Not so Humble Beginnings: My Introduction to Queer Liberation Theologies
Prior to taking a Queer Liberation Theologies course in my third semester of seminary, I would have been able to give a clear and confident, almost bordering on cocky, answer as to what exactly queer theology was and was not. Now that I have spent a semester learning about just a few of the queer theologies found around the world, however, I am no longer sure of my once self-assured designation. I learned, among other things, that I needed to begin to queer my ideas of queerness and queer theology themselves to make space for less Western (sorry to create a West vs. the Rest line of thinking), and in some cases less American, notions of queerness. I would like to take you on a similar journey that might similarly help you begin to queer your notions of queerness and queer theology as well.
In an effort to get us in the right frame of mind, I am now going to provide the analysis of queer theology I opened the course with and then offer up some critiques of my own musings to get us in the right mindset to queer some of the notions we hold dear. So, here we go:
“For me, theology is an art form – an expression of an individual or, broadly speaking, a community’s faith in God and experience within wider creation. As long as people are still existing and seeking to express their faith in the Divine and relationship to Their creation, I believe that there is still more “waiting to be written.” Additionally, the language that we have to describe experiences, both worldly and sacred, falls far short of being able to adequately express a relationship as complex and whimsical as that between humans and Creator/creation. So, it is also my belief that, as we create more language and methods of expression and grow towards a more intersectional understanding of creation, queer (and other theologies) will continue to be written and lived.
The biggest element driving the development of queer theology, in my mind, is the basis of queer theory itself, which, to put it plainly, is to queer (used here to mean call into question the meaning of) what dominant society deems to be “normal.” To phrase it another way, the term ‘queer’ is being used as a verb, meaning that queer theology is something that you do and live, not just something that is, and if that work is constantly being done, then it must also be continuing to unfold and write itself. Queer theology is lived, and a lived theology is a story with no end.”
Y’all, I was so proud of this definition when I first came up with it. I think there are still some pieces that are worth keeping, but I cannot help but read this analysis and see the heavily Western, colonial influences that frame my thinking. For me, as I was writing this definition, it was so important to categorize and, in plain words, try to pin down exactly what queer and theology meant, but I now see that I was getting in my own way. I am a proponent of just letting queerness be “messy” and undefined, but here I could not just let queerness be (just look, I tried to isolate driving elements, proposed that we come up with new - presumably Western inspired - language to describe it, and reduced the idea to parts of speech), which actually, more than I ever could have realized, leaves out and silences the perspectives of other cultures and peoples.