On the morning of Friday, Feb 6., Associate Minister Josh Rumple arrived at First Congregational Church in downtown Colorado Springs and found the church’s rainbow banner reading “a just world for all” had been torn down. Again. Some variation of the banner has been hanging on the front of First Congregational since 2021, and since then it has been stolen or torn down multiple times.
“It’s been about a year since it happened last,” said Rumple. “It’s been a while. Last one was around February of 2025. The prior one was Christmas Eve 2024, and then there were a couple of other occasions that year as well.”
First Congregational Church was founded in 1874, the same year as Colorado College, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. First Congregational is part of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a progressive Christian denomination.
“We consider ourselves a big tent denomination, which means there are people of all political and theological persuasions that call themselves a part of the UCC,” said Rumple. “In short, there are Trump-supporting UCC churches and very progressive UCC churches. For the most part, the UCC is a progressive denomination, though our polity is such that every congregation operates on its own. No one is telling us what to believe as a congregation, which makes it complicated and messy. I can speak on First Congregational Church’s behalf that we are a progressive church. There are, within our congregation, people who hold generally more conservative beliefs. There are atheists in agnostics who call themselves members of our church. Being a non-creedal church means there’s no beliefs that hold us together, but the values of our congregation are generally more progressive.”
UCC pastors from the Pikes Peak Region are a common sight at local protest events. Last month, Rumple stood alongside First Congregational’s Pastor Lee Ann Bryce during an emergency rally on the evening of Jan. 7 in response to the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. On April 5, 2025, Heather McDuffee, pastor of Community Congregational Church of Manitou Springs, addressed a crowd of approximately 3,500 people on the steps of Colorado Springs City Hall during the Hands Off protest.
Part of UCC’s commitment to progressive values is the inclusion of LGBTQ people. While many mainline Christian denominations have moved towards adopting an “open and affirming” stance, many conservative denominations maintain a traditional view of human sexuality and gender, and place restrictions on individuals who are actively involved in same-sex relationships or who identify as transgender.
“We have held an open and affirming policy and stance since 1999,” said Rumple. “No matter who they love, how they identify, what pronouns someone uses, where they come from, how much money they make — they are welcome here in all levels of the church. It’s not just saying you can sit here on a Sunday morning, but you can serve as pastor here, like our current lead minister is an out and proud lesbian.”
That position has led to conflict for many UCC churches. Last June, Community Congregational Church of Manitou Springs’ pride display was burned. “Sadly, people who can’t regulate their emotions in healthy ways commit these types of hate crimes,” wrote McDuffee in a statement on Facebook. “And so I pray for them. And instead of casting blame, Beloved Community, we are going to respond by tightening up on our security. And we are digging into faith. I am of the belief that this vandalism is a sign that we are doing the right and faithful thing. Our church is living in contrast to an environment of hate. We are living a life worthy of the Gospel. As Glennon Doyle said, ‘May we each live so fully that Westboro pickets our funeral.’ I ‘Unsubscribe’ to fear and hate. And I ‘Subscribe’ to faith. Because the opposite of fear isn’t courage or even foolishness. It’s faith. So I choose faith because faith is always worth the risk.”
Video footage provided by First Congregational Church’s neighbor shows a man in a long coat or perhaps a cape, with a dog, walking by the church and then stopping to remove the banner. Rumple said First Congregational isn’t planning to file a police report. “We aren’t angry at them,” he said. “We don’t want them just to be punished. But we would love them to know what kind of impact this has on our community, the level of fear that we experience in light of Club Q, for example. We know that violence is possible. Tearing down a banner might just be an ideological theological concern of theirs, but it makes us feel scared and vulnerable. We want them to know, if I was sitting across from somebody, I would sincerely want to tell them in the words of Jesus, ‘I forgive you for you know not what you’re doing.’ There is no ill will towards anybody. We want them to know that this is impacting real people’s lives.”
