CAMP Spirit

Last issue I discussed how an integration of spirituality and sexuality must include a (re)turn to the Erotic, describing how lesbian poet and essayist Audre Lorde and queer sexologist Eric Rofes each delineated "eros" as the essence of our being that brings all of our various parts together. Sexual theologians have also called for more open discussions about sexuality and the spiritually erotic meaning of sexual behavior. Thus, Marcella Althaus-Reid has pointed out how crucial a theology of "sexual storytelling" becomes when sexual minorities try to overcome heteronormativity. In answer to those who would claim that the sexual be strictly relegated to the "private realm," she insists that this is impossible to do with authenticity, inasmuch as sexuality, rather than being confined to one’s own home or a friend’s bedroom, goes with us wherever we go and "permeates our economic, political and societal life." Moreover, because sexual stories are always unfinished, they mirror our very lives and theologies which, of necessity, must remain unfinished to be truly authentic. (See Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology, 2000.) Roman Catholic theologian Mark Jordan has also called for greater openness in discussions of sexuality and spirituality, suggesting that those of same-sex affinity may have a special ability for teaching others through our sexual dialogues, not only through what we say but how we say it. He points out the irony that much mystical language in theology concerning the Godhead is erotic, yet every-day churchgoers have been discouraged from bringing their erotic selves with them on their faith journeys. I believe that in making this point, Jordan demonstrates how heterocolonial religion has arrogated the power of eros to itself and kept the common person away from this power, when, in reality, whenever we talk about the Erotic we are talking about the Deity, in whom we live and move and have our being. (See Jordan, Telling Truths in Church, 2003.)

One of the first to engage the Erotic as a theological category was lesbian feminist theologian Carter Heyward, who named it as "the deepest stirring of our relationality, our experience of being connected to others." When we divorce this power from our relationships, we experience the alienation that is sin. Thus, Heyward names as sin the sort of homophobia on the part of gays and lesbians who, instead of embracing the Erotic as what might give them a window into the Divine, divorce themselves from it out of fear (erotophobia) that engenders desperation and despair instead of the wholeness and empowerment that an erotic and embodied spirituality can provide. Heyward believes that God has given us guideposts for our becoming in the form of our sensuality: "If we learn to trust our senses they can tell us what is good and bad." In this way, by championing our senses as a way of accessing God, Heyward disempowers the hetercolonial scripts that tell us our senses are evil and misguided when they reveal to us anything other than heteronormativity and what Althaus-Reid calls decent behavior. (See Heyward, Touching Our Strength, 1989.)

Queer theologian and MCC pastor Robert Goss has also been vocal and explicit about the eroticization of sex, encouraging queer faith communities to attempt to undo traditional religion’s ongoing suspicion of sex. For Goss, our sexual activity reclaims the beauty and holiness of the body at the same time that our sexual pleasure combines joy, sexual justice, and spiritual practice. Queer theorist Michael Warner agrees, noting that a sex panic seeks to "put sex in its place," which is always a place of secrecy and shame that does no one any good. Instead, he suggests that through conversation and understanding we acknowledge that we "all have contradictory desires"; demonizing certain activities or people does nothing more than confirm people in their shame-based or rebellious activity. (See Goss, Queering Christ, 2002; Warner, The Trouble with Normal, 1999.)

Lesbian ethicist Kathy Rudy has contributed to this discussion by suggesting that we must think more about what "moral" sex looks like. Thus, as both Rofes and Goss have pointed out, the morality of a sexual act will not always equate strictly with mere "survivalism," safety, or propriety. For Rudy, the crucial ethical question becomes, "Is the sex we’re having pleasing to God?" Only we as individuals can answer this question (often in combination with our sex partners), for what makes an act moral are the surrounding conditions and overall context. Thus, Rudy stresses hospitality as a criterion for ethical sexual behavior, while Carter Heyward sees mutuality as crucial for all acts, sexual and otherwise, between persons. (See Rudy, Sex and the Church, 1997; Heyward, Speaking of Christ, 1989.) In these and other ways, pioneering lesbians and gays have sought to bring embodiment back to the realm of the spiritual, suggesting that we image divinity itself in what we do with our bodies. What do you think?