Queer Theology Quotes

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. 

The whole social order that separates people into the decent and indecent, that regulates accepted orders of bodily and economic exchange, is ruptured by a Christ who gave his life for all, but most particularly the despised, a Christ who died at the hands of a colonial empire.

Once again I was the center of an intoxicating whirlwind. The French Gestapo contained the following two fascinating elements: treason and theft. With homosexuality added, it would be sparkling, unassailable! It would possess the three virtues which I set up as theological, capable of composing so hard a body as Lucien’s. What could be said against it? It was outside the world. It betrayed (to betray: signifying the breaking of the laws of love). It indulged in pillage. And lastly, it excluded itself from the world by pederasty. It therefore established itself in an unpuncturable solitude.

As a womanist scholar, I am ever seeking to display an attitude of charity with the hope of creating opportunities for dialogue that help people survive and be made whole

As Luke would have it, what ends with crucifixion does not merely reappear restored. Resurrection declares and presents the unrecognizably new, even as traces of the familiar remain.

It’s of some interest that the lively arts of the millennial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It’s maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip — and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It’s more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we’ve hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it’s stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent (at least since the Reconfiguration). One of the things sophisticated viewers have always liked about J. O. Incandenza’s The American Century as Seen Through a Brick is its unsubtle thesis that naïveté is the last true terrible sin in the theology of millennial America. And since sin is the sort of thing that can be talked about only figuratively, it’s natural that Himself’s dark little cartridge was mostly about a myth, viz. that queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive. Hal, who’s empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he’s really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia. 281 281 - This had been one of Hal’s deepest and most pregnant abstractions, one he’d come up with once while getting secretly high in the Pump Room. That we’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that he goes around feeling like he misses somebody he’s never even met? Without the universalizing abstraction, the feeling would make no sense.

They're ghosts, surely, and Rabbit absolutely believes in them. There are things in the world, strange machinations of physics and chemistry,queer intersections of biology and theology, that Rabbit hasn't the slightest interest in assuming he'll ever understand or be able to solve. They're simply there to be believed in, and Rabbit is a born believer. He wants to believe. He has always thought of life as pregnant with possibility-- a freak twister or wardrobe the only thing separating him from another world-- so ghosts, spirits, aliens and supreme beings coexist within Rabbit with ease. There's a kind of beauty in accepting the possibility, if not the plausibility, of everything imaginable.

I do theology as a matter of survival,” explained Rev. Broderick Greer, who is black and gay, “because if people can do theology that produces brutality against black, transgender, queer, and other minority bodies, then we can do theology that leads to our common liberation.

Orthodox theology says all human beings are made in the image of God, that God does not have a gender. He encompasses gender – he is both male and female and beyond male and female. So when we only speak of God in the male form, that’s actually giving us a deficient understanding of who God is. ​​Rev Jody Stowell

Indecent Theology is a theology which problematises and undresses the mythical layers of multiple oppression in Latin America, a theology which, finding its point of departure at the crossroads of Liberation Theology and Queer Thinking, will reflect on economic and theological oppression with passion and imprudence. An

Over the years, “black theology” has brought profound new insights about race to our understanding of the biblical texts. “Feminist theology” opened our eyes to the prominent role of women in the Bible. “Liberation theology” focused our attention on the Bible’s liberating gospel for the poor and oppressed. Today, “queer theology” is illuminating our understanding of the role of sexual minorities in the biblical text. In each case, the theological insights of formerly marginalized groups have enriched the whole church’s understanding of Scripture. In the process, these liberating theologies have helped to bring many Christians into a closer relationship with God.

Whether any of us like it or not, queer people are not going away, and every day, queer kids are born into the Church. Their health and safety should be our primary concern. Is there room for them in the church? I want to believe that there is, but the truth of Elder Uchtdorf's comment depends on our ability to make room for people who sit on the margins.

As for my faith, I did not return to evangelicalism. I have traveled too a great distance theologically. But much of the time, my sense of faith feels strong, if vagrant and nameless. Of course, some of the namelessness comes from how conservatives have defined what it means to be a “true Christian.” In recent years, I have decided that they do not have the authority to disqualify me from the faith.

It's of some interest that the lively arts of the millenial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It's maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it's the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip -- and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer pressure. It's more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great tanscendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we've hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the sahpe of whatever it wears. And then it's stuck there, the weary cynicism that save us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent (at least since the Reconfiguration). One of the things sophisticated viewers have always liked about J. O. Incandenza's The American Century as Seen Through a Brick is its unsubtle thesis that naïveté is the last true terrible sin in the theology of millennial America. And since sin is the sort of thing that can be talked about only figuratively, it's natural that Himself's dark little cartridge was mostly about a myth, viz. that queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive. Hal, who's empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is thie way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.

Anyone who’s been deemed ‘unnatural’ in the face of reigning biological norms, anyone who’s experienced injustices wrought in the name of natural order, will realize that the glorification of ‘nature’ has nothing to offer us–the queer and trans among us, the differently-abled, as well as those who have suffered discrimination due to pregnancy or duties connected to child-rearing. [Xenofeminism] is vehemently anti-naturalist. Essentialist naturalism reeks of theology–the sooner it is exorcised, the better.

There are those who remain neutral, impartial, or offer solace in private and silence in public. They do not see that their neutrality and theological contemplations are as damaging as the rejection thrust upon us by others. They do not see that the promises that this will get better, but not quite yet, only when the time is right, continues to harm. I forgive them because to not find it in myself to forgive would be heartbreaking. It would consume me and keep me from God. God finds a way, despite them. LGBT Christians find a way, despite them.

Diversity is important in celebration, theology, and cosmology.

Queer abuse, assault, murder, and suicide are realities. Queer Latter-day saints are suffering, even dying. And instead of listening to queer survivors, we debate the statistics and manipulate numbers to displace our communal responsibility to care for the least among us. Too many have attempted to wash their hands of accountability. […] Queer suicide among Latter-day saints is a reality, and we all play a role in it when we cultivate an environment that rejects queer identities and relationships. Through our action and inaction, we are sending a clear message to queer Latter-Day saints, you don’t belong here.

In Gethsemane, Jesus experienced the pains of a person dying of cancer. He experienced what it is like to be a queer kid who is constantly bullied. He experienced the birthing pains of every mother who ever lived or would live. He experienced the embarrassment of a gay boy having an erection at the sight of his school crush in the locker room. He experienced conversion therapy. He experienced rejection. He experienced the brutal physical and psychological attacks that trans women endure. He experienced the acid poured on a woman’s face for her defiance to the patriarchs. He experienced the fear, grief, and sorrow of every parent who has buried their child. He experienced sex slavery. He experienced his first period. He experienced menstruation, not simply from a vagina but from every pore of his body. He experienced rape. He experienced catcalls. He experienced hunger. He experienced disease. He experienced an ectopic pregnancy. He experienced an abortion. He experienced a miscarriage and stillbirth. He experienced the Holocaust. He experienced war – both the killing and being killed. He experienced internment camps. He experienced depression, anxiety, and suicide. He experienced sleeping on the street with the homeless. He experienced the slave master’s whip on his back and the noose around his neck. He knew the fear of every black mother who kissed her son before he left the house, praying he would return home safely. He experienced the effects of unrighteous dominion, corrupt politicians, and all manner of injustice. He experienced the migrant mother with no food or diapers for her baby as she desperately walked north in search of a better life. He experienced having his child taken away from him at the border due to “legal complications.” He experienced it all – every death, every cut, every tear, every pain, every sorrow, every bit of suffering imaginable and beyond imagination. He experienced an onslaught of suffering, which was so great that it took a god to bear it. He experienced death and came through the other side to show us the way.

Queer Theory’s most influential contributors were all Marxist in orientation. Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler inherited the core concepts developed by Marxists in the first half of the 20th century and applied them specifically to studying sex, gender, and sexuality. They used Marxist theology as a launchpad for their social critiques and, in so doing, created the new flavor of Marxism that we are all dealing with today—Queer Marxism.

Marxism argues that the cycle of Man makes society and society makes Man eventually ends when Man fully realizes his creative and social nature. At that point, the State is no longer necessary because Man has realized his full humanity. The State—the divine savior—sacrifices itself and withers away. Viola! Communism. That is, the “real Communism” that has never been tried. The spoiler is that it will never be tried because it is a religious artifact of a theology based on impossible circular logic.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. Their actions flung them into a world filled with sin, misery, and death. In the theology of Marxism, Man ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in nature and learned that he could own private property and upon that ownership divide his labor, which alienates him from himself as a creative and social species. In his fallen form, estranged from his species-being (his humanity), he finds himself in a society stratified into classes, which leads to conflict, exploitation, misery, and oppression. To re-enter (and, in fact, re-create) the kingdom of God—Man’s kingdom on Earth—he must establish a communist society by abolishing private property, which is nothing more than materialized “human self-estrangement.

How may it be possible to live in harmony in the midst of distinctions among humanity?

My theological beliefs were based on the authority of Evangelical leaders. Of course, Evangelicals say the Bible is their authority, but it’s interpreted in thousands of different ways. When people say the Bible is their ultimate authority, each person has a different understanding of what the text means, which is largely shaped by the theologians and pastors they trust. I wasn’t aware that I was reading the Bible with an interpretive lens because Evangelicals claimed to have absolute, objective truth. They didn’t acknowledge their positionality, how their context shaped their understanding of the text, or how they read into the Bible just as much as they read from the Bible. In Protestant communities, the issue of authority ultimately falls back on the individual because we choose to believe the teachings of one theologian over another, one pastor over another.

We were wrong, I thought to myself. I knew it in my gut, but I didn’t know how to process it. In a community that denied personal experience as a source of wisdom, we were always told, “Don’t let your experience influence your theology; don’t trust your feelings.” I didn’t know how to tease out the dogmatic teachings from the truth, but I was very clear on one thing: I refused to believe God was “glorified” by the ruin of queer kids’ lives.

I started building a theology of queer tenderness. Nerve endings don’t split on ridges of good and evil. Pleasure cascades down both sides.

The struggle to name anti-black sentiment and anti-queer sentiment in the early 2000s was a very isolating experience. Further, naming the way that assimilationist politics were framing the LGBTQIA movement in their fight for marriage equality over against homeless queer youth and discrimination was also part and parcel of my work of naming the ways we all capitulate to the logic of the norm, an ever-expansive fold that flattens out differences and demands that we all acquiesce to the dominant culture.

I wondered if Evangelicals’ objection to LGBTQ people, and maybe their doctrine more broadly, was never about theological beliefs but about power and cultural dominance.