Sunday, February 25, 2024

We Need Queer Theology

A rainbow, with the text "We're here, we're queer." Image source.

Last week, The Reformation Project published a post called Reform vs. Revolution: Distinguishing Affirming Theology From Queer Theology. A lot of queer Christians are unhappy about this; I am also unhappy about it.

Basically, it's a post (along with an embedded 1-hour youtube video of a talk by Matthew Vines) about why their organization does NOT support queer theology, but does affirming theology instead.

And I'd like to also share this link, which is a response from Billie, a trans woman: The Reformation Project and Queer Theology. Her response is definitely worth reading.

Okay let's talk about this, starting with:

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Who is Matthew Vines/ What is The Reformation Project?

Matthew Vines is a gay Christian. I first heard of him around 2012, when he posted a very long youtube video (which went viral) where he presents a biblical argument for acceptance of same-sex marriage. In 2015, he published a book called God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships [affiliate link]. And he started an organization called The Reformation Project, to advocate for inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church.

I haven't read "God and the Gay Christian", but I watched his viral video, back then, back when I was evangelical and trying to do the whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing. It influenced me a lot. The approach it takes towards reading the bible is thoroughly evangelical, which is how it was able to convince me. And by "thoroughly evangelical," I mean viewing the bible as the inerrant authority over our lives. We have to obey the bible, whether we like it or not, whether it makes sense or not. And therefore, we need to spend a lot of time very carefully studying ancient Greek and Hebrew words, to be really really sure we can figure out what the biblical writers were saying- we need to do this because we are required to follow the rules they wrote for us, those thousands of years ago.

Vines's argument, in that 2012 video, is about carefully analyzing the specific bible verses which mention homosexuality, as well as other bible verses which he also feels are relevant to this issue. Painstakingly going through different possible interpretations of Greek words, bringing in historical references about ancient Roman culture/ ancient near-eastern culture and how they viewed homosexuality, and so on, and finally arriving at the conclusion that, in our modern society, same-sex marriage is acceptable and blessed by God.

That's how you need to make the argument, if you're talking to evangelicals. And back then, it was definitely what I needed to hear.

But, as I've said on my blog many times, I now view this as a really weird way to read the bible. Like, we need to spend a lot of time studying ancient Greek words, to find out if we're allowed to treat gay people decently. Come on. You shouldn't need to do that- you should just treat people decently regardless of what the bible says. 

Like, oh, good news everyone, we spent an incredible amount of time studying ancient Roman homosexual practices, and we've come to the conclusion that you actually ARE allowed to accept your gay friends. Phew!

Come on.

You shouldn't need to read the bible to figure that out. You should just be able to see with your own two eyes how good and life-giving it is when queer people are accepted for who they are, and how harmful it is when they are required to repress themselves.

So- and this is something I've said a lot in my review of "The Great Sex Rescue"- I believe it can be a very helpful and valuable first step, for people coming from an evangelical background, to present arguments like "The bible wasn't actually saying [oppressive teaching that evangelicals believe]. It was saying [something much more just/feminist/inclusive]." It's a first step, but I hope that after that, people can move past that kind of thinking. Quit being bound by what the bible says, and trust your own God-given conscience to tell you what's loving and what's not. The bible is wrong sometimes!

Anyway, I haven't been following what Vines has been up to in recent years. Maybe he has moved beyond that evangelical way of reading the bible, the "same-sex marriage is okay because I studied a lot of ancient Greek words."

Oh. No. Oh. Well we can look at the statement that The Reformation Project put out, along with the embedded video where Vines gives a talk about why he opposes queer theology. Oh. Has he moved on from that evangelical way of reading the bible? Nope, he hasn't.

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What The Reformation Project has to say about queer theology

(The article itself is pretty short- I'm getting most of this from the embedded video.)

Vines explains that "queer theology" doesn't just mean "queer people doing theology" or "theology that is inclusive of queer people" or something along those lines. No, it specifically means queer theory being applied to theology. And queer theory is a specific field of study which isn't simply about accepting queer people; rather, it's about questioning all of society's rules about what's "normative" and what's not. It's about breaking down boundaries, questioning lines that society has drawn about what kinds of behaviors are okay or not okay.

And, yes, he's right, that's what queer theology is.

He gives a lot of examples which are shocking and/or offensive. Queer theologians saying that the Trinity is like an orgy. That anonymous sex is an example of hospitality. Etc.

And he says, no, this is NOT what Christians believe. This is NOT what most LGBTQ Christians believe. He says The Reformation Project opposes queer theology. They do affirming theology instead. (I suppose "affirming theology" is that evangelical-style "we've studied a lot of Greek words and we've concluded that same-sex marriage is okay." Yeah I'm not here for that.)

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Here's what I have to say about queer theology

In 2018, I published a blog post reviewing the book Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology by Patrick S. Cheng. My post was called Queer Theology (is not about being right), because that was how I made sense of what the book was saying: It isn't about "here's the correct interpretation of the bible", but instead, "here's a loose analogy between the bible and queerness, if you feel it's meaningful then good for you, but you don't have to believe it if you don't want to."

Coming from an evangelical background, I had obviously been expecting the "here's what the bible Really Means" kind of approach. Instead, the book "Radical Love" was a bunch of extremely flimsy analogies like "the Holy Spirit is like gaydar" (???????? what on earth).

It's not about putting forth logical arguments to support doctrines which you then expect everyone to be convinced by. It's about questioning for the sake of questioning- why would God have to be male? why would sex in marriage be more moral than sex in other contexts? what if Jesus and Lazarus were lovers? etc. You don't have to agree with any of this stuff- but the act of questioning is itself valuable.

And yes, there were A LOT of things in the book "Radical Love" that I very much did NOT agree with. (Many of the same things that Vines mentions in his talk- he included a bunch of quotes from "Radical Love.") And I found it to be not inclusive of aces. There were parts that were very sexually explicit, there were parts that assumed that emotional intimacy is necessarily sexual, there were parts that made analogies between sex and religious concepts- and I'm way too asexual to understand what those analogies were trying to say.

But my takeaway was, Cheng wasn't saying that we have to agree with all those things. He's saying, for some queer people, this is a way they interact with their Christian faith, and, good for them. 

And it's good that people are doing this work, questioning the things that society views as normative. It's good that queer theologians want to take things farther than just "gay people can have monogamous marriages, just like straight people" which is where The Reformation Project is.

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Why I'm not happy with The Reformation Project's statement

To me, it's not a problem that The Reformation Project is taking an evangelical approach toward bible interpretation. I mean, it's a problem in the sense that it's a really bizarre way to read the bible and/or figure out morality- but hey, I understand that's how evangelicals think. Vines seems to be evangelical and thinks that way. (To clarify, I don't actually know if he identifies as evangelical. But watching his embedded video, I feel like, I actually really like him, he's the best kind of evangelical.) Sure, okay. It's good to have some queer people in that space, making those kinds of arguments in ways that will matter to an evangelical audience.

As I see it, the problem is that they're putting out a statement specifically to say that queer theology is bad and they don't agree with it. Like, why? Why even bring this up? Why not just keep doing what they're doing, and let queer theologians keep doing what they're doing too? Why not just accept that we're all advocating queer inclusion, and we use different strategies which enable us to reach different audiences?

It comes across like he's saying "don't worry, evangelicals, we're not like that." Like some evangelical Christians are going to read about queer theology and then they'll think all queer Christians believe those things, and OH NO we can't have that. We have to make sure evangelicals know we're the *good* gay Christians. (I've seen people on twitter calling this out as being about respectability, and, yeah, it does come across like that.)

Weirdly, this comes back to what I was saying about the authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" in my post What do we do with Christians who are never going to accept queer people?: "You need to throw queer people under the bus, in order to be seen as a good evangelical." Weird, because Vines and the Christians at The Reformation Project are queer- but they're making this statement specifically to separate themselves from other queer people who are seen as going too far.

Not cool. 

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Related:

Queer Theology (is not about being right)

What do we do with Christians who are never going to accept queer people? 

It Doesn’t Actually Matter What Jesus Said About Divorce

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And (under the "Read more") some insightful tweets responding to The Reformation Project's statement:


^ This tweet is referring to: Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict Dies After Being Attacked By Peers in a School Bathroom 




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