Jesus ACTED UP: Learning with Robert Goss

Abstract

In this essay, I discuss my responses to Bob Goss’ Jesus ACTED UP as I re-read it 20 years after its original discussion. Bob's work is foundational for subsequent queer theology even as it is bound to the particular context of the early 1990s. Next, I place the book in the larger context of what I call the “queerification” of Christianity. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer equality movement has made significant gains in terms of opening the church to openly queer clergy and access to marriage because of the contributions of scholar/activists such as Bob Goss. I conclude by looking ahead at the need for future explorations that can agitate while also reflecting the nuance required in relation to the more complex understandings of gender and sexuality that have emerged, the growing attention to intersectionality and the instability and complexity of personal identities, and the more subtle but no less deadly forms of homohatred we now face — perhaps in the form of collaborative, even co-authored work.

KEYWORDS:

• queer theology
• queerification of Christianity
• homohatred
• act up
• sexism
• heterosexism

Notes

1 Goss, Jesus ACTED UP.

2 Heterosexual Inclusion Bios. Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC Online Ministries), 2013, http://mccchurch.org/heterosexual-inclusion-bios/.

3 Goss, Jesus ACTED UP, 172.

4 Judith and Marvin, Heterosexism in Contemporary.

5 Sullivan, “Masculinity Without Denigrating Women”.

6 Tushnet, Gay and Catholic.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary E. Hunt

Mary E. Hunt is a feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. A Catholic active in the women-church movement and on LGBTIQ matters, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to liberation issues. She is an editor of A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (Palgrave, 2004, 2014) and co-editor with Diann L. Neu of New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views (SkyLight Paths, 2010).