promises to them in the past, as He notes by referencing His covenant with David in verses 3–4. The richness of the Word of God as revealed to Israel is so attractive that other nations will come to hear it (v. 5). For Israel, it is easy to hear this Word. But still, they are urged to “seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (v. 6).
But the call to seek the Lord, as hinted at in verse 5, does not go out only to Israel; it goes out to the nations as well. All nations and all peoples are called to seek the Lord. Moreover, “the wicked” are called to seek the Lord: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (v. 7).
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