LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Spirit |
by Tom Bohache |
Notes from a Queer Conference
Several weeks ago I was in Boston for my dissertation defense and was able to "piggy-back" the trip with a conference held at Boston University entitled Queering the Church. GLBTQ scholars and pastors from all over the east coast gathered to discuss what it means to be a sexual minority in religious communities. The diversity of the participants and the ideas expressed was amazing! I share with you some of the highlights of that conference as a way of demonstrating how GLBTQ spirituality is being talked about elsewhere. Mark Jordan (Roman Catholic theologian and professor at Emory University) shared that every church or spiritual community should exist to help relieve pain and bring people toward joy. When churches fail queer people they fail in incarnating and representing the Divine. All of the unacknowledged pain among GLBTQ persons in ecclesial communities (whether silence and denial about sexuality, clergy sexual abuse, improper pastoral outreach about HIV, etc.) is an ongoing witness to the universal failure of churches, synagogues, and other groups. Jordan opened the conference by stating emphatically that "queering the church" means "recognizing the excluded bodies" of GLBTQ people. He shared his own exodus from the Catholic Church by noting that his spiritual life had become one of unrelenting rage, and he knew that something had to change. None of us can worship the Divine authentically when we are consumed with anger, hatred, or shame. For Jordan, this meant changing what was producing the rage, namely being a gay person dishonored by his church; since his gayness wasn't changing, his choice of churches had to. Robert Goss (author of Jesus Acted Up and an MCC pastor) responded to Jordan's presentation by noting that the failure of the church is actually a failure to recognize that God can be incarnated in non-heterosexual people. He called for an end to "toxic ecclesial structures" and the disruption of what he called "vanilla ecclesiology" by the forming of communities that stress hospitality, openness, and inclusivity, comparing GLBTQ participation in religious structures to the "leaven" Jesus talked about which corrupts the loaf of bread and yet is indispensable for its production. He closed by posing the question, "What would happen if, instead of declaring war, we declared peace?" Marcella Althaus-Reid (Latin American liberation theologian and professor at the University of Edinburgh) was ill, and so her paper was read in absentia. Her major point was that the concept of "grace" which Christianity and Judaism discuss and dispense is a heteronormative construct created by and for straight people; those of alternative sexualities are tolerated if they stick to rules that have been laid down generations ago. Playing with language, her suggestion is that GLBTQ people embrace a "politics of dis/grace" which strives to undo the narrow restrictions of religion's "grace." When we realize that our "dis/grace/full" lives will never gain the approval of the powers-that-be, we can journey instead toward wholeness through our own ways of appreciating the Divine. Carter Heyward (lesbian feminist theologian) responded to Althaus-Reid by pointing out that GLBTQ people internationally have been silenced in various ways. Learning to be silent and living in that silence is an art acquired through much soul-searching and coming to terms in the contemporary world with all of who one is at one's very foundation. She noted that even in silence we can create a language of our own: For GLBTQ people of faith, often this language does not involve words because of either chosen or unchosen/enforced silence; rather, our language is manifested in our desire, eroticism, and bodily sensesmany times outside of traditional mainstream religion. In recalling her own coming out journey as one of the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church and then one of the first theologians to come out as a lesbian, she mused that imposed silence can bless or burden: We can view our silencing through the ages as a negative fruit of discrimination and oppression, or as a positive opportunity for finding new ways of sharing, worshiping, and loving; on the other hand, silence that seems freely chosen is oftentimes a result of fear that breeds despair and further separation from the Divine. Instead she suggested what she calls a "mystical silence of invitation." This conference created much positive energy and opportunity for sharing and networking. There was great enthusiasm and passion, lots of laughter, and many hugs. Sadly, our euphoria was muted when we exited the safety of the meeting room and were reminded that security guards had been posted at the door because of death threats to the conference coordinators from among the student body of the Boston University School of Theology. This made me realize once again that before queer people will be truly welcome in religious institutions, a change of heart and mind needs to happen at the most basic level. Priests, ministers, rabbis, and church hierarchies may one day become fully inclusive of sexual minorities on a de jure basis; but how do we stop the de facto hatred and intolerance that comes from the grass roots? The Rev. Tom Bohache recently received his doctorate in feminist liberation theologies from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. He is the pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Rehoboth and co-editor of "The Queer Bible Commentary," released by SCM/Canterbury Press. He receives email at pastor@mccrehoboth.org. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 6 June 1, 2007 |