Today some of our Christian Feminism Today writers are participating in Queer Theology’s “Queer Creation” synchroblog. This is the Queer Theology website’s third synchroblog event about queer theology, but it’s the first time our Christian Feminism Today authors have participated.
A synchroblog is an event featuring writers across the globe posting around a single theme and publishing on the same day.
The concept of queer theology is based on a recognition that LGBTQ people bring to the reading of scripture and the formation of theology a unique perspective that enriches far beyond one particular community—just as black theology, feminist theology, mujerista theology, and other theological approaches from marginalized groups do for all God’s people.
Here’s what Queer Theology posted about the synchroblog on their website:
“At QueerTheology.com we believe that queer people have more to offer the world than what we are not. We believe that queer and trans people have voices that matter; we have insights into theology and faith that deepen the conversation not just for other queer people but for non-queer people as well.”
Absolutely! This is something clearly understood by members of this organization. For years EEWC’s message has been that ALL PEOPLE bring unique viewpoints and valuable gifts to God’s table regardless of any divisions and labels human beings create.
We are happy to lend our voices, and our blogs, to support Queer Theology’s excellent project, and we send our heartfelt gratitude to Fr. Shannon T.L. Kearns for coming up with the idea. Thanks also to Sarah Moon, feminist blogger on Patheos, whose post initially brought the synchroblog to our attention.
Posts by Christian Feminism Today writers.
The Objectification of God
Just to mix it up a bit, my own post, “The Objectification of God,” was published both on Jann Aldredge-Clanton’s Changing Church blog and on my personal blog. Here’s an excerpt:
“We humans run into a great deal of trouble when we try to turn God into an objective reality. When we try to say, ‘This is what God looks like, and feels like, and sounds like, and says. This is what the experience of God should be like for everyone. If your experience of God is not like this, then you are not experiencing God.’ This is a lethal game. Ever since people started trying to turn God into an objective reality (and I wonder if there was ever a time when we did not try to do this) we have constantly suffered in the throes of religious wars, crusades, inquisitions, holocausts, ethnic cleansings, and terror campaigns. That is exactly where objectifying God takes us. This lethal game is one that we humans, in our unquenchable thirst for full comprehension, and in our aversion to mystery, continue to play, year after year, civilization after civilization.”
Created Queerly–Living My Truth
Casey O’Leary guest posts for the synchroblog on Ain’t I a Woman. The Ain’t I a Woman blog is the creation of Melanie Springer Mock and Kendra Weddle, LGBTQ allies, and Christian Feminism Today writers themselves. Here is an excerpt from Casey’s post:
“Instead, when I struggle, I try to remember why I chose to create a new life as a queer person. Realizing that I am gay was like having God place gentle hands on my shoulders and turn me 180 degrees, so I could see a completely new horizon. It’s incredibly beautiful and freeing to live my truth so openly. I understand myself in ways that I never thought possible because I chose to embrace my sexuality. I am more compassionate and loving toward others, and I can even occasionally extend that compassion and love to myself. ”
Coming Out as Embodiments of God Herself: Why is It so Difficult?
Finally, and notably, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, coauthor of the groundbreaking Is the Homosexual My Neighbor and author of Omnigender, as well as many other books, is participating in the synchroblog by publishing “Coming Out as Embodiments of God Herself: Why is It so Difficult?” on her website. This is an important work, and if you read nothing else today, read this piece. Here’s an excerpt:
“The blessed fact is that we human beings are not strong enough to overturn the will of God, who created us good (Genesis 1:31). We can certainly imagine ourselves separate from God, and we can certainly behave cruelly and selfishly as we imagine that separation. But in reality we have never left Home, and by sharing this Good News with others, we bear witness to the glorious connectedness of a worldwide spiritual family.”
Here are links to some of my favorite posts by other authors.
(I’ll add more throughout the day on October 1 as they become available)
B’reishit: The Divine Act of Self-Creation
by Rabbah Emily Aviva Kapor, a radical transfeminist rabbi and activist.
What does it mean to become Divine? Divinity is the power to discern right from wrong, and truth from falsehood. Divinity is the power to create. God speaks the world into creation; humanity gains this power when they become Godly. This is exactly what happens when the man and woman eat from the tree. They self-create, they come into their own as living, fully autonomous beings, capable of making choices, capable of declaring and directing their own creation.
God Hirself: a Theology
by T. Thorn Coyle
God Hirself is beyond gender. She is all gender and no gender. She is the great Zero, the limitless, holder of the Cosmic Egg from which all life flows and to which all life returns. We cannot think of God Hirself as One, because that separates her out from all else. Rather, thinking of her as Zero, the circumference that includes everything and the center point around which everything else revolves, is closer to the experienced reality. Nuit and Hadit, yesh and ayin, form and emptiness, there is nothing that is not part of the fabric of God Hirself. Another name for this fabric is love.
The Mystery of an Outlandishly Queer Creation
by Susan Cottrell
I’d been having a discussion with a commenter on my blog about gender, and she actually wrote this: “The Bible is not a mystery.” The Bible is not a mystery? Seriously? We’re talking about what many of us believe to be a long-preserved book inspired by God, written by a variety of men (presumably men, not women), over some thousand-plus years, to be read over the millennia. And a commenter says, “The Bible is not a mystery.” I wonder if she might say God is not a mystery?
Queer Creation: Queering the Image of God
by Alan Hooker
What I find interesting is that the divine We is invoked by the author only in reference to the creation of humanity. In Genesis 1, plants produce other plants, sea creatures produce other sea creatures, land animals produce other animals, so when God says ‘Let us make…’, what is happening? These are divine beings creating other divine beings. Gods producing Gods. When this revelation is coupled with what the Hebrew word ‘image’ (tselem) suggests, our picture of creation is no longer simply that of a deity who segregates everything into neat black and white categories; the distinction between God and Human is also no longer simple to cut.
Eunuch-Inclusive Esther–Queer Theology 101
by Peterson Toscano
Yes, Esther saves the people by appearing before the king pleading her case, but without the eunuchs she would have been far from the court, an unknown orphaned Jewish young woman. Even in the palace she cannot speak directly with her kinsman, Mordecai, who urges her to act. She needs eunuchs to ferry messages back and forth, to set up the lunches for the king, to help her save her people.
