There's None So Queer As Folk.

“God in Jesus loves us in a queer and radical way.”

The late Christian Rock singer, Larry Norman, used to tell a story of how, in the first flush of Christian faith (as he understood it), a number of things worried him about living in our world. (Bearing in mind the unhealthy nature of many of the doctrines he was mis-told were true, this is not a surprise!) In particular, he was very concerned about Homogenised Dairy Products. And, seeing as he rather liked milk, this was an issue. You can see on the page, and easily hear in the reading of the word, “H.O.M.O -genised,” where his anxiety came from! (Having Homo- and what sounds like “genitals” in the same word - I mean; really?!).

There are thousands of Evangelical Fundamentalist and Reformist believers (among many other denominational identifiers) out there for whom being HOMO-phobic is equated with being “Biblical” as a Christian. I am not going to rehearse all that anti-Christ indoctrination here: we have neither the time, nor the inclination, if truth be told.

(Larry Norman - Facebook)

Things have moved on somewhat, since the days when Larry Norman expressed his hang-ups about homogenization.

Or, you would have thought so, anyway.

As I look back across the last few decades of Church history and especially, the evolution of destructive dogmas, I perceive that although we might even laugh at Norman’s dilemma, his dis-ease is fairly widespread, denominationally speaking. The current controversies in the Church of England, for example, surrounding the programme “Living in Love & Faith,” for example, are but one part of our denominational predilection for dualism, division, dissidence and dissonance. To institutionalised misogyny has been added homophobia, which form of xenophobia now extends to transphobia. For a people united to the Father by the Trinitarian bonds of love through Jesus the Christ, in the Holy Spirit, I find all this very queer; very queer indeed! And yet it is this very queerness that may well come to our rescue!

(Some of you might have just returned your breakfast to your bowl or plate. Forgive me: I only mean to shock, perhaps scandalize, but not starve!)

“What God rejoices in as Diversity we reject as Deviance.”

Across all denominations discussions on, and attitudes towards difference reveal that we are still focusing on “the flesh” rather than the spirit. Indeed, we continue to promote a system of superficial judgments based on surface appraisals which ignores - or flat out denies - the interconnectedness, unity and Wholeness established in Christ. For, as Paul pointed out, we no longer assess and recognise Jesus “after the flesh” – his external appearance – so too, are we to no longer assess, judge, segregate and classify one another – all humanity included. And yet, what God rejoices in as Diversity we reject as Deviance.

I think most people familiar with this theology of approach can accept it when it comes to Black, Brown, or White; Greek or Jew; “Slave” or “Free” etc. But O do we have some real hang-ups when Paul says there is neither “Male” nor “Female”! Purity codes and fear of sexuality alone make this a tough pill to swallow; the more so when dipped in misogyny, patriarchy, male-dominated hierarchy, ecclesiastical male privilege and power, and so on, and on, and on.

Not too long ago in our modern church history, stories started to circulate about projects designed to “prove” that the Holy Spirit is Female: God the Father’s Better Half! We are not going to rehearse all those arguments here. Suffice to say that recognising the Female aspect of the Triune God in the Person of the Holy Spirit is a healthy approach and opens up wide possibilities in Scripture, not least in answering many honest questions posed by Feminist Theologians, among other intelligent seekers after Truth.

“To institutionalised misogyny has been added homophobia, which form of xenophobia now extends to transphobia.”

Genesis 1 does kind of give us a clue, along with the great passages on Wisdom (“Sophia”) in Proverbs 8, Sirach and The Book of Wisdom.

“Man” (Adamah) started out as a composite creature.

Then God said ‘Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness…’

GOD created human beings in Their [‘his’]

own image; in the image of GOD

They [‘he’] created them; male and female They [‘he’] created them.

You will not be surprised to read that some serious work has been done, hermeneutically, linguistically and theologically, that concludes that the first human beings were probably androgynous!

So it does not surprise me that after the taboos surrounding race, mixed marriage and now homosexuality and same-sex attraction, even same-sex marriage, we should now be fixating our fear of difference, the ‘other’, and of queer definitions generally, on the transgender community, those experiencing dysphoria, and others exploring gender fluidity.

“To our world, unconditional love is queer; laying down your life/rights for the other is queer; loving your enemy is queer. Be queer!”

I have had immense enlightenment, education and no small entertainment reading a glorious book by Mihee Kim-Kort, Outside the lines – How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith (2018, Fortress Press) in which “Mihee recounts how her ‘queerness’ has brought her closer to Jesus and taught her how to love better,” as the jacket blurb describes it. Endorsed by Nadia Bolz-Webber, Diana Butler Bass, Mike McHargue and Jeff Chu, among others, and with a Foreword by the late (and still much lamented) Rachel Held Evans, this book pulsates with love, life, and liberation.

In Philippians 2 we read:

Take to heart yourselves what you find in Christ Jesus:

He was in the form of God; yet he laid no claim to equality with God,

but made himself nothing, assuming the form of a slave. Bearing the

human likeness, sharing the human lot, he humbled himself,

and was obedient, even to the point of death,

even death on a cross!

I have deliberately used the not-so-popular Revised English Bible (REB) in order to create a little cognitive dissonance between your familiarity with the text from more “acceptable”, learnt translations and the real impact of it. My question, then, is why do we insist on the exclusivity of maleness in the “human form” Jesus took on? If he “shared the human lot,” and came to save all humanity, then according to the dictum, “what is not assumed cannot be redeemed,” then as the First Adam was male and female, should not the Christ – the Second Adam – be likewise?

Yes, I am being provocative on purpose, in order that we might really face our prejudices and discover how One we really are: for our lives are hid with Christ in God. As They are One, so also are we. If Christ in, and as, me (as a man) is my hope of glory, surely Christ in, and as, a woman is her hope of glory, too?

Kim-Kort writes,

We need to remember to see ourselves and others as embodied, especially those lives and bodies that are particularly vulnerable. This is at the heart of the Christian faith, to love my neighbour as myself, including love of what is traditionally categorized – whether by policy or prejudice, ideology or theology – as foreign, other, alien, or stranger. And then, even more strange – and queer – love extends to those who are deemed my enemy, that is, those who hate me. It means, then, that we do not see anyone as a stranger or foreigner or outsider or enemy; every human being shares our humanity [including Jesus]. Every human being is our neighbour. (Ibid p.56)

This is the Gospel!

Kim-Kort, again:

A queer spirituality challenges the compartments that we, not God, have created. A queer spirituality encourages us toward candid questioning that stirs our hearts. A queer spirituality urges us not to blindly accept what culture gives us but to interrogate it thoroughly, wholeheartedly, and prayerfully. A queer spirituality welcomes desire…(p.23)

Think about this, please, as I have, in recent days - and learned a lot: “To our world, unconditional love is queer; laying down your life/rights for the other is queer; loving your enemy is queer. Be queer!” (Me, on Facebook.)

Go well, Wayfarers.

(Shepherdesses by Carole Pennington)

Poet Emma Nicol wrote this poem as a radical re-imagination of traditional male-dominated language describing God. Of the poem she writes: It’s a GIRL! plays with the language of scripture and flips the gendered assumptions many of us were handed about who or what God can be. Styled like a birth announcement, the piece imagines what it might look and feel like for a woman to see herself reflected in the Divine—a perspective rarely affirmed in traditional theology.

It’s a GIRL!

Congratulations on your precious daughter!
Welcome to the world, little one!

What a joy it is
to behold a child
made in the image of God.

How glorious to witness
the arrival of one
who carries the nature of God.

She will grow to know
a good, good Mother,
a Queen of Queens,
a Lady of Ladies.
She will feel the privilege
of locking eyes with a Creator who looks and sounds like
Her.

It’s a GIRL!
How fortunate we are
to hold a sacred text
that celebrates the feminine in God.

How blessed is she
to be part of a tradition
that speaks the language of women,
that remembers the holy
in flesh, in breath, in birth.

It’s a GIRL!
So she will grow up hearing
Isaiah’s proclamations,
the Psalms’ laments,
Matthew’s parables,
the poetry of Hosea and Proverbs.
These ancient references to the feminine Divine
will rest on her tongue.

She will hear the text proclaim —

God as labouring woman:
gasping, panting,
offering Her body to birth new life.

God as mother:
nursing, nurturing,
sustenance streaming from Her breasts.

God as midwife:
guiding, coaching,
ushering in the miraculous.

God as maternal bird:
nesting, shielding
becoming a place of rest.

God as mama bear:
fierce, enraged,
ferocious defender of the vulnerable.

God as Woman Wisdom:
challenging, chortling
wielding justice and joy.

It’s a GIRL!
So she will memorise the Psalm –

The Lord is my Shepherdess, I lack nothing.

She makes me lie down in green pastures,

She leads me beside quiet waters, She refreshes my soul.

She guides me along the right paths for Her name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil, for She is with me;

Her rod and Her staff, they comfort me.

She prepares a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

She anoints my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely Her goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lady forever.

It’s a GIRL!
How lucky she is
to be born into a world
where God is both masculine and feminine.
Where this is seen in word,
in culture,
in lyric,
in language,
in community,
and in the earth itself.

How glorious to
behold a God who is

Not more fatherly than motherly,
not more patriarchal than matriarchal,
not more paternal than maternal.

Not more King than Queen,
not more God than Goddess,
not more found in text than in creation.

Not more He than She,
not more Lord than Lady,
not more Abba than Imma.

It’s a GIRL!
May she grow
into this holy knowing
that her body is sacred,
her voice is strong,
and the Divine embodies
all of us in perfect harmony —
so that she may always, always
find herself in God.

(By Emma Nicol)