Tuesday reflection: Queering sacred texts
Today we had a whirlwind introduction to queer theology and queer biblical hermeneutics by Rev. Dr. Mona West. Dr. West is co-editor with Rev. Dr. Bob Goss of a ground-breaking work of queer biblical scholarship, Take Back The Word: A Queer Reading of The Bible.
I have to say that reading this book was a very worthwhile experience. A detailed chapter by chapter review can be found here. There are so many diverse ways to read the Bible, all of them according great respect to the sacred text while at the same time queering, or subverting, the heteronormative interpretation.
One of the most interesting and inspiring chapters for me was Rev. Michael Piazza's "Nehemiah as a Queer Model for Servant Leadership." It pictures Nehemiah as a privileged queer man risking imperial privilege in order in order to carry out God's work in rebuilding Jerusalem. I also enjoyed reading Victoria Kolakowski's "Throwing a Party: Patriarchy, Gender, and the Death of Jezebel" and her discussion of court eunuchs as transgendered women. This contrasts with Nancy Wilson's view of enuchs as representative of all queer folk.
There are different ways of understanding the eunuch historically, socially and theologically — I believe we can embrace various understandings without silencing one or the other viewpoint. A lot of queer theologians focus (appropriately in my view) on the social role of eunuchs and how this allowed them to move fluidly across gender, sexual and social boundaries — just as many queers (in all our variation) are able to do today.
In today's class we discussed what it means to queer the sacred text.
Queering <=> Querying <=> Questioning
[Resisting convention]
Queering is an active word, conveying something that is in progress, never completed, never at rest. We talked about an open canon, which I thought was wonderful. Although etymologically derived from "queer" as a derogatory label for LGBT people, the primary meaning of queer transcends any particulars of sexuality, sexual orientation or gender. To queer is to challenge gender assumptions, to problematize normative approaches to sexuality, gender and power, to perform resistant or subversive readings.
We looked at the evolution of queer theology from an earlier defensive posture (pre-1995) to the current offensive one. The defensive approach is concerned with revisionism — undertaking new translations of important texts (the "clobber texts"), applying historical-critical exegesis, engaging in apologetics. This approach includes the ever important "Homosexuality and the Bible 101". It has not lessened in its importance, especially outside MCC. In fact, it continues to be absolutely necessary work and as such forms the foundation for all other queer theology.
The newer approach involves reading the text from a queer perspective, applying queer theory and frameworks, reading through a queer lens, unapologetic eisegesis. This often involves outing the Bible as a queer text, using imaginative identification and social location as techniques of reading meaning both out of and into the text.
There was some discussion of coming out as a predominant theme in the Bible. The departure from Eden, the Exodus, the captivity and return from exile, the incarnation, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus — these are all coming out stories! It occurred to me that this would make a wonderful Bible study series.
Queer theology recognizes that there is no normative, objective reading of the Bible that can be claimed independent of the biases and contexts of its readers and interpreters. But this does not mean that we cannot still love and trust scripture. In fact, queering scripture creates a safe place in the text safe for queers.
Mona talked about lectio divina as a discipline for both devotional reading and queering the text. There was discussion about whether it is easier to develop a queer reading in an MCC pastoral context than in a traditional denominational setting. I think we agreed that the project of embodying these and other theological perspectives is just as challenging in an MCC context. Our authority as pastors and teachers comes not from our theology so much as from our own spiritual journey and relationship with our congregations. Theology has to be lived to be real, to offer any real hope.
We concluded with a group exercise where we spent some time queering Matthew 1. Our group chose the genealogy of Christ. This particular genealogy in Matthew traces the royal bloodline of Jesus. As such, the bloodline passes through many women and men of dubious repute and subversive or unconventional sexuality, including Tamar, Rahab, Boaz, Ruth, David, Bathsheba, Solomon and, of course, Joseph and Mary.
Jesus, conceived as the Love-child of the Holy Spirit, has a rich and diverse ancestry that speaks of shamelessness and radical inclusion (polygamists, prostitutes, Gentiles, lesbians, bisexuals) rather than rigid purity and exclusion. Was it perhaps Jesus' knowledge of his own queer and diverse ancestry that informed and formed his own grace-filled response to outcasts and sexual minorities in the society of his own day?
Herein lies a subversive message about the origins of the gospel. Our people are everywhere in the story, hidden sometimes just beneath the surface of the text. The format of the canon has tried to closet our voices and stories, but we keep emerging from the text, popping out of the closet at the most inconvenient and inappropriate moments (in the story of the birth of Jesus, of all places).