Divine detritus: queer remainders from theological quests

ABSTRACT

This essay investigates how theologians should engage with the “leftovers,” or detritus, of the great theological quests by interrogating the process of doing and writing theology. Posing questions about theology’s purpose and systematic method, along with questions that examine both the object of theology and the subjectivity of the theologian, this essay directs its inquiry to uncovering the very foundations of theology today, which itself must be constructed out of divine detritus.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer theology
• detritus
• theological method
• idolatry
• incarnation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Rev. Dr Jay Emerson Johnson, Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture is an Episcopal priest and has served congregations in the Midwest and the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also a member of the core doctoral faculty at the Graduate Theological Union. He came to PSR as a staff member at the school’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) in 2003 and began teaching courses for the school’s Certificate of Sexuality and Religion program. He coordinates the Certificate of Spirituality and Social Change (CSSC) and the Master of Arts degree in Social Transformation (MAST).

Notes

1 Unless otherwise noted, all biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

2 Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God, 12.

3 Ibid., 26–7.

4 Allyn, “Whittier’s Poems,” 78.

5 Pickstock, After Writing, 173.

6 Sölle, Thinking About God, 1–2.

7 Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy, 5.

8 Even this notion has come under renewed scrutiny concerning the effects of the “Big Bang”: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-alignment/ (accessed December 15, 2015).

9 Bonaventure was quoting Alan of Lille in proposing this image of divine presence. See Cousins, Bonaventure, 100.

10 Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God, xiii.

11 I find Nikki Sullivan’s critically constructive analysis of queer theory helpful here and in many other ways as well. See Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory.

12 She argues persuasively, for example, that Christian “apathy” toward the suffering of others has less to do with a Christological justification for the spiritual benefits of pain and more to do with the erroneous (in her view, and mine) image of a God who by definition cannot suffer. See Sölle, Suffering, 41–5.

13 Butler, Bodies that Matter, viii–x.

14 Sölle, Thinking About God, 1.

15 “Joy” is likely not quite the right term here, yet her observations on laughter as a response to recognizing the “original” as a “copy” at least prompts a kind of release from seriousness. See Butler, Gender Trouble, 189.

16 Butler’s text echoed in academic theorizing what had already been transpiring in the political critiques of “gay pride” parades and their unabashed celebration of bodily frivolity (to put the matter politely). The question of whether parody holds political promise (the concluding chapter of Gender Trouble) had already been answered negatively by those pushing for a more “assimilationist” approach to gay liberation – an approach, that is, more palatable to a “mainstream” audience.

17 See Sullivan’s treatment of the contestations over “assimilation” and “liberation.” Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, 22–36. In addition to Queer Nation, Sullivan notes other similar activist collectives and the unsettling questions they tried to pose. Ibid., 37ff.

18 See Exodus 33:23, especially the King James translation: “And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.”

19 This would seem to be precisely the argument, though made positively, by Edith Humphrey when she claims that “homosexuality” is a betrayal of orthodox Trinitarian faith – it is not “merely” unethical, but primarily heretical, a disavowal of being created in the image of the Holy Trinity. Humphrey, “What God Hath Not Joined,” 36.

20 I first came to this insight by reading Elizabeth Stuart’s analysis of the contemporary marriage equality debate in which, she argued, both “conservatives” and “liberals” alike appeared to have forgotten entirely or merely ignored the history of Christian theological reflection on marriage. Both positions staked out ethical arguments and omitted whatever marriage and the desire for marriage might imply about theology proper, about God. See Stuart, Gay and Lesbian Theologies, 3–4.

21 Althaus-Reid, The Queer God, 58–9.

22 Among the several ways she analyzes this dynamic, see her analysis of the “homosexual panic” defense used by those (usually men) accused of assaulting gay men. Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, 18–22.

23 White, Charlotte’s Web, 164.

24 Ibid.

25 Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, 80.

26 See Elizabeth Stuart’s analysis of this mode of gay and lesbian theological work in Stuart, Gay and Lesbian Theologies, 15–32.

27 Leo Bersani rather pointedly and with no little controversy pondered a similar question, though absent the explicit theological framing, by noting that a big secret about sex is that “most people don’t like it.” Bersani, Is the Rectum a Grave? 3.

28 Quoted in Southgate, The Groaning of Creation, 1.

29 Andrew Linzey chronicles several other ways theologians have avoided these problems which seem to me even more troubling, such as proposing that predation is part of the “Eucharistic law of the universe” in which even God is eaten, or that eating and being eaten are blessings when done (or experienced) with gratitude as part of God’s design. Linzey, Creatures of the Same God, 32–4.

30 Among the many examples, see Grandin: Animals Make Us Human; Bekoff and Pierce, Wild Justice; and Masson and McCarthy, When Elephants Weep.

31 The May 2015 outbreak of avian flu required the mass killing of more than 30 million chickens and turkeys in fifteen states; no one knew where to put all the carcasses (http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/21/408306843/avian-flu-outbreak-takes-poultry-producers-into-uncharted-territory; accessed December 29, 2015).

32 White, Charlotte’s Web, 89.

33 Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who, 6.

34 See the coverage of this ongoing conflict by National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88189147 (accessed December 15, 2015).

35 Pollitt, Pro, 71–2.

36 Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, 144–5.

37 Eliot, “Four Quartets,” 136.

38 This is David Clough’s point in his work on mapping more assiduously the arc of Christian doctrine to the world of other-than-human animals. Clough notes, for example, that the key Johannine claim in the prologue posits the Word of God becoming “flesh,” not “human.” The claim, in other words, is that Creator becomes creature. See Clough, On Animals, Volume 1, 84.

39 Althaus-Reid and Ishwerood, The Sexual Theologian, 7.

40 Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who, 58.

41 Cochran and Howard, “I Fall to Pieces.”

42 Nassour and West, Honky Tonk Angel, 132.

43 Not only in drag shows but also when Aretha Franklin sings “you make me feel like a natural woman.” “Natural” as opposed to what, exactly? Or rather, why should anyone embrace such a feeling as a cultural “achievement”? See Butler, Gender Trouble, 30.

44 Althaus-Reid, The Queer God, 33–4.

45 Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 56–7.

46 Warner, The Trouble with Normal and especially his analysis of marriage equality as an antidote for societal shame, ibid., 81–147.

47 Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 82–3. This is what I would like to think Elizabeth Stuart wanted to argue about the queerness of Christian baptism but seems to err instead on the side of identity “erasure.” Stuart, Gay and Lesbian Theologies, 2.

48 Zizioulas, The Eucharistic Communion and the World, 128.

49 Brown was convinced that John likely intended this chapter as his Eucharistic narrative, and certainly early Christian communities read it that way as well. Brown, The Gospel According to John 1–XII, 246–50.

50 Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God, 3 (emphasis in the original).

51 See John Blevins’ account of the fifth century musings of Pseudo-Dionysius and the supposition that God undertook incarnation because of God’s own longing to know us. Blevins, “Uncovering the Eros of God.”

52 Peter Rollins reimagines the Judas figure, not as scheming malcontent or malicious self-seeker, but as (partially) misguided loyalist whose “betrayal” of Jesus was both necessary and fruitful. In like manner, we remain most faithful to the Gospel when we “betray” our Christianity with a kiss. See Rollins, The Fidelity of Betrayal, especially chapter 1, “The Betrayer, the Betrayed, or the Beloved?” 13–25.

53 Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with It? 3–5.

54 Gross, “Funerals for AIDS Victims: Searching for Sensitivity.”

55 Nearly 6,000 migrants died along the Mexico–U.S. border trying to cross the border or reach it between 2000 and 2014 alone. See http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nearly-6000-migrants-have-died-along-mexico-us-border-2000-180952904/?no-ist.

56 Scully, Dominion, especially the stories he tells of animals who manage to escape from butchers and slaughter houses, 31–4.

57 See the statistical and geographical reporting on this from the United Nations at http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=83.