Queer Theology Essay
Queer theology has developed in a period of increased acceptance of diversity in Western culture. While homophobia remains a relevant factor in queer theology, hostility and intolerance is increasingly being pushed to the margins. In this context the development of theologies of liberation has afforded queer approaches a voice. This must be tempered with the reality of inclusiveness, because the greater the recognition, the greater its effect on oppressing those that continue to sit at its margins. This includes for example, people living with HIV/AIDS, and the Transgender community. It is for this reason that relational theology is so important. Notions of what is relevant when considering sexuality and gender is informed, at least in
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part, by theologies of mutual relation undertaken in the work of people like Carter Heyward. She advances a theological foundation for sexual ethics which calls for “healing commitments” which could establish an “affirmative response to the love of God,” and I would say in turn to our love of self and other as modeled in Christ. These types of approaches have led to a more fluid understanding of human sexuality and thus a fluid theology.
For Althaus-Reid, the doing of theology is embodied in a Western approach built on an unchanging concept of theology with a dubious alliance to capitalism. For her, “the main road of T-Theology sooner or later always leads us to the same forced agreements, to similar exchanges and values of pre-understood laws of capital profit. It seldom lets us perceive the historical presence of God in different, unfamiliar surroundings.” To experience God in unfamiliar surroundings can be equated with the idea of ‘coming out,’ where an authentic God can emerge and challenge status quo. Susannah Cornwell opines on Althaus-Reid’s approach in her essay Stranger in our Midst. Sex is part of our world and it is intrinsically linked to how we live our lives, who we relate to and how we identify ourselves. These building blocks of selfhood have been defined by a male dominated, sexually oppressed, hierarchical system. This includes what happens to bodies in the name of sex and power: namely “the horrors of torture, rape, abuse, starvation and death, all the worst things that human beings can do to one another.” She sees this as an unfortunate result of the continuation of norms manifest in traditional approaches to theology. For queer Christians who have “been made stranger by Christianity” there is an opportunity to “write the traces of a strange God among us.”
Central to these approaches is a link between the radical nature of love expressed by Jesus’ life ministry, death and resurrection and expressions of love associated with queers. In this advance, I see a challenge for Christians to embrace a radical Jesus who does not conform to societal expectations. In this approach Jesus’ incarnation leads us to a path of connection with God that imagines relationships built on diversity, vulnerability and inclusiveness. This challenges everyone and creates ways to reengage for those to whom oppression of queerness has meant abandonment of spirit.
So where does Jesus sit in all of this?
Does Jesus really challenge status quo, blurring the lines of humanity and divinity by mixing the infinite and the finite? In Jesus, I would suggest life and death is not fixed in traditional ways. If we look at Jesus through queer eyes as the touchstone of God’s love for humanity we are afforded an opportunity to engage and redefine relationship with God. If Augustinian approaches to the doctrine of original sin resulted in the suppression of sexuality through a focus on marriage, fidelity and procreation, how do we look beyond that? Heyward challenges these assumptions and imagines Augustine stuck in a limited dualism in relation to God. In queer theology this tainting of humanity with original sin sits in opposition to theologies which consider sin to be our opposition to authentic relationship. For Heyward any relationship expressed through exertion of power is sin. The theological frame in response is to recapture power in mutuality and for Heyward; this is what Christ models for us. It is our refusal to accept our rightful place within the imago dei and live with authenticity in mutual relation that is sin. Interestingly, the imago dei has been used to categorize the space that exists between the human Jesus and the divine Christ. Queer sexuality introduces fluidity to such compartmentalization and allows us to see beyond the constructs that limit our traditional view of sin. Through queer theology we are challenged to move beyond categories, embrace a radical notion of what constitutes sin, and open a new way of understanding relationship with God. Jesus’ incarnation in a queer theological frame is a new point of contact that has been lost in traditional approaches to this
doctrine.
For Moxnes, queer theology provides an opportunity for us to look at Jesus with a new sense of place. He likens the Christian conversion experience and resultant change of identity to a ‘coming out’ experience. Both experiences express a change of identity that is embodied as a new way of doing things. It is a new relationship between body and space. Moxnes applies this same logic to Jesus. He questions whether Jesus’ dislocation in a spatial sense, either by his call to people to pick and go from one place to another (Matthew 4:18-22) or through inviting people to leave an old era and enter a new one (John 8:12), becomes part of this “change of identity.”
Because household was so important in Jesus’ lifetime, the call to leave household and experience relationship in other ways was “queer.” Jesus seeks to destabilize us from a sense of comfortable place into places where we are uncomfortable. Ideas of place have shifted over centuries for many reasons, not the least of which through a Christian sense of world conquest and the entitlement of individualism. Jesus can be seen as a person who lived in a place of oppression in circumstances similar to oppressed peoples today. Seeing Jesus in a new sense of place through the dislocation of a queer theological approach can help us to re-image relationship with Christ. Moxnes calls this the “zone of possibility.” Approaching sin this way links it to our engagement with oppression as opposed to focussing on individual action.
Jesus’ death and the conquering of sin are not about any particular groups issues for Susannah Cornwall. Jesus did not die so we all could be equal, but for something much more. If we look at sin in a societal rather than individual context, it is no longer about toleration, it is about integration. Queer theology challenges us to view sin through relationship built on connection, or lack thereof, rather than guilt or shame. This approach frees queers from the oppression that has dominated their lived experience and calls all people to challenge identity and live authentically.
part, by theologies of mutual relation undertaken in the work of people like Carter Heyward. She advances a theological foundation for sexual ethics which calls for “healing commitments” which could establish an “affirmative response to the love of God,” and I would say in turn to our love of self and other as modeled in Christ. These types of approaches have led to a more fluid understanding of human sexuality and thus a fluid theology.
For Althaus-Reid, the doing of theology is embodied in a Western approach built on an unchanging concept of theology with a dubious alliance to capitalism. For her, “the main road of T-Theology sooner or later always leads us to the same forced agreements, to similar exchanges and values of pre-understood laws of capital profit. It seldom lets us perceive the historical presence of God in different, unfamiliar surroundings.” To experience God in unfamiliar surroundings can be equated with the idea of ‘coming out,’ where an authentic God can emerge and challenge status quo. Susannah Cornwell opines on Althaus-Reid’s approach in her essay Stranger in our Midst. Sex is part of our world and it is intrinsically linked to how we live our lives, who we relate to and how we identify ourselves. These building blocks of selfhood have been defined by a male dominated, sexually oppressed, hierarchical system. This includes what happens to bodies in the name of sex and power: namely “the horrors of torture, rape, abuse, starvation and death, all the worst things that human beings can do to one another.” She sees this as an unfortunate result of the continuation of norms manifest in traditional approaches to theology. For queer Christians who have “been made stranger by Christianity” there is an opportunity to “write the traces of a strange God among us.”
Central to these approaches is a link between the radical nature of love expressed by Jesus’ life ministry, death and resurrection and expressions of love associated with queers. In this advance, I see a challenge for Christians to embrace a radical Jesus who does not conform to societal expectations. In this approach Jesus’ incarnation leads us to a path of connection with God that imagines relationships built on diversity, vulnerability and inclusiveness. This challenges everyone and creates ways to reengage for those to whom oppression of queerness has meant abandonment of spirit.
So where does Jesus sit in all of this?
Does Jesus really challenge status quo, blurring the lines of humanity and divinity by mixing the infinite and the finite? In Jesus, I would suggest life and death is not fixed in traditional ways. If we look at Jesus through queer eyes as the touchstone of God’s love for humanity we are afforded an opportunity to engage and redefine relationship with God. If Augustinian approaches to the doctrine of original sin resulted in the suppression of sexuality through a focus on marriage, fidelity and procreation, how do we look beyond that? Heyward challenges these assumptions and imagines Augustine stuck in a limited dualism in relation to God. In queer theology this tainting of humanity with original sin sits in opposition to theologies which consider sin to be our opposition to authentic relationship. For Heyward any relationship expressed through exertion of power is sin. The theological frame in response is to recapture power in mutuality and for Heyward; this is what Christ models for us. It is our refusal to accept our rightful place within the imago dei and live with authenticity in mutual relation that is sin. Interestingly, the imago dei has been used to categorize the space that exists between the human Jesus and the divine Christ. Queer sexuality introduces fluidity to such compartmentalization and allows us to see beyond the constructs that limit our traditional view of sin. Through queer theology we are challenged to move beyond categories, embrace a radical notion of what constitutes sin, and open a new way of understanding relationship with God. Jesus’ incarnation in a queer theological frame is a new point of contact that has been lost in traditional approaches to this
doctrine.
For Moxnes, queer theology provides an opportunity for us to look at Jesus with a new sense of place. He likens the Christian conversion experience and resultant change of identity to a ‘coming out’ experience. Both experiences express a change of identity that is embodied as a new way of doing things. It is a new relationship between body and space. Moxnes applies this same logic to Jesus. He questions whether Jesus’ dislocation in a spatial sense, either by his call to people to pick and go from one place to another (Matthew 4:18-22) or through inviting people to leave an old era and enter a new one (John 8:12), becomes part of this “change of identity.”
Because household was so important in Jesus’ lifetime, the call to leave household and experience relationship in other ways was “queer.” Jesus seeks to destabilize us from a sense of comfortable place into places where we are uncomfortable. Ideas of place have shifted over centuries for many reasons, not the least of which through a Christian sense of world conquest and the entitlement of individualism. Jesus can be seen as a person who lived in a place of oppression in circumstances similar to oppressed peoples today. Seeing Jesus in a new sense of place through the dislocation of a queer theological approach can help us to re-image relationship with Christ. Moxnes calls this the “zone of possibility.” Approaching sin this way links it to our engagement with oppression as opposed to focussing on individual action.
Jesus’ death and the conquering of sin are not about any particular groups issues for Susannah Cornwall. Jesus did not die so we all could be equal, but for something much more. If we look at sin in a societal rather than individual context, it is no longer about toleration, it is about integration. Queer theology challenges us to view sin through relationship built on connection, or lack thereof, rather than guilt or shame. This approach frees queers from the oppression that has dominated their lived experience and calls all people to challenge identity and live authentically.