No, The Rainbow Is Not A Christian Trademark

Christians can find meaning in the rainbow. The problem begins when we act like no one else is allowed to see it too.

The first article in this Pride Month series addressed the question, “Did Gay People Steal the Rainbow from Christians?” I looked at the rainbow in the Bible—as a sign of covenant in Genesis, divine glory in Ezekiel, and heavenly majesty in Revelation. I also argued that Christians should be careful about calling the rainbow “ours,” especially when the strongest biblical rainbow images come from the Hebrew Bible—the Jewish Tanakh.

In today’s article, let’s look beyond Judaism and Christianity and see the spectrum of meaning that rainbows have had for many religions and cultures. Rainbows have been seen as bridges, bows, messengers, signs of divine presence, symbols of creation, warnings, blessings, serpents, and pathways between worlds.

The rainbow never belonged to Christianity alone. It has always belonged to sky and storm, light and human imagination. Beyond the Jewish and Christian context mentioned in the first article, let’s shed light on the rainbow’s other meanings.

Greek Mythology: Iris, Messenger of the Gods

Ever look into someone’s eyes and notice the wide variety of colors, beyond one simple hue? The colored part of the eye is called the iris, which gets its name from the Greek word for rainbow. In fact, Iris is the name of the Greek rainbow goddess, who was also a divine messenger.

While Greek and Hebrew cosmologies differed greatly, they overlap in the sense that the rainbow is a connection between heaven and earth. More than color in the sky, the rainbow is divine communication.

Long before modern Pride flags, and long before American evangelicals started treating the rainbow as if they owned it, people were already seeing it as a way humans can connect to the divine.

Norse Mythology: Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge

If you’re a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then you’re familiar with Bifröst, the bridge between the nine realms of Norse mythology. In Thor, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Thor: Love and Thunder, we meet Heimdall as the bridge’s gatekeeper and see how heroes and villains travel between worlds. It’s probably the most well-known example of the rainbow bridge that animal-lovers sometimes refer to when explaining pet deaths to children.

In Norse mythology, the bridge is a connector. It doesn’t divide—it unites. Stretching from heaven to earth, it brings together those who seem divided. It crosses the gap between those who are scared, and that which is sacred.

That is almost the opposite of how some Christians talk about the rainbow during Pride Month. They turn it into a fence, a boundary marker, a line in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed. They treat it as a symbol of who’s in and who’s out, who may claim a connection to God and who’s denied blessing.

But across cultures, the rainbow keeps showing up differently. It joins what we thought was separate.

Hindu Traditions: Indra’s Bow

In some Hindu traditions, the rainbow is linked to Indra, the god of storms, rain, thunder, and the sky. According to Religion Media Centre, the rainbow is also known as Indra’s Bow.

Christian readers will immediately make the connection: Indra and the Hebrew God both have bows. In both cases, the rainbow is more than a celestial decoration. It is something powerful. But the meanings are not the same.

In Hinduism, Indra’s Bow is associated with storm, rain, sky, divine power, and beauty. Judaism gives it similar meaning, but notes that God’s bow is not pointed at the earth. This represents not a weapon ready to fire, but one that has been hung on its peg, set aside and not in use. The rainbow represents that divine destruction has been restrained.

In either case, the rainbow played a sacred role long before Christianity emerged onto the world scene.

Buddhist Traditions: Radiance and Transformation

We should be careful here, because, like Hinduism, Buddhism is not one single thing. So, I do not want to say, “Buddhism teaches that the rainbow means such-and-such,” as if a whole world of thought could be summed up in one sentence.

But in some Tibetan Buddhist contexts, rainbows are associated with deep spiritual transformation. Lion’s Roar discusses the Tibetan term jalu, which means “rainbow body,” in connection with physical bodies of devotees dissolving into light. Seen as saintlike figures, those who undergo this transformation are described as evaporating into the various lights of the color spectrum.

This is quite different from the rainbow as seen in Genesis, Revelation, Greek or Norse mythology. But it is another example of humans seeing rainbow symbolism in something sacred. Here, the rainbow indicates luminosity and transformation. And, for many in the queer community who leave one way of being behind and step into a truer one, the rainbow becomes an apt symbol.

Aboriginal Australian Traditions: The Rainbow Serpent

As with Hindu and Buddhist traditions, we must be careful because one cannot claim that all Aboriginal Australian traditions are the same. They differ according to place, people, and language.

Many Aboriginal Australian traditions speak of the Rainbow Serpent, a powerful sacred being connected with water, land, creation, rain, fertility, life, and danger. The Australian Museum shares Uncle Badger Bates’s teaching that the Ngatyi, or Rainbow Serpents, are still with his people, make rain, “blow the rainbow after the rain,” and created water and country as they travelled.

For those who believe, these are not quaint tales but sacred beliefs that connect land, water, memory, and the identity of a people.

If someone says, “Gay people stole the rainbow from Christians,” we must answer with another question: Which rainbow? The rainbow of Genesis? Of Iris? Heimdall’s Bifröst? Indra’s Bow? The rainbow body? The Rainbow Serpent? The rainbow has been doing sacred work far longer than Christians have supposed they owned it.

The Rainbow Is Not a Fence

Across religions and cultures, the rainbow does not appear as a fence. Instead, it appears as a bridge, a message, a promise, a connection, and a sign of sacred power. That’s why the conservative Christian claim that queer people “stole” the rainbow from Christians looks ridiculously small. It imagines it can shrink a massive, ancient, global symbol into one sub-culture’s pocket so it can claim it as its own.

The problem comes when one group that claims the rainbow uses it as a weapon against another group that also identifies with it. The rainbow should not be a weapon of culture-war. Instead, it should be a symbol of divine presence big enough to include everyone.

In my next article, we’ll look at how the rainbow became a Pride symbol—not because someone stole or appropriated it, but because people needed an emblem of visibility, survival, and joy.