i wrote this paper for a class in seminary but i think it's a good introduction to some of the ways that i do theology. hope you enjoy it.
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I find myself in the middle of many worlds these days. I ride the line between the Christian world and the queer world; between the feminine and the masculine; between the city and the suburbs; between the Christian and the secular. I straddle the fence between all of these worlds and try to keep some semblance of balance in my life and my faith. This attempt at balance influences everything I do, and it especially influences the way I approach theology and the way I approach doing church.
My social location is complex. I come from a home with an incredibly strong mother and a mostly absent father. I grew up in a fundamentalist and evangelical family. I was steeped in that tradition until well into my college career. After realizing that I was queer I took a lot of time reevaluating my relationship to both the church and God. In shaking off a lot of the ideals of my fundamentalist upbringing I was able to find a balance in my life that had since been absent. I was able to balance both my sexuality and my Christianity. Finding that balance was a revelation to me; that I could be both fully who I am and who I am called to be.
Coming to these conclusions didn’t happen overnight, though, and I had to read a lot of theology before coming to some of my own conclusions. In light of this, I realize how important it is that we do really honest theology and do it in a way that has the most integrity.
I have had some time to work with queer youth at an overnight camp and in that experience I leaned that it is imperative that we bring all of who we are to both life and interpretation. And I also realized how important it is for queer adults to be standing in the gap between sexuality and spirituality to help a generation of queer youth who are coming out younger and younger to walk the path between being both a queer child and a child of God. Also in this situation I must reiterate my point about doing theology with honesty and integrity. The way we interpret texts and express them to either our congregants or our neighbors and friends influences them on their spiritual journey. This is not a solitary or closed off endeavour. Another thing that struck me in working with queer youth is that the theology you give them must also translate into giving them the strength, the words, and the permission to speak liberation into the contexts they came from. It’s one thing to do theology in such a way as to allow them to feel good about themselves at camp; it’s another to give them the theology and the resources to go back home and to deal with their families, their schools, and their churches.
I bring all of these different worlds together in biblical interpretation. All of my history combines with my training to try to find meaning in texts that have sometimes been misunderstood or used to oppress. My passion comes from highlighting the balance; for lifting up the things that bring the most liberation to all people. I also find meaning only in walking with people on their own journeys in and through these texts that hold so much power in our lives and in our country.
The three different types of interpretation that strike chords with me are: postmodern, queer, and liberation theologies. I will organize this paper in that order as I move through different categories of both my interpretation and references to my social location as well. I see each of these interpretational theories as flowing out from each other, and the reason I look at it this way is that I look at theology as a pastoral enterprise. For me it’s not just about coming up with a great interpretation of a certain text (although that definitely plays into it), but it’s also about coming up with interpretations that breathe new life into our way of doing things and breathe freedom into our own spirituality and the spirituality of the lives of the people we minister to.
Postmodern theology is really interesting in that it is an attempt to break down what we “know” and how we know it. It’s all about questioning assumptions and moving past absolute truth. Growing up my life was only absolute truth. Everything was black and white; shades of grey were not allowed to exist under any circumstances. When I had a long period of doubt in college I was petrified that I would lose my faith. In a church that emphasizes absolutes above everything else there is no room for doubt and no room for questions. So when I found a church in which the questions were not only accepted but also embraced, my heart sang for joy. It gave me a new life, not only in the sense of allowing intellectual integrity for the first time, but it also opened up new avenues of biblical interpretation.
Postmodern theological interpretation questions all of our assumptions, and it allows for movement and growth. It allows people to find their interpretation differently from other people. It allows a sense of freedom and breathing room. The idea that truth is relative to a certain time and place was imperative for me to learn and to understand, and I bring that sensibility to biblical interpretation now. When I read about a passage that forbids women from speaking in the church, instead of throwing the passage out, instead I realize that there is a certain historical construction around that passage. It was written for a specific group of people in a specific time. Postmodern theology frees us from taking that passage and making it an absolute imperative for all times and all places. Instead we can understand that passage in it’s own context and come up with new imperatives or lessons for today.
The other thing I appreciate about postmodern theology is the questioning of the way we do church and live our Christian lives. I realize this isn’t exactly the same as interpretation, but it fits together in that the way we interpret the Bible feeds into the way we do church and the values that we hold to when speaking about religion and living a Christian life. Postmodern theology allows us to say, “There is no one right way to do this.” Instead of trying to fit new ways of thinking and new interpretations into old modes of acting we can instead free ourselves from that to come up with entirely new ways of doing church. There is no mandate for having a hierarchical structure. Church can happen in someone’s living room, or out in a field. There is no one right way to live. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t ethical imperatives, but we understand that it is possible to move past absolutes and still live a moral and good life. It is possible to be a Christian and to follow in the path of Christ without having absolute moral imperatives.
So in interpreting Scripture using the postmodern theological interpretation we find the balance between no absolutes and chaos. We find new ways of being and doing. We free ourselves from one right interpretation.
After I was introduced to postmodern theological interpretation and I was able to ask my questions and find my own answers I became fascinated with trying to understand the biblical passages surrounding homosexuality. In my own journey asking my questions came first and when I was able to live my Christianity with intellectual integrity, then living my life as an openly queer person came next. It was important for me to find the balance between finding new ways of doing things and from being totally disconnected from tradition or from any norms at all. So enter queer theological interpretation.
I must begin with a bit of a disclaimer; I have a lot of problems with most queer interpretational theory that is out there. You can blame it on my conservative upbringing, or you can blame it on my very conservative views about sex, but whatever the reason I find a lot of queer interpretation to be really distasteful.
There seems to be two extremes when dealing with queer interpretations of the Bible. The one extreme is to pretty much dismiss the Bible as even important and to instead talk about a theology where there are no rules at all and God is whoever you want God to be and there are no ethical ramifications to any of our behaviour. I find this use of queer theory to be not only unbiblical but also dangerous. A lot of that comes from talking about the norms for sex, and here I will display my own bias. I think biblical interpretational theory that makes any and all sex for queer people acceptable and okay is disingenuous to queer people. I’m not saying that there should be strict norms surrounding queer sex, but at the same time an anything goes attitude is dangerous to our community. What I long to see from queer biblical interpretation is a really healthy view and understanding of queer sexuality cemented in relationships and centered on love and mutual respect. I long to see a queer interpretational theory that takes seriously the ideas of relationships and community and find a positive ethic for sex within that framework. I believe that queer interpretations of the Bible can be used to do this.
The other extreme that queer interpretation falls into is to read too much into certain biblical passages so that the Bible becomes a queer novel if only you read it correctly. I think at times this use can be helpful, but when it’s overdone I think it becomes dishonest to both a healthy reading of the Bible and to the queer community. I think a queer interpretation of certain passages is stretching a bit too far, it seems since we don’t have any or many biblical role models we then go to the other extreme as a community and make the Bible filled with questionably queer characters like David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and even in some cases Paul. While having role models is important inventing them does no service to anyone.
So how would I use a queer interpretation of the Bible? Again, I would use it to find the balance between all of the different parts of the community and our lives. I want to see us establish a healthy queer sexual ethic, to encourage queer relationships, to challenge gender norms and stereotypes and to provide freedom to live our lives as we were created. I want us to be able to take the Bible seriously but not literally. I want us to neither discount parts of the Bible that we find difficult, nor read our own lives into places where they don’t exist.
Another aspect I see of queer interpretation is the blurring of gender and gender norms. I think queer people and queer experience has a lot to lend us as we navigate the difficult path of gender in our church and theological lives. A lot of queer identity revolved around the blurring of gender norms. As queer people we bring this aspect of our lives into our relationships with each other and with heterosexual people as well. In bringing this aspect into our Biblical interpretation we help to find new ways to balance the various genders and to find voice for all people within the Scriptures. I see myself being particularly involved with this as a transgendered person. I identify as neither male nor female: a berdache of sorts. I feel that my unique gender identity allows me to approach queer interpretation in a valuable way; a voice speaking from the void in between the two most common genders; a voice that is neither separate from nor a part of either. I appreciate this perspective that I can offer and bring it to interpretation. I want to move past traditional queer interpretations and find a new way to bring queer theory to life in the study of the Bible. When we bring all of ourselves to the interpretation of the Bible we allow others the room to bring themselves as well. I think to look at the Bible from a transgendered perspective lets us look at passages that seem to condone specific gender roles as universal norms in a new way. We get the chance to ask how those norms affect us now that we understand more about gender, and we get to ask the questions about how this affects people who were born into a body whose sex does not fit their gender. Not only that, but as a transgendered person I feel like I have a special role to play in doing theology and guiding conversations between people of conventional genders in such a way that I can empathize with both points of view in a way that people who are specifically gendered possibly cannot. I referred earlier to the berdache tradition. The berdache tradition is a Native American tradition of people who stood between the genders. They were considered holy people and were looked upon not only as healers but also as conflict solvers for disputes that arose between genders. I see transgendered folks continuing in that tradition today. That is very specifically a large part of my call and influences the way I do theology.
As we move from queer theological interpretation we look toward liberation theology. In my own life and experience I have found that once I am able to bring balance between my spirituality and my sexuality I want to help others find that same balance in other areas of their lives. Now that I am able to embrace a spirituality of questions, and able to embrace my queerness in relation to my religiosity, I find that I want to help other people to find that balance between the differing aspects of their lives.
What I love about liberation theology is the emphasis on freedom for every person. There is especially an emphasis on bringing to light the voices of those who have no voice, but not only giving voice to the voiceless it seeks to liberate people from all forms of oppression whether it is poverty, patriarchy, or whatever else. I think this is the next step, for me at least, in my interpretational theory. Once I have moved past asking the questions and being comfortable with challenging structure, coming to terms with a queer interpretation (blurring the lines that we can but still taking the Bible seriously), we move to an ethic about trying to find freedom in the midst of all of our circumstances. I see liberation theology as not just speaking to issues of wealth and poverty, but also dealing with issues of oppression on other scales as well. From my perspective I think of the oppression that queer people face in society and in churches as well. I see liberation theology speaking to that experience. By using liberation theology it allows you to examine the structures that exist and to try to find ways around structural oppression and also to find ways to move through it to find freedom even when living within the oppression.
How do queer people find liberation in a country and church that doesn’t condone queer marriage? You find a way to subvert the system and to live as if the change had already taken place. To give an example from my own life: My partner and I went to Canada and got legally married there. Though our marriage holds no standing in the United States (we have a New Jersey civil union, but it’s a case of separate and not equal we well) we still claim the term of marriage and I call Steph my wife. In these small ways we have found liberation in the midst of oppressive and unfair structures. We find liberation by going to the churches that do extend welcome to us. I find liberation in biblical interpretation that emphasizes the grace and love of God.
But liberation theology has a long way to go. How does it speak to people in countries where being out as queer is totally not an option because it’s dangerous? How does liberation theology speak in American politics to the notion of separate but equal? I think part of the solution is to understand and raise up the notion that God is in the plight of the oppressed and part of the solution is to raise up those who have been silenced and to do theology in such a way as to provide them with the opportunity to have a voice.
Theology, to me, only works in the context of action. Without the action, then theology is just history and finding meaning of a dead text, so for me to talk about theology at all must also translate into action, especially with liberation theology. With this in mind, I realize that I talk about theology in the context of lived realities and ideals. I find this to be an important way to approach theology because none of the theology or interpretation that we do is done in a vacuum. Our theology influences how we live our lives and if effected by our priorities and the things that are important to us. For me, these three interpretational theories highlight very well the mission I see in my life and the ideals that I hold. I see the first two interpretational methods as ways to help us integrate the various parts of our own lives and understanding, then liberation theology flows out of that to influence our actions. I realize I write this from a privileged place; one that does not suffer from poverty, but again I reiterate the idea that liberation theology is not only about issues surrounding poverty, but is also about all of the places where people are not free.
My own experiences drastically affect all of my understandings of doing theology. I think back especially to my time at the queer Christian youth camp this summer and realize that these three modes of theology influence my work there and with all people. I want to walk with people in finding the space they need to ask the questions about religion that trouble them. They need to have the space to challenge the conventional views that have been given and to come up with new ideas for meaning and for a framework of approaching both the Bible and the church. Once someone has been freed up in this way they are able to have the room within themselves to start integrating the things that they may have pushed into the shadows before, or the things they were afraid to deal with. For queer youth that issue is probably their sexuality. In light of that, now they must come up with a theology that allows them to feel loved and accepted as who they are, and even more importantly deal with the Bible in a way that is affirming to them as well as being challenging. Once this has been achieved (at least somewhat as these things are always lifelong journeys that overlap each other), then they can move on to helping others find liberation for the things they face as well as creating liberation for themselves in the context of oppressive structures.
Again, for me, theology cannot be divorced from action or from lived meaning, so to talk about integrating the various parts of oneself is not to talk about something that is different from theology. They way we interpret the Bible directly influences the way we live our lives. To interpret with that in mind, I think, is one of the most valuable things we can do both as theologians and pastors.
We bring all of ourselves to our roles as theologians. All of our social locations influence the way we interpret the Scriptures that have been handed down to us. I take on that responsibility with the knowledge that whom I am influences in drastic ways the interpretations that I come to. But I also take on interpretation with the understanding that I have a unique contribution to make to the field of theology and I hope that I can approach theology in such a way that I live it in my own life and that it can affect the lives of others in a way that allows them to have complete freedom, both within and without.
