A Queer Lamentation Week
This is an article written in two voices; the first by Ginny Schneider and the second by Allison Schuster, both students at Biola University.
After the 2016 election, the campus atmosphere at Biola University, a conservative Christian college in California, became stale and stiff. Jaws were clenched as conversations about socio-political issues were shut down. While tongues were bit and cheeks chewed on, the tension from unspoken controversies remained and stretched like a rubber band over months, growing tighter and more fragile.
People in fear of deportation, queer students, and students of color were being verbally and physically threatened by their white and homophobic peers. These fears and threats weren’t and aren’t new to these groups of people, but the frequency and intensity of these threats did palpably increase. Yet, the voice of the majority of our Christian campus responded only by increasing the thickness of their silence. This could not stand. Dr. King wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” “Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.” Biola had become a Southland. We needed dialogue which meant that we needed more voices, looser tongues and open mouths.
Providentially, Lent was swiftly on its way and some faculty members, students, and alumni agreed to use this opportunity to break the campus silence.
We mounted a wooden cross on an olive tree which hunches in front of Biola’s famous Jesus mural. For Lent, this cross transformed into a memorial site for people groups in the macrocosm of the U.S. and the microcosm on our campus who have been historically victims of violence of all kinds: sexual, psychological, and physical. Each week after Ash Wednesday (March 1, 2017), a group of us would gather around the memorial to mourn, pray and confess how we as American and Christian communities have failed these people over and over and over again. Our weeks unfolded accordingly as we lamented Black lives, Immigrant lives, Native American lives and Queer lives. Right before Holy Week, there was going to be a Muslim and refugee lives memorial, but in the days following the initial resurrection of the Queer lives memorial, the pride flag that we had draped over the cross was stolen. The realization of this theft had two results; first for the Queer lives memorial to remain for another week (moving Muslim and Refugee lives to be commemorated in Holy Week) and secondly to have Biola’s queer alumni community to publicly call out Biola’s initially muted response and call on their assistance. This assistance was given as the memorial soon had the universities protection and support, but the perpetrator was not sought or caught.
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This incident highlighted those who will continue to ignore the injustices done to my people. It is expected that every community will have a few outliers who are at least disrespectful and at most hateful and violent. Even at a more liberal school, I would not be surprised if someone tried to remove symbols of the LGBTQ community. The true implications of this event come from the response of those in leadership at the school. At first, the administration seemed to be in support of the memorial. In fact, they put up a sign saying that the memorial was not to be dismantled.
There are two primary factors that illustrate how the culture of the school has failed its queer students in light of the attempts to dismantle the memorial.
Ginny and I, along with another queer alum, were interview by Biola’s newspaper, The Chimes, in response to the pride flag being taken along with other questions about the experience of being queer on Biola’s campus. Since alum had been misquoted in the paper before, we requested that their interview be recorded and uploaded in full to The Chimes website requesting that no edits be made to their interview so that their words could be understood in its original context. The Chimes agreed to these conditions and the interview proceeded. However, after the interview was finished and recorded, the paper found harm in the alum’s assertion that the “body of Christ needs to be more queer,” (in the context of the interview implying inclusion of queer Christians into the body of Christ). The Chimes asked to edit this part of the interview out, but the alum refused regarding this edit as being disingenuous to the integrity of the original agreement they had with the paper and disingenuous to the heart of their interview. As a result, the alum withdrew the interview. Ginny and I also withdrew our interviews to stand in solidarity with them. Informing The Chimes that she would regrettably be pulling herself as a source Ginny wrote, “The memorial is about standing in solidarity to persons whose experiences are neglected and narrated over by other voices. Deciding to neglect your original agreement with ---- and edit [their] own narrative does not fit with the integrity of this Lent project.” The paper’s initial intentions were and are still admirable, but it was ultimately disappointing that this opportunity to stand in full solidarity with this queer alum’s narrative was not taken.
On Easter weekend, the President of the University, Dr. Corey, sent out an internal memo to Biola faculty and staff in response to the memorial. In this letter, he called out the memorial stating that “the installation misses crucial aspects of the gospel.” These crucial aspects that Dr. Corey seemed to believe the memorial to be missing were the lament for persecuted Christians, victims of abortion and the souls of those in unreached nations. While his statement addressed many relevant concerns, it failed to understand the point of the memorial all together. The conservative Christian community regularly mourns the victims of Christian persecution, and abortion, of soldiers and police, but, more often than not, refuses to acknowledge the victimization of queer, immigrant, Black, and Native American lives by violence. Such a memorial is needed in this Christian community simply to bring more awareness to the persecution of queer lives.
Additionally, this very memorial calls out the unwillingness of Christians to make disciples of the “nations” that make up the Lent memorial. The Biola community often holds the religious experiences of minorities at arm’s length, preventing our full integration into Christianity. The content of this letter brought me more grief and anger than anything else surrounding the memorial. However, I am not angry with Dr. Corey. Between meetings with legislators and conversations with queer students, President Corey has worked tirelessly to understand and care for the LGBT community on campus. Despite investing his own concern in this area, the Biola community as a whole has lagged in its compassion. Dr. Corey’s letter addressed this issue as best he could, given the exclusionary climate on campus and his duty to seek unity among all stakeholders. I believe that the shortcomings of the letter reflect more on the culture of Biola than on Dr. Corey.
Despite the negative response from many parts of the university, there have been several reconciliatory interactions between the straight and queer community. The individual who came up with the idea for the memorial and most of those who attended the lament services are straight people. It is incredibly meaningful to the queer community that they would be willing to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ individuals without being asked. Immediately following the queer lamentation service, one of the attendees approached the queer woman who had led the service. The attendee confessed that she had been complacent in the division that exists between the LGBTQ community and the straight community, apologized, and asked for forgiveness. Her example of courage and humility has been the norm for the straight individuals involved in the production of the memorial. After a second attempt to dismantle the queer memorial, a group of students and alumni gathered to stand watch over the memorial. By and large, this group was composed of straight, cis-gendered individuals. It was comforting and empowering to feel that sense of protection and solidarity from a collection of people who usually represent a threat to myself and my people. In reflection of this Lenten season, we look forward to practicing the hard work of continuing to live in dialogue together.
On the cross itself are three pieces of paper.
The one on the top most of the cross reads,
"Lent: Lament for Queer lives. This week we will be memorializing and lamenting queer lives. Queer lives include people with all sexual orientations other than heterosexuality and those who do not conform to strict gender binaries. Much like the other groups of people we've mourned for, queer lives in our country have been and currently are targets of sexual, psychological, and physical violence. And, following in the history of violence in the U.S., the violence done to these people is often ignored, or worst justified. No violence against a human may be justified. Christians need to be pro-life for all life. Among others, today we will be mourning the Pulse shooting of last June and trans people who were murdered in 2016, most of whom were trans people of color. As we mourn for these lives lost, we will also be mourning and confessing our own indifference, as Americans, and especially as Christians, towards queer lives."
There’s a second sign that reads, "Trans lives matters: we are your neighbors" with the Bible reference Mark 12:30-31 on it. This was put up anonymously by someone on Biola's campus.
On the lower part of the cross is a Bible verse. We had a different Bible verse put up for every week and people group. For queer lives we picked this,
"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance"
(Psalm 139:13-16)
Finally there are pieces of paper hanging from the tree. On these papers were pictures and the names of trans folx who were killed in 2016.
Along with the pride and transgender flag is an American flag. Throughout this Lenten memorial, the American flag has been on the cross as a symbol of grief. Throughout American history these groups of American citizens we mourned have a history of violence and neglect inflicted upon them by their own country and their neighbors. And thus the flag's presence is one of confession of our past and present sins against our minority neighbors and our grief for it.
