Reading Althaus-Reid: As a bi feminist theo/methodological resource. (original) (raw)
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Queer Theology as Methodological Resource 1
Robert Goss (2002) has observed that trans theology is "further along" than bisexual theology. This is true. Although the movement for bisexual liberation is over thirty years old, bisexual theology is still in its infancy. Today I will present five themes in the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid that provide a valuable resource for shaping bisexual feminist theology in ways that correspond with other theologies of liberation. These themes are: 1) valuing queer culture, 2)
Stranger in our Midst:: The Becoming of the Queer God in the Theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid
SCM Press eBooks, 2010
"The Queer God may … show us God's excluded face, which is the face of a non-docile God, a God who is a stranger at the gates of our existent loving and economic order." (Althaus-Reid 2003: 153) "The Queer God is the God who went into exile with God's people and remained there in exile with them." (Althaus-Reid 2004a: 146) Marcella Althaus-Reid's theology has always been about pushing boundaries and refusing to take platitudes for answers. Her first book to be published in English, Indecent Theology (2000) makes clear that the proper project of theology is per/version, that is, deviation or turning in another direction, which might well manifest in "incorrect", "unorthodox" interpretation (Althaus-Reid 2000: 87). This entails a querying and rejection of discourse which presents salvation as a limited good to be dispensed via those in positions of power, be they priests or politicians-and a querying of Theology with a capital T for Tradition. "T-Theology" is Althaus-Reid's shorthand for Western systematic theology which apotheosizes its own historical outworking, not acknowledging its shifting, unfolding quality or its dubious alliances with capitalist imperialism. She comments, "The main road of T-Theology sooner or later always leads us to the same (forced) agreements, to similar exchanges and values of pre-understood laws of capital profit. It seldom lets us perceive the historical presence of God in different, unfamiliar surroundings" (Althaus-Reid 2003: 33). T-Theology therefore implies the "decented", legitimized theology which Althaus-Reid shows continues to be oppressive to sexually and economically marginalized people. It is in The Queer God (2003) that Althaus-Reid's notion of an economically and politically subversive deity is really fleshed out-literally, as it is in queer embodiment with all its messy recalcitrance that God exists in and with human beings. The God who is truly queer, and not limited to dissemination via capitalist alliances, has been displaced by heterosexual metanarratives of desire, lack and power. It is only in overcoming such ideologies that human beings can see more clearly the nature of God's solidarity with excluded, "indecented" persons. In this account, God's incarnationality is a profound symbol of irreducible ungraspability, resisting sanitization or identification as untouchable transcendence (Althaus-Reid and Isherwood 2007: 310). It is important that God became incarnate in Christ, but just as important that God is also incarnate
Beyt Queer God Tracy Althaus Reid and Bataille
Amid the constellation of attitudes present within much post-modern discourse, sensitivity towards plurality comes to the forefront. Plurality in relation to gender and sexuality has become a growing concern for many Christians. This paper argues that Marcella Althaus-Reid’s reading of Georges Bataille’s Madama Edwarda presents an understanding of God that could be suitable for the plurality amid LGBTQ Christians. The paper utilizes Tracy’s presentation of post-modern theological discourse particularly in relation to his understanding of interpreting a religious classic, i.e. a text that both discloses a relation to Ultimate Reality while also having an excess of meaning. Reading a religious classic can also be prophetic in its capacity to “resist” in advocating for the experience of marginalized, and otherwise non-normative (“queer”) communities, and its hope that such an endeavor will extrapolate meaning. This paper argues that Althaus-Reid interprets George Bataille’s Madama Edwarda as if it were a religious classic by reading the text as both an act of resistance and of hope. The paper will then highlight how this reading integrates further into Althaus-Reid’s emphasis on the colonial, hegemony of much heterosexual religious language and how she discerns the presence of God within otherwise transgressive sexual activity. Her work seeks to subvert these hierarchical sexual structures in challenging notions of a “dyadic” God articulated in reproductive love. By destabilizing normative locations of identity formations and removing teleology from hermeneutic discourse, Althaus-Reid articulates an “impossible” God experienced through the theme of mystical excess in Bataille. This paper ultimately suggests that Althaus-Reid’s reading of a queer text as if it were a religious classic sets a hermeneutical precedent to advocate on behalf of LGBTQ Christians.
Wrestling the Angel of Contradiction: Queer Christian Identities
Culture and Religion, 2004
This ethnographically based article is about the ways in which individuals who choose to remain in mainstream Christian denominations while being out about their sexuality make sense of and manage the presumed discontinuity of homosexuality and Christianity. In this article I focus specifically on the processes whereby lesbian and gay Christians forge an integration of Christian doctrine, spirituality and sexuality. My central interpretive claim is that this integrative struggle is experienced by lesbian and gay Christians as a raison d’eˆtre. Wrestling this contradiction has given rise to a particular expression of queer Christian identity. Among the many implications of these expressions of queer Christian identity is their impact on mainstream Christian congregations and Christian ideologies and practices.
Hapág, 2016
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people are often subjected to suspicion, condemnation and exclusion by mainstream churches based on the perception that they are deviant, pathological and sinful. Consequently, they are treated as objects of unfamiliarity, derision and pity rather than subjects of experiential wisdom who can inform the theological enterprise. Through a detailed analysis and interpretation of the narratives of gay and transgender Malaysian Christians on their interweavings of gender, sexuality and faith, and navigating the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia and the thoughts of various scholars, I argue that LGBTQ people can contribute to the augmentation of Christian theologising – a sort of tutelage from those whose voices are ordinarily marginalised and dismissed due to their non-normative genders and sexualities. Specifically, I propose that LGBTQ theological tutelage can galvanise the processes of (i) recognising and respecting personal theological agency; (ii) challenging gender and sexuality injustices; and (iii) interrogating and rethinking biblical interpretation.
Transgressing the father figure: Performing queer theology as an act of liberation
Theology & Sexuality, 2017
This chapter examines the intersection of power, ritual, and the sacred through the lens of performing drag as a tool to subvert dominant notions of theological discourse. Grounded in Cheng’s assertion that queer theology is transgressive (Radical Love) and Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology, the foundational text which introduces the concept of theology as destabilizing and grounded in subversion, particularly in the realm of sexuality, we critique the forces of power operating within Catholicism. We ask: Whose bodies are allowed to play a powerful role in Catholicism? How has ritual performance perpetuated the colonization of the mind/spirit and how can it be used to undo that same colonization? In discussing a public drag performance using George Michael’s “Father Figure,” we suggest the possibility of liberation that exists in bringing theology into queer spaces, extending theology beyond the realm of religious institutions or the academy.
Queer , Queerer , Queerest ? Feminisms , heterosexualities and queer theorizing
2007
Queer theorizing problematizes all forms of unitary subjectivity (e.g. 'lesbian', 'homosexual', 'heterosexual') and disrupts the binary oppositions that organize thinking about sexuality in Anglo/European/North American cultures and white settler societies (Petersen, 1998). This often eclectic body of poststructuralist intellectual work developed in the United States against the background of a series of lively confrontational political actions (e.g. grassroots action by ACT UP and Queer Nation) and academic conferences at which philosophers, literary theorists and historians reflected on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues (Butler, 1990, 1993; de Lauretis, 1991; Fuss, 1991; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1991, 1993). This intellectual and political work was directed at constructing 'queer' as 'permanent rebellion' and transgression (Seidman, 1996). It challenged conventional gay and lesbian politics, problematized sexual and gender categor...
Queer Studies from a Multireligious Perspective (HRRS-8421 - Fall 2013) - Syllabus
In an increasingly changing and globalized world, the intersection of religious and queer studies is vital for understanding the construction of identities. This online course is designed to introduce you to the place given to gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, the sexual division of labor and gender role expectations within world religions’ theo(ideo)/logical discourses. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach you will develop a self-critical perspective on the way that sacred texts and dogmatic corpus influence the lives and spiritual practices of queer individuals and communities. Together we will explore the mutual constitution of queerness and subjectivity of religious experiences and their social and political implications towards the deconstruction of stereotypes, power dynamics, and marginalization.