CAMP Spirit

What is Eros
but a
Burning Coal
deep within My Self—

The Spark
of the Divine Presence
that is
Creativity
Authenticity
Passion

The Fire
that
enlivens my Life
but must be
stoked constantly

The Flame
fragile in its power
and
so easily
quenched?

This poem expresses what I have come to believe about the intersection of God and humanity during twenty years of theological study and ministry to the queer community. I believe that human and divine, natural and supernatural, coalesce in the Erotic. Genesis 1 tells us that in the beginning God’s Spirit was soaring over the waters of chaos; then God’s dynamic Word was spoken and living things began to come forth. These living things—vegetative, animal, and human—had bodies that differentiated them from God, who has no body but whose body is all of creation. Each of us is a part of the body of God; thus, our bodies express the Divine. When bodies coexist in harmony with God and with one another, shalom occurs: wellness, well-being, wholeness, health—the peace that passes understanding. When disharmony among bodies disturbs this peace, there is a rupture in the creation. Theologians call such disharmony "sin" or "brokenness," a dis/ease in God’s intention.

Erotophobia is the fear or hatred of the integration of body, mind, and spirit that Eros accomplishes when it is allowed to flourish. While not listed among the "seven deadly sins," it is perhaps the deadliest of sins, for it involves hatred of and disdain for God’s creation as manifested in sexuality. I believe that sexuality—the capacity of relating to other beings as bodies, whether genitally or aesthetically—must be a gift from God, for who else could fashion something so marvelous and complicated, so capable of bearing joy and pain at the same time? Consequently, theologies that see sexuality only as a result of humanity’s fall from grace are bound to become erotophobic and counterproductive to the work of replenishing God’s shalom. Because traditional churches have failed to nurture their congregants as sexual beings, religious and spiritual voices have—until recently—been relatively absent from struggles around issues of sexuality. Further complicating matters is the overarching heterocolonialism of which erotophobia is a manifestation—the expectation that society and interpersonal relationships must be ordered according to a heteronormative paradigm, to deviate from which involves ostracism and judgment. Included in the overall muting of the erotic in church and society is the facet of heterocolonialism that makes sexual minorities believe that, even when sexuality is discussed, it must not be our sexuality but only that of the heteronormative majority. In this regard, our situation is similar to other postcolonial people who exist "at the crossroads." However, as postcolonial Latina theologian Mayra Rivera points out, the people who inhabit crossroads, borderlands, and margins (los atravesados) are perhaps the best situated to construct a more inclusive theology. ("God at the Crossroads: A Postcolonial Reading of Sophia," in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, ed. Catherine Keller, et al., 2004, p. 187) I contend that it is precisely queer people’s ostracism from the center that is constitutive and productive for a theology of sexuality and spirituality. Thus, we must not assimilate or strive to adhere to "decent," safe views of the Divine, but must, with queer postcolonial theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid, "indecent" the entire theo-ethical process. (Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics, 2000)

I propose the Erotic as a corrective both to the sexual battles that have plagued gays and lesbians and to what I call "heterocolonialism" (the imprisonment of non-heterosexual people by heteronormative imperialism), for Empire facilitates the colonization of bodies, while Eros involves the empowerment of bodies. The late queer sexologist Eric Rofes is to be commended for introducing the theme of spirituality into the dialogue on appropriate sexual behavior. In examining queer post-AIDS lives and lifestyles, he asserted that we must not remain "stuck" in pain, grief, and loss, but should place AIDS in its proper perspective now that, in his opinion, the crisis stage had passed and many were returning to their pre-AIDS lives. Thus, Rofes suggested that we do this is by integrating—perhaps for the first time—the erotic into our sexual behavior:

The erotic is a source of tremendous knowledge and power. It is of the mind, yet it goes beyond the mind; one with the heart, yet greater than the heart; rooted in the soul, yet branching beyond the soul. Many gay men know that the erotic is a force for metamorphosis; our lives provide indisputable evidence of its transformative powers. Sexual desire springs from deep and complex sources and tapping into it unleashes energy and creativity which makes us stronger, clearer, and more engaged in the richness of life. (Reviving the Tribe, 1996, p. 105)

Rofes, like many feminist and queer theologians, attributes his appreciation of the Erotic to the late black lesbian feminist poet and theorist Audre Lorde, who believed that Eros was "the bridge" between the spiritual and the political. Lorde saw the Erotic as that ingredient which adds color, texture, and taste to our lives; it engages the five senses in a holistic way that "binds together" the components of our beings: In this way Eros is able to assume its rightful place in "religion" (from religare, "to bind back or again"). Rofes relates how his own coming out as a gay man and initiation into the pleasures of gay male sex were directly tied to his political awakening and maintains that this was true for an entire generation of gay men. Repressive erotophobia stemming from fear and disinformation surrounding AIDS resulted in this generation turning away from this experiential eroticism; as gay men return to some of their pre-AIDS behaviors, Rofes has asserted that they should also (re)turn to the erotic as a bridge between their sexual lives and their political consciousness and has even gone so far as to demand that we begin to talk more about sex, what we do, why we do it, how it feels, and what it means erotically and spiritually.