#queer orthodox

[queerorthodoxy]

I love queer Christians, I love our faith and resilience and I love our relationship with God BECAUSE of our queerness, not in spite of it

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Thinking about victim souls and I saw this

This kind of thinking is what made me miserable. It’s as though Christians convince themselves to fall in love with suffering; it’s a religion built on the fact that you need to be broken down into bits. “You need to surrender. You need to be weak for god to be able to move through you.” With this kind of thinking, everyone tries to suffer more and more, and it becomes a type of competition to prove how awful you’re doing—how much you’re hurting. Everyone tries to be a “victim soul,” and it destroys the human spirit from the inside out.

And… yeah. I mean that’s a totally real possibility and does happen to people. But, firstly, this is a Catholic belief, not a widespread belief among the faithful; and (2) it’s not Catholic dogma (which is a teaching built into the religion), this is an unofficial Catholic belief derived from interpretations of Catholic teaching on redemptive suffering. There are many Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians who are also disinclined towards the belief in a victim soul. In fact, I think most non-Catholics are pretty truther off by it. Neither the Catholic Church, nor any other Christian denomination, considers the concept of victim souls to be dogma, or officially designates anyone a 'victim soul'. As it is not considered dogma, the Catholic Church classifies belief in victim souls as a matter of private revelation, and thus not obligatory for members to subscribe to.

But also beyond that: most christians do not teach that suffering is intrinsically good. I’d say suffering is intrinsically neutral: neither good nor evil. There’s this joke I’ve seen Catholics make about redemptive suffering that you’re going to suffer and you’re going to like it. But uhhh… you don’t have to like it. You do not have to like suffering! And I don’t know a single priest worth their vestments that would say so. Suffering, of the Self (not the Other: ALWAYS do whatever is in your power to alleviate the suffering of the Other as if they were Christ themself because the face of the Other is the Face of God), is to be accepted openhandedly as a part of the living experience and as an opportunity to participate in the energies of Christ. Temptation does not come from God, but from the adversary; and yet, the Ancestors are emphatic that without temptation there is no salvation. The wickedness and snares and fiery darts of the evil one are permitted by God for our repentance. And so we must not seek to avoid suffering by anaesthetizing ourselves — because we will suffer regardless. The cosmos is enslaved to darkness, death, decreation, and decay. But will your suffering be needless, the result of your appetites, cravings, and passions — will you become pathetic as you passively suffer the passions? Or will you suffer in the name of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful? Will you respond to temptation with self-loathing, with indulgence of vice, or with humble recognition of the need to depend on the favor of God? Will you respond to hatred with love and indifference with compassion? Will you bear the burdens of others, debase yourself both in solidarity with the oppressed and so that they might suffer less oppression and marginalization? If it is true that desire, love, eros, is the root of all suffering, will you detach yourself from your body and the desires of your body (of which there is truly only one: God), or will you allow the desire for union with God to lead you straight into the Consuming Fire to be decreated and recreated? Will you allow the Wille zur Liebe (which is the movement of God within the Self made in their image) to overthrow the Wille zum Leben? This is the Christian theology of suffering: that all things are given to you for your salvation and for the salvation of the cosmos.

To be personal (as is my wont): I believe in victim souls. To expose myself at risk of misunderstanding: I want to be a victim soul. I won’t go deep into this because it 100% overlaps with my slight passive suicide ideation (which is NOT the same thing!) but I will say, again at the risk of being misunderstood, I want to suffer materially and immaterially as a form of, not just Imitatio Christi, but unio mystica cum Christo. I want to become whole, that is, wholly unified to God in Christ by the Spirit who is Love, and permitted to offer my heart, soul, mind, and strength to the holistic salvation of those suffering the effects of Sin and Death. Victim souls are quite tied up with quite a few Catholic theories on atonement that I do not share (I am Orthodox in my insistence that the suffering is not ritualized), but I agree intimately with my companion in exile St Thérèse of Lisieux who wrote

Oh, Mother, what does it matter to write eloquently about suffering! Nothing! nothing! One must have experience of actual suffering to know the value of such utterances. … I know well now that all I have said and written is entirely true. … It is true that I have desired to suffer much for God, and it is true that I desire it still. … No, it is not frightful. A little victim of love can never find frightful that which her Bridegroom sends her …

This is what a victim soul is: a Victim of Love. Or rather, because I dislike the word victim (“No one takes my life from me: I lay it down as an offering of myself”; again, the killing is not ritualized and we consent to nonconsent), a living Martyr of Love. A Conqueror of Love. A Victor of Love. This is why I desire, especially as God makes it clear that they will not permit me to rot: to be ravished by Love and utterly consumed by the great love of God.

The promised land is only accessible to those who have been tortured. 

To suffer is to know God. To know God is to suffer.

The only jewels that shall adorn the wives of Christ are thorns and the cross.

And yet. Also I know and we all must remember: flagellation and suffering are not enough to save us. Self-flaggelation does not make us holy; God does not need our suffering; we were not created for suffering, but suffering was instituted to serve our needs: and there is only truly one need — the telos of all human behavior is union with God: adoption as children of God, theosis, henosis, happiness everlasting, glorification, transcendental continuity.

And more than suffering is required to receive true union with God. We must love: in all we do, in suffering, in compassion, in generosity, in thanksgiving, in torture, in fasting, in feasting — we must love. It is by love, by abiding in Love, that we reach the wholeness, the transcendent continuity, which we seek. Even in the face of absence and of silence, God is still to be found: in beauty, in ritual, in each other. Our companion is “the one we eat God with”. God, Our True Mother, with infinite compassion, suffers alongside us; she is never silent. God is wherever there is love. 

[theopenaltar]

See the issue is that I agree with most things the Orthodox believe theologically, but I love a good Catholic saint and Advent celebration. I guess that makes me a modern Anglican.

[dominiondoesstuff]

genderfluid jesus

[orthopunkfox]

I am no longer accepting the belief that Our Lord and Saint John the Beloved DID NOT have an extremely intimate relationship that went beyond teacher/disciple or even platonic friendship. There are three main reasons for this:

1. He's LITERALLY called Saint John the Beloved. In his gospel, he refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved" and makes it a point to tell us that he beat Saint Peter to Jesus's tomb after the resurrection. If that's not the behavior of a completely extra gay man idk what is. In all seriousness, Saint John was one of three people at the foot of the cross along with the Theotokos and Saint Mary Magdalene (don't get me started on HER relationship with Jesus). He was obviously considered extremely close to Our Lord. Not only this but Jesus left his mother the Theotokos in the care of Saint John from the cross. While as an Orthodox Christian I believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin and had no other biological children, scripture does reference other male relatives of Jesus. Whether they were his step brothers or cousins is unclear but the reality is that if John was just a friend, Mary's care would've passed to the closest male relative. Jesus wanted to make sure that John specifically took care of her, unless Jesus was married in which case his mother would've been cared for by the spouse of Jesus. It is well-known in the tradition of the Orthodox Church that the Theotokos, Mary Magdalene, and Saint John all lived together after Jesus's ascension. Indeed after the repose of the Theotokos, Saint John and Saint Mary Magdalene traveled to Ephesus where Mary Magdalene reposed peacefully. It is also worth noting that these three: Mary the Theotokos, Saint John, and Saint Mary Magdalene were the only of Christ's disciples who did not die as martyrs, John being the only one of the 12 not to meet a violent end. While there are theological reasons for this, it's clear that these people meant a great deal to Our Lord.

2. Reading Saint John's Gospel, it's incredibly clear that he understands Christ on an EXTREMELY intimate level. The other authors of the synoptic gospels record Jesus's life as man in the flesh on Earth. Each also puts his individual stamp on his account. Matthew the tax collector, the accountant, begins his gospel by listing the entirety of Jesus's lineage from Abraham forward. Luke the Physician records that in Gethsemane, Jesus's body was in such physical stress that he sweat blood. Mark, the law student gives a concise yet detailed accounting of Jesus's ministry beginning with the statement "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Saint John however begins with who Christ is, who He truly is "in the beginning was the LOGOS!" He seems to be the only apostle who truly, deeply, intimately understood that Jesus existed since the literal beginning of Time that He was the Word, the very Power that brought the world into being with the Father. While I don't doubt that the other apostles knew these things to be true, I think John actually understood it, which may have been why he was granted the vision of the Apocalypse, the fullness of the Divine Liturgy in Paradise for Eternity. Did he have this understanding because he had intimate knowledge of Jesus? Perhaps all that extra time spent close to Our Lord afforded him a deeper understanding than others. He definitely seems to understand Our Lord on a whole other level than the rest of the apostles. It's almost like when you meet your friend's partner and they reveal all of these things you didn't know about your friend before because they are afforded a level of intimacy you don't have.

3. THIS ART! LOOKS AT IT! The man is nuzzling into Jesus's lap in front of all the other disciples. Just..that's just gay. I really don't know what else to say about it. Clearly the medieval illuminators picked up on the affection vibes as well when they drew these.

I'd like to add a bit of a disclaimer here and say that Jesus having romantic or even sexual relationships during His ministry on Earth in no way invalidates who He was, why He came, what He accomplished or who He continues to be. Whether He partnered with Saint John or Saint Mary Magdalene or both, what we know and teach and hold about Him remains unchanged except that scripture is, once again, far more queer than mainline Christianity wants to admit.

[queerorthodoxy]

Even IF you believe that being queer or trans is a sin (which is a really weird way to interact with God's creation and another human being) you still are expected as a Christian to behave with love and respect for fellow sinners. Is that not what we were taught?

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

"You're not a Christian cause you're gay" "You're not a Christian cause you're universalist" (still not true btw) YOU. DO. NOT. BELIEVE. IN. THE. REAL PHYSICAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST!!!!!! You venerate the state more than you do the MOTHER OF GOD and you do not seek theosis/union with God in any conscious way whatsoever. You are an irreverant, blasphemous, and frankly idolatrous schismatic who has no place or authority telling me anything. For the love of literal Christ, leave me alone!

[queerorthodoxy]

May all my queer brothers and sisters and siblings feel loved and seen by God today