Queer as in Queer Theology

Abstract

More than half of LGBTQ+ persons in the United States identify as religious and as a group they are just over 5% more likely to identify as ‘highly religious’ when compared to their straight counterparts. Making light of this in the Christian theological context, “queer theology,” then, has become an ever-encompassing catch-all term for a wildly different series of scholastic, theological, exegetical, and hermeneutical traditions- constantly in tension with one another- serving as an umbrella term for this wide demographic that coalesces a group of pieces that seemingly share nothing in common beyond their often shared authorship from persons of queer or non-normative gender and sexual identities. Given this, doing any categorical analysis of ‘queer theology’ in religious studies has become increasingly difficult and will definitionally exclude certain groups whose work might not be ontologically or metaphysically dissimilar beyond a certain abstract metric established by a given author at hand. Despite this, I will explore in this thesis what can be said definitionally about the discipline of queer theology. As aforementioned, many view the discipline as simply the tradition of theology done by people of queer identities; however, I ask here if this is all that can be said of the composition which defines this discipline of ‘queer theology-’ that it is merely a theology done by queer persons- and continue to articulate what can be said definitively about this discipline external to this given circular definition. Is there any way to categorically define queer theology? Is there any way to structurally analyze the tradition? Might we say in any meaningful manner that there exists a developed queer theological praxis? It is in light of these questions and questions just like these that I have approached this project. In this thesis, I argue there exists in the literature four prominent views of which I have dubbed: (1) the identifying hypothesis, which argues queer theology is simply theology done by queer persons; (2) the theory hypothesis, which argues queer theology is theology that is the result of applied queer theory; (3) the affirming hypothesis, which argues queer theology is theology that affirms the identities and behaviors of the gender and sexual minorities; and (4) the considering hypothesis, which argues that queer theology is theology which considers members of the gender and sexual minority somewhat in their theological or dogmatic prescriptions- all of which I argue ultimately fall short at describing aptly the positive force ‘queer’ describes in the discipline of ‘queer theology.’ To resolve this, I ultimately offer my own hypothesis I call the ‘the processal hypothesis’ which argues [T → X ∴ N (=^T)] in that ‘queer theology’ (X) might be understood as the process of using theological claims (T) in good faith to come to non-normative conclusions (N) about gender or sexuality. My approach in the presenting the first four theses is descriptive, in that instead of asserting some sort of advantage of any of these hypotheses I am simply attempting to describe their presence in the literature, although I do ultimately turn in my own hypothesis to make some prescriptive claim in my last chapter wherein I present the processal hypothesis.No embargoAcademic Major: PhilosophyAcademic Major: French and Francophone StudiesAcademic Major: Religious Studie