Queer Theology (is not about being right)

"Radical Love" book cover. Image source.

So I recently read the book Radical Love: Introduction to Queer Theology, by Patrick S. Cheng. Let's talk about it.

First, Cheng discusses the terms "queer" and "queer theology." "Queer" can mean a few different things: It's an umbrella term for LGBTQIA identities, but it's also about challenging societal norms. Cheng constantly uses the terms "erasing the boundary" and "dissolving the boundary" throughout the book, and that's essentially what "queer theology" is to him. For example, one could say that the existence of trans and nonbinary people erases the boundary between the binary categories "male" and "female."

This "dissolving" of "boundaries" is a good thing, he says. It's what "radical love" is, and it's the point of Christianity:

[page x in the Introduction] Radical love, I contend, is a love so extreme that it dissolves our existing boundaries, whether they are boundaries that separate us from other people, that separate us from preconceived notions of sexuality and gender identity, or that separate us from God. It is the thesis of this book that the connections between Christian theology and queer theory are actually much closer than one would think. That is, radical love lies at the heart of both Christian theology and queer theory.

Radical love is at the heart of Christian theology because we Christians believe in a God who, through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, has dissolved the boundaries between death and life, time and eternity, and the human and the divine. Similarly, radical love is also at the heart of queer theory because it challenges our existing boundaries with respect to sexuality and gender identity (for example, "gay" vs. "straight," or "male" vs. "female") as social contructions and not essentialist, or fixed, concepts.

I like this because it is so far beyond what Cheng refers to as queer "apologetic theology" (page 27). "Apologetic theology" means making an argument that yes, it IS possible to be Christian and LGBTQ- challenging traditional teaching about "biblical marriage" and such. Personally, I am SO OVER queer apologetic theology. Yes, it was a phase I had to go through, because I used to be a "the bible is clear" evangelical. I had to go through all the arguments about the "clobber texts" and discover that there are ways to 100% support LGBTQ people while also believing the bible is inerrant.

But I'm so OVER that now and I'm not really interested in those discussions anymore. I now believe we should listen to people and believe them when they talk about their own personal lives and their own needs. That's how you love people- not by carefully parsing through ancient Greek vocabulary, as if you're not allowed to treat people with respect until you can find an interpretation of a bible verse that gives you permission. To me, it no longer matters if the bible says queer identities/behaviors are sinful. Whatever. The bible is wrong sometimes.

And Cheng's book isn't about apologetic theology. It goes so far beyond that, and I love that. Instead, it's about drawing connections between Christian doctrines and queer experiences. The book goes through tons of different Christian concepts- God, the Trinity, creation, Mary, atonement, the Holy Spirit, sacraments, etc- and gives examples of how queer people can relate to them, or how these Christian concepts are about "dissolving boundaries."

For example, the doctrine of divine revelation is like coming out. It dissolves the boundaries between divine and human, between the powerful and the weak, and between knowing and unknowing. (pages 44-48)

Some of his examples are quite a stretch, though. Page 102 says the Holy Spirit dissolves the boundary between sexuality and church, because the Holy Spirit guided Troy Perry to found the Metropolitan Community Church in 1968, specifically as a safe place for queer people. Like... okay... so... this one very specific event is being used to support the idea that, in general, the Holy Spirit dissolves the boundaries between sexuality and church? That doesn't really follow.

And page 101 says, "In a way, the Holy Spirit is like gaydar; it helps direct us to radical love, whether divine or human." ... what? The Holy Spirit is like gaydar? Lolololol what? This is a very shaky analogy.

But, really, the point of queer theology isn't being "right." This isn't about giving well-supported arguments to convince people that this is the correct way to understand certain doctrines. That's how I did theology back when I was evangelical, but that's not how the theology in this book works at all. Instead, it's about making analogies and giving examples to draw connections between Christian ideas and queer experiences. It's about how queer people can find meaning in these Christian concepts- not about the "correct" interpretation of various doctrines. So perhaps some of the analogies in this book are meaningful for you, and some aren't. That was the case for me. Gave me some interesting stuff to think about, but it's totally okay that I completely disagreed with some parts.

The book isn't saying "This is the RIGHT thing that you need to believe." Instead, it's "Here are some interesting examples of how queer Christians connect their faith and their queerness."

(And actually, the New Testament writers also did this "drawing connections that didn't necessarily make logical sense" thing. For more on that, see my blog series reviewing "The Bible Tells Me So" by Peter Enns.)

Note, however, that "queer theology is not about being right" is how I would put it, and I can't say whether Cheng would agree with my wording. I use this wording because my background is evangelical and so when I read about theology I expect the writer is trying to say "here is the correct thing Christians should believe" and so I need to realize that's not what Cheng's book is supposed to be, or else the whole thing would make no sense. (Because wow, some of these analogies are so flimsy, I really hope he's not claiming they are all literally absolutely correct and every Christian should believe them.)

And it's a good thing the book isn't trying to force me to believe these things, because there is A LOT in here that is NOT inclusive of asexuals. A lot that assumes everyone likes sex, or connects pleasure with sex, or assumes that an extremely emotionally intimate relationship is necessarily sexual.

Here are some examples:

[page 58] For Althaus-Reid, the Trinity needs to be understood as an orgy, which breaks down the privileging of binary or pair-bonded relationships. Initially, the Trinity appears to be an example of "restricted polyfidelity" in which the three persons of the Godhead are themselves in a closed, or faithful, sexual relationship. However, Althaus-Reid argues that each person of the Trinity has her/her [sic???] own closet of lovers and "forbidden desires" (for example, Jesus' relationships with Mary Magdalene and Lazarus), which in turn results in the death of the "illusion of limited relationships."

When I read this, I was like, "HEY! Just because the 3 members of the Godhead know each other completely, that necessarily means that their relationship is sexual? Two out of three DON'T EVEN HAVE PHYSICAL BODIES, how can you project the concept of sex onto them? WTF this is so acemisic I WILL FIGHT YOU." But then I realized, it's not saying the Trinity is a polyamorous sexual relationship, it's saying you could think of it as that, if that's meaningful to you. It's just an analogy, and so it's not perfect. There will be a point where the analogy breaks down.

[page 108] Kathy Rudy has written about how anonymous sexual encounters actually can be a form of hospitality and welcome to others. ... As such, this ethic of hospitality should be the overriding norm for all issues, including sexuality. As a result, certain sexual acts- including anonymous or communal sex- would not be forbidden per se, but rather measured by the degree to which the actions are welcoming or hospitable.

Uhhhhh... like... I mean, if that's what you're into, that's fine for you, and maybe it's good and meaningful to draw a connection between anonymous sex and a virtue like hospitality, as a counter to all the judgment you usually get from the church ... but wow to me that all sounds HORRIFYING. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope I am SO not having "anonymous sex."

[page 115] One way in which the saints break through radical love is by breaking through erotic boundaries. Donald Boisvert, a gay religious studies professor at Concordia University, has written a provocative book, Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints, about his homoerotic experience of the saints as an openly gay man with a Roman Catholic background. Although it might at first be surprising to connect the saints with same-sex erotic longing, there are in fact strong connections between sainthood and queer desire. Although Boisvert's own same-sex desire was expressly forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church, Boisvert's practice of venerating saints opened up a space for him in which such desire was encouraged and led to an "erotic fixation" on the saints from an early age.

Umm... okay... your kink is not my kink... but your kink is okay...

[page 101, immediately after the gaydar bit, actually] As Sarah Coakley, the Cambridge University theologian, has noted, there is an [sic] fundamental connection between the desire for God in deep prayer and the desire for another person in sexual passion. Indeed, Coakley argues that "in any prayer of the sort in which we radically cede control to the Spirit there is an instant reminder of the close analogue between this ceding (to the trinitarian God), and the ekstasis of human sexual passion."

Yeah, there were A LOT of places in this book where it was talking about theology and such and I was following along, no problem, and then SUDDENLY it just became EXTREMELY SEXUAL and I found myself way too asexual to even figure out what it was talking about. Like, if it says desire for God in prayer is like sexual desire, I'm like... trying to remember how allosexuals view sexual desire so I can try to figure out what on earth is being communicated with this analogy.

In other words, there were a lot of parts in this book that were very sexualized and dependent on the audience having a certain understanding of what sex is like (what it means, what emotions are associated with it, etc). As an asexual I was like, WTF????? (And isn't queerness all about questioning societal norms about sex and relationships? I might even say, good thing we have aces to help us "dissolve the boundaries" between emotional intimacy and not having sex. "Dissolve the boundaries" between sex and disinterest. "Dissolve the boundaries" between being an adult human and not having sexual attraction.)

Overall, I was very interested in the concept of queer theology as presented in this book. It's about finding connections between Christian doctrines and queer experiences. It's not about proving anything rigorously or making a case for "here is the correct interpretation of this Christian concept." They're just analogies. And it can be really good and meaningful to make analogies between our own queer experiences and these religious concepts. But if a particular analogy is not useful for you, that's totally fine. It's just an analogy, of course it's going to break down somewhere.

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Related:
Either Matthew Was Dishonest, Or He Wasn't Writing an Apologetics Book
Jesus Takes the Bible Out of Context
We Need Queer Theology