Some Theological Pride Month Ponderings

Wrestling with some theological questions aloud during this Pride Month

Overview

For quite some time now, I’ve contemplated what it would mean and how it would look for me to write an elaborative, comprehensive, radical, and concise Queer Theology of Liberation for the 21st Century and the post-Obergefell era.

I’ve been asked to do this by some of my close friends, and have felt called to be more forthcoming and much more direct in my analysis of the relationship between Queer identity and Christianity, not only for personal reasons but also for one chief theological one; I believe that the question of Queer and Trans liberation within the Christian faith to be the ultimate barometer of whether or not Christians are who they say they are and the Church is what it claims to be. As far as I’m concerned, there is no “Church” if there is no Queer freedom, period.

As we in the Queer community (and I use the term “queer” in an all-encompassing manner to include the whole of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum) navigate a “Crisis of Existence”, experiencing some of the most egregious and vicious socio-political terror in the Western world since the 1980s, and with the existential threats of violence, death, and social isolation higher than they’ve been since that decade, it is incumbent on all of us, those in the theological world, to both respond forcefully and proactively create an atmosphere of total and complete freedom. Any theologian who has nothing to say about this Crisis of Existence is merely indulging in a nice hobby and is certainly not a serious public thinker nor a responsible servant of the Church.

With this personal and political context in mind, I ask that you all indulge me with a few theological reflections and ponderings that have been bubbling up in my mind, heart, and soul in the past year or so.

Hetero-Absurdity

Any theologian who still believes in heterosexuality or hetero-adjacent piety as the desired “Divine" norm of human relations is peddling elementary nonsense at best, openly aligning themselves with fascist social politics at worse, and doing both simultaneously, whether advertently or not.

The so-called “non-affirming” theological position has been thoroughly laid bare as morally and theologically bankrupt and lethal by the #MeToo movement, the #ChurchToo movement, the revelations of rampant sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Church, the collapse of the Exodus and other “ex-gay” ministries, and the rise in violence, terror, and moral panic against Trans and non-binary people.

There is no justification, in light of all of these revelations and social happenings, for a belief system that posits heterosexuality and gender essentialism as the desired norm for any society, let alone one that comes from on high by a Divine benevolent figure. Any deity whose Divine word would require human submission to hetero-social norms is one not worth worshipping and whose messengers and preachers aren’t worth taking seriously.

Any social scientist, philosopher, and public theologian worth their brain can clearly see that heteronormativity has led to a sinister historical pattern of violence, exploitation, political oppression, and economic inequality. In our context, it is the by-product of Eurocentrism and settler-colonialism and should be relegated, along with the glory days of the British Empire, to the dustbins of a tragic and horrific history that has left a path of blood and trauma in its wake. It has hurt all of us, and we are struggling and living through its socially enforced pain.

Who in their right mind can look at the current state

of human relations and conclude that God’s word in today’s world is the absolute correctness of heteronormativity?

Such an opinion is so absurd, nauseating, and ignorant that is not even worth engaging. Therefore, there is no need for yet another book about how “the Bible isn’t actually homophobic!”, nor is there any use in another podcast composed by some straight person about the “clobber passages” and “inclusion”. Conversing on the oppressors’ terms and using the oppressor’s language is a futile enterprise, and those who call themselves allies ought to join us in resisting and do a lot less negotiating.

Queer people are not a theological question to be considered. There is no question. The alternative to liberation is not worth discussing or entertaining. There is no debate. There is only freedom; total and absolute freedom, complete existential freedom. The alternative is death.

So What about Paul?

Whether or not St. Paul really meant “all gay people" are self-indulgent sinful sex addicts when he wrote his Epistle to the Romans or if he meant Roman temple prostitutes is an irrelevant question. So what? Who cares?!

Dr. Cone reminded us that theology arises out of a social context, and Dr. Pamela Lightsey reminds us that no one reads the Scriptures “tabula rasa”. All theology is in some way dependent on the objectives, goals, and socio-political disposition of the theologian, and St. Paul is no exception to this.

In addition to a Divine encounter and calling to proclaim the Gospel, St. Paul was also influenced by Greek Hellenistic culture and philosophy, Ancient concepts of gender and class, as well as a whole host of other Jewish and secular influences. Some of these influences such as his Judaism and encounter with Christ are, in fact, good influences, conveying and motivating the Apostle’s theology of grace, mercy, love, and salvation. Other influences are not good, and they manifest themselves in highly problematic verses about slavery, women, and other topics.

What is essential for any good theology is the ability of one to discern and analyze context, substance, and principle throughout the Holy Scriptures, and seek to interpret these things in today’s world. It is impossible to copy and paste ancient social norms into our current times; it is simply undoable. We do not live in the past and the past does not always mean “the good”. So we would all do well to acknowledge that St. Paul’s ancient views on gender and “sexuality” ( a concept that did not even exist in the ancient world) are just that, ancient, and thus not translatable to our current times. To use a Bultmannian term, we must “demythologize” Pauline social theology, and instead focus on his admonition against greed and arrogance in Romans, his pronouncement of salvation through Christ in Corinthians, his emphasis on the meekness and lowliness of Christ in Philippians, etc.

“Arsenokoitai” and “Malakoi” are words with little relevance to the Church today.

Enough with the Liberal defensive phrases

While well-intentioned, the terms “love is love” and “born this way” used often by American liberals are largely counterproductive, for political and theological reasons.

For starters, there is no need to qualify the term “love”. No human being can exist without it in the same way that no human being can exist without blood. Love is the pre-requisite, the default of human existence. How it is experienced and manifested by adults in consenting human relationships is immaterial and in need of no definition. It simply is what it is. Love is what it is. Thus, statements like “love is love”, which are assumed responses to those who seek to qualify love by something as asinine and arbitrary and constantly changing as human sexuality is largely counterproductive.

If love really is all that it is, there should be no attempt to defend it. Human beings don’t defend their eyes, their feet, their heads, or their noses, nor do they defend their endorphins or oxygen. Love is as crucial to human life as all of these things. Let it be simply what it is.

Likewise, the defensive term “born this way” is also counterproductive. It’s a nice phrase, a noble attempt to clarify that Queer people do not “choose” to be Queer (in the sense that sexual attraction and internal feelings around gender are not chosen happenings), but it also lends itself to gaping holes.

Do we really mean that the only justification for social acceptance of an aspect of our being is that we are “born” with said aspect? Do we believe that if Queer people were not born Queer that they would be deserving of any less freedom? Do we really want to concede that sexuality and gender are fixed identities, but just throw in Queer and Trans identities into that “fixedness”?

These questions are the logical progression of a belief system that seeks to qualify human acceptance through the idea of “worthiness”. People are to be accepted because they “deserve” it because they are “innately” who they are, and because they are “changeless”. I totally reject this idea, both on political and theological grounds.

For a politics of liberation and justice, no one needs to fill out a social application to be “worthy” of freedom. One just is free because they are free. Even if sexuality and gender identity were “chosen” in the sense that most people mean “choice”, those who are not heteronormative or manifest the gender identity assigned to them at birth would still be free people, and still totally and completely free in the eyes of the law and, in a just world, in the eyes of their social peers.

As for theology, God is who God is, and human beings are who human beings are. God does not belove humanity because they fit some arbitrary requirement, or because they are born human. God beloves humanity because He does, period. This is what makes God’s love the ultimate object of human desire; it exists because it exists, it is because it is, with no qualifier, and it is not merely sentimental love, a feeling of bliss or pleasure, it is a love worthy of death and one which exists throughout all time.

It is thus God’s love that breathes life into humanity and all of creation, that is the de facto of our existence, and that qualifies us without qualification, for lives of total freedom and liberation, the liberation of the oppressed.

God is freedom, God is life, and the humble and meek Savior is Lord. Such a God does not need us to justify ourselves before Him, we are justified through Him. A Queer Theology for our time must be rooted in this truth.