Queerly Having Issues

THE TRANSCRIPT

Hey beautiful, welcome to my podcast, Queerly Having Issues.
I believe we all have our issues because we all have a story. My name is Jafeth and it’s time to tell you about mine.

Welcome to another episode, thank you for tuning in. The first two episodes I’ve been talking about the theory of religious trauma, but also my personal experience of growing up in a non-affirmative religious environment and the impact that has had on my life.

Some people asked me whether the topic of healing is on my list, and yes it is. However, it’s a very broad and complicated topic, so within this episode I want to focus on religious trauma and how queer theology might be beneficial for those of us who are
struggling with this kind of trauma, or just any one of us who would like to have a different view on the Christian narrative.
With this episode I’d also like to wrap up the topic of religious trauma so I can start addressing other topics that I find important.

This healing chapter has taken me many many years and I don’t think that it will ever stop. In my healing journey I’ve read a lot of different books on Christianity, Christ, God, consciousness, just books that have helped me shift my perspective. Honestly, it was also confusing as there are so many other opinions out there and because I come from an environment where there was only one way of seeing things and there were a lot of clear answers to questions, answers that weren’t really based on research or
whatever. Just, you know, the answers that they give you in order to keep you in their grip basically to stop you from thinking for yourself. That made it harder for me to follow my own heart and my own instinct, but I’ve always had this inner voice or this inner feeling that if God really exists then he would love me the way that I am. That is how my journey sort of started and shifted until now I’m at the point that I don’t consider myself religious or a Christian anymore.

However, I think looking at the Christian narrative from a queer perspective has definitely helped me to bring more acceptance and peace to my life as it is right now. And I guess because I’m not a Christian anymore and often people would probably say like you see he lost his way because you know he didn’t follow the rules or he didn’t follow the you know the truth with a capital T. So I think looking at the Christian narrative from a queer perspective would be really helpful and it has helped me a lot to bring acceptance
and peace to my life as it is right now.

Within this episode I will speak from my own positionality, meaning that I am aware that these things will mostly be relatable to those of us coming from evangelical Christian backgrounds. I will definitely speak more about my healing journey in a future episode as I really want to share up close and personal what has helped me along my healing journey. Things like meditation, nutrition, working out, medication, therapy, all of these things that not many people know about me except for my close friends.

Last year I did research on conflicting identities and how queer theology might be beneficial for those of us coming from an evangelical background. Let me first explain what queer theology is. It is an interdisciplinary field that explores the intersections of religion, spirituality and queer identities. Queer theology seeks to challenge and reimagine traditional religious teachings and interpretations that have often marginalized or excluded queer individuals. And therefore it aims to create inclusive spaces for queer people within religious traditions and it also wants to promote dialogue and understanding between queer communities and religious institutions. When we look at queer theology, a huge contribution to the development of this form of theology has been made by Marcella Althaus-Reed. When it comes to the theological significance of her work, various authors have pointed out the way in which she takes sexuality as a starting point to speak about God. So this does not concern sexuality within the framework of church morality but is lived among ordinary people, specifically the outcasts. She seeks and finds God in the gay bars and at drag parties and she even compares the Trinity to an orgy and speaks about God as a drag queen. So these are all, what I think, very interesting ways of looking at theology and probably shocking
to a lot of Christians out there. According to her, God and religion has been taken over by those who impose heterosexual norms.
So for her, in the end, it’s not only theologically about the consequences this has had for people who are marginalized because of their sexuality or gender identity, but also about how God has become oppressed by the heterosexual theory of knowledge of the dominant biblical and theological traditions.

I think these insights are very interesting and helpful, especially for queer people as religion is one of the main reasons why people are judgmental about us or the reason why suffering is inflicted upon us. At the same time, I think it’s also a waste to throw away these wisdom traditions because of that and because of misinterpretations of particular scriptures and I think that religion
can still offer us something valuable and I will come back to that later in this episode and explain to you what I think that religion could offer us.

As I’ve mentioned before, queer individuals with a religious background can struggle or even fail to integrate their sexual or gender identity with their religious identity. While religion is not inherently incompatible with one’s sexual or gender identity, there
are still many of us who leave our religion because of religious dogma and stigma surrounding this topic. And you see, especially in the evangelical church that queer people tend to leave, there’s
not a lot of space for dialogue or for different interpretations of certain biblical scriptures, of course in other denominations that might also be the case, but of course there are also affirmative churches where queer people are welcome.

In my previous episode I also explained how our social environment can indicate that we cannot be both religious and queer in the eyes of God, which is what often happens in
evangelical settings. And according to theologian Robert Goss, who for example wrote books on queering Christianity and queering Christ, these negative judgments are internalized and turned against ourselves by many of us, which often results in feelings of deep self-loathing and self-rejection, to this point that we fear our same-sex attractions or gender identity and we do everything we can to hide, suppress or deny these feelings.

In my research I’ve discovered that identity conflicts often go hand in hand with queer individuals leaving the church or denying their own identity, they will struggle with family, they will feel out of place, but also it goes hand in hand with wanting to discover
the new self and seek healing from emotional abuse and to change their beliefs and I think for me all of these things I’ve experienced, you know, like first I was denying my identity, I was struggling with myself, with my family, I felt out of place, and then on a sudden
moment that changed into wanting to discover my new self and wanting to find ways to heal and change my beliefs.

Often the individual is faced with a choice, to choose the sexual gender identity or the religious identity. That can cause a lot of tension, as you’ve heard from my personal point of view in my
previous episode. And I cannot stress this enough, but giving up or not conforming to one’s own biological identity can often lead to depression, suicidality, hypocrisy and shady practices. I’m aware that many studies have been done on the origin of sexuality, so I also want to recognize that this is a complex subject, as the result of various studies show that sexuality cannot be pinned down to biology, psychology or life experiences because human sexual attraction is determined by all of these factors. I have yet to meet evangelical queer people who are still members of an evangelical community. Personally I don’t know them, the queer people from my former evangelical environment, they no longer go to church and like me have had to adjust their beliefs in order to find wholeness. So I notice there’s still a lot to be gained in the discourse among evangelicals, especially when it comes to the other members of the queer community, as from my experience the discourses are often on gay and lesbian individuals, but I cannot remember any dialogue on trans or non-binary individuals for example, so there’s still a lot to be gained inside the evangelical church. Since evangelical Christians are mainly concerned with the role of Jesus for the healing process of religious trauma in this setting, it could be helpful to look at Jesus in a different
way. Especially for those of us who have given up on the message of Jesus because he has been portrayed as someone who condemns us because of our sexual or gender identity.

During my research I stumbled upon the term Queer Christology.
Christology is that part of theology that is concerned with the nature and work of Jesus, including such matters as the incarnation and the resurrection. I think it’s important to mention that for most of Christian history this Christology has been articulated by those of the dominant class in church and society, that is, white educated heterosexual men. However 50 years ago several marginalized groups started to design their own Christology based on how the Christ figure intersects their own social location. So as a result of that different Christologies have been developed through the lens of race, ethnicity and class, gender or a combination of all of these. One perspective that had been missing was the voice of those whose social location is
determined by sexual orientation or gender identity, and that is what is called Queer Christology.

For evangelical Christians the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is of great importance, as you know, that is the way to be saved.
For evangelical Christians there is a moment in which they decide to accept the offer that Jesus made on the cross in order for them to be saved. So because of the importance of Jesus and the crucifixion and the resurrection, I thought as a part of my healing journey it would be interesting to see how these events could
be read through the hermeneutical lens of the queer community, in other words, a queer interpretation. And even though I’m not a Christian anymore, I’ve still experienced this new view to be
helpful to me personally, and it has also helped me navigate towards what I believe and where I am standing now.

The theologian Goss that I mentioned before, one point that he makes is that he is convinced that it was not God’s will that Jesus died to redeem people from their sins, but according to him, the cross rather symbolizes the violent and cruel end of Jesus in the context of his political praxis for God’s rule. So Jesus was executed by the political framework of Jewish Palestine as a political rebel. Jesus did not accept rightfulness based on control of the temple and social exploitation, nor did he accept the logic of social and political hierarchy built on a foundation of wealth, privilege, status, power, and violence. So basically because of his message, Jesus came into deadly conflict with the powerful,
and according to Goss, it was inevitable that Jesus’ revolutionary vision and practice of God’s rule resulted in his political execution.
In other words, he was murdered by the structures of social control and political suppression because he refused to keep quiet.
And next to that, Goss explains that Jesus spoke of a God who did not side with the rich, the privileged, and the powerful, but he sided with the poor and the oppressed and the weak, the outsiders and the undesirables, which I think often a lot of queer people like me can relate to.
And also when we look at the definition of the word queer, it means odd or strange, basically not conforming to normality, then we can conclude that Jesus was pretty queer. Of course, there’s also dialogue on if Jesus was gay or not. Like for me, that is out of the question, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. But I do think it’s an interesting point to see how Jesus was challenging the status quo by his words and his actions. In that way, he was queer, which I think is a very nice conclusion.

When Goss looks at the resurrection, which as I explained before is a big deal, particularly for evangelical Christians, he states that by raising Jesus from the dead, God set known to human oppression.
And because of this interpretation, the risen Jesus is the hope for justice. So according to Goss, he is a parable of God’s strong claim that human brutality, political oppression and the dominant power relations will not prevail. So in itself, I think that’s a very powerful and beautiful way to look at the Jesus story. Queer Christology looks at Jesus as someone that counteracted oppression so far as to result in dying on the cross. There’s not so much about a literal personal salvation and the ultimate eternity in heaven. What is emphasized and is seen as super important to evangelical Christians.

I do understand that for evangelical Christians, this view of Jesus would probably clash with their beliefs and their literal reading of the Jesus story and how their personal salvation took place when Jesus died on the cross and the resurrection that followed. And I think if you are still really into the evangelical church, then you will probably not agree with this interpretation, which is fine, even though I very much appreciate a queer reading of Jesus.

However, I don’t think I would have been ready to accept these ideas, especially in the beginning of my process of letting go of these beliefs that no longer worked for me. Most of all, because of the idea that everything that was going against the theories that had led to my indoctrination was considered heretic and wrong and unsafe territory. So you have to be really strong to accept these ideas. I’m thankful that many years later I stumbled upon these ideas and I was ready to relate and appreciate them, even though I don’t consider myself a Christian anymore.

I still think that this new reading of Jesus, it makes a lot of sense to me because for a long time, I, especially when I was letting go of my religious belief, when I was changing my views on Jesus and the Christian narrative, I would always be like, yeah, but what about the cross? Because that was such an important part of my upbringing. And I think also in my conversations with other people who were still evangelicals or with family members, that would always be the question like, but then why did Jesus die on the cross? If it wasn’t for our personal salvation and an eternity in heaven. And then when I read this, I was like, yeah, well, basically this would be my answer to that.

I also want to address that a queer reading is not going to suddenly solve our religious trauma, obviously, but I really hope that it might soften the damage done by these toxic environments. At least that is what it has done to me. I think that queer theology can take care of it, that queer people can find comfort and strength in their oppression through biblical stories and the story of Jesus. It’s important that we experience a queer theology and a queer Christology in order to bring a piece of healing to the brokenness that for many of us came forth from our religious
environment.

I think that religion fulfills many functions and one of them is to console, to explain why human beings suffer, why we die and why despite these facts, we should live in hope. And honestly, for a long time, I didn’t feel hopeful about the future or hopeful about
life in general. And I’m reading this book on consolation and finding solace in dark times. And it’s basically a meditation on loss and mortality. And the book looks at thinkers who came through the darkest experiences and what they can tell us about holding on to hope and believe in life’s possibilities. So I read the following and I thought it might be helpful to look at religion in another way.

Consolation is possible only if hope is possible. And hope is possible only if life makes sense to us. The hope we need for consolation depends on faith that our existence is meaningful or can be giving meaning by our efforts. This is the faith that allows us to live in expectation of recovery and renewal. Consolation depends on that faith and because of it, it is an unavoidable religious idea, even though the meaning that gives us hope can take non-religious or even anti-religious forms. But the very fact that these texts have been saved across thousands of years, resided, copied out, rescued from the flames, affirms that we are not alone in our search to give meaning to the world and to our existence. We do not have to believe in God to believe this, but we need faith in human beings and the chain of meaning that we have inherited.

So I think that is a very interesting way to look at religion. And I think especially for queer people and other minorities who have been facing a lot of hardships, it’s a shame because of the fact that we’ve been rejected by churches or other religious communities to throw away all the wisdom that can be found in these wisdom traditions. And I like the idea of having faith in human beings and the chain of meanings that we have inherited and that it would be nice to find ways in order to read this from our own social position.

Like I said in the beginning, healing is a very complex and broad topic and I will definitely come back to the topic of healing in my next episode. I will be talking about chosen family, which is also a part of our healing journey and it is something that contributes to our well-being. Thank you for listening and if you have any questions, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram at @QueerlyHavingIssues or leave a comment below this episode in the Q&A. Take care.