TL;DR
I really appreciated Brandan Robertson’s book Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table. He does discuss the clobber passages that have been used by many in the church to condemn queer people, but he also goes well beyond these to talk about the place of queerness in our theology and practice of Christianity.
He bookends the theological discussions with his personal testimony of becoming a Christian and experiencing a lot of harm from the church until he got to a place of peace regarding his identity and his faith and a Q&A where he answers commonly asked questions related to queerness and the church.
Further Thoughts
In chapter 1, Robertson shares a usage of the word queer that means “to disrupt arbitrary norms, making space for diverse and often marginalized existing and perspectives to flourish.” He suggests that, based on that definition, the church needs queering in many ways. In addition to the full inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ people, this idea also makes me think of how women are only tolerated at conservative churches if they toe the line of submission and how black and brown people are welcomed in those same spaces only to the extent that they make themselves fit in with the predominantly white culture.
Part 1 of the book continues with his personal story – from feeling different even as a child to becoming a Christian as a teenager and subsequently learning that the church that seemed to welcome him actually had a lot of conditions on their love, to going to Bible college and trying to pray the gay away, to deconstructing a lot of what he believed about religion and finding a faith community that embraced him. It is a powerful testimony about the harm that has been done to many queer individuals.
In Part 2, he posits that the Bible’s authority does not come from within its pages, but from “within the communities that hold it as sacred and interpret it.” After discussing the “clobber passages” that are traditionally thrown at LGBTQ people, he brings up an idea that was new to me related to Acts 10-11. These chapters share how Peter was called to open his mind to accept that Gentiles could become Christians just like the Jewish people who believed in Jesus. When he shared the experience with the leaders of the church, they all changed their minds as well and began accepting Gentiles into the faith. This inclusion of people who were formerly outsiders is a step towards fulfilling God’s desire that all people would be saved and serves as an example to all of us when unexpected people want to join our community and faith.
Part 3 of the book is essentially a look at several people and relationships from the Bible who exhibit some form of queerness. I had heard of some of these before, while others were new to me. I’m not completely sure I agree with his take on all of them, but I do find his explanation of how these differ from the norms of the day to be worthy of further exploration on my part.
In Part 4, Robertson answers several commonly asked questions, and I found this practical application of his ideas to be so interesting and useful. He encourages people to move beyond the idea that we can accept queer people but still maintain all of our other traditional beliefs and instead to examine every area of our theology and practice.
