Queerness Under Threat

A response to Susan Rakoczy

By Whitney A. Baumann

The Queerness of Theology

……one might assume that LGS ( lesbian and gay studies) and QT (queer theory)  are synonymous, but the former deals more with identity and liberation of specific identities while the latter critiques how those identities get defined and stabilized. These are not mutually exclusive, and I argue we need both: the critical, deconstructive bits from QT, and the liberative bits from LGS that focus on justice for specific bodies, individual bodies. In the end , I argue that we must think queerly if we are going to open up God-talk to the multiplicity of the planetary community and all therein. In this sense QT is a good partner in the struggle to end sexism in God-Talk, and undo the hierarchical chain of reality attached  to the omni-, male  GOD. …

P541

Christian Theology and Climate Change ed.  Ernst. M Conradie  and Hilda P Koster

T and T Clark  2022

 It can be a harrowing experience to be gay and unsupported but they tend to find their own communities and may be hidden or open and as more countries become right wing and authoritarian  lives can be desperate and death is their parody in this persecution, and suicide is one of their forms, the world is asunder for many gays and lesbians. We are queer folk.

Have you read ‘Queering the Prophet, on Jonah and other activists’ edited by,  L Juliana M. Claassens et al, SCM Press. 2023

And it has given me some words of thought, we must elevate the thought of marginalised people  and avoid despondence

We have justice in our bodies and psyches and truth may shape public discourse, when so many of us are marked by death and violence, our bodies are meaning making and with embodiment and agency we can create a resistance with collaboration.

I understand at this time there is a war against trans gender people and the use of pronouns in that place of conservatism, The United Kingdom, with the non-binary language, with hostility.

And the church as known to me  is stretching itself around the Blessings of Same-Sex marriages, in search of consensual voice and action but ripped apart by conservatisms, and context is important In the battle for justice and inclusion. It will be played out in the public individual for self-efficacy and how we camouflage ourselves as situations can be dangerous and undeserving

The challenges come from reading texts in different ways and renaming ourselves as required by truth-telling. Each of us has a conversion story and a coming out.

‘The body is not simply a site of inscription, but also, a site of performance, resisting and self-asserting’ page 31  of the book.

‘The liberation struggle implies the long haul and this requires more urgent and authentic reflections  on how we care for change-makers and how we offer support  for those in the trenches.’ page thirty-four of the same.

Written on the day of my seventy-third birthday (18/11/2023)