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ABSTRACT
The synoptic Gospels describe Jesus Christ’s transfiguration not as a mode of ontological change, but rather as a means of revelation – that he is the second person of the Trinity. Through a diptych reading of Christ’s transfiguration and crucifixion, I argue that those who experience hate crimes share in Christ’s misrecognition in the midst of revealing truth, which can result in violence and death. Additionally, I offer a constructive, biblical theology of trans and intersex aesthetics that runs counter to neoliberal identity politics by illuminating how the bodily presentation of trans and intersex persons of faith reveal a baptismal truth – that through Christ humanity is adopted as co-heirs with him.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Michelle Wolff is an assistant professor of Religion at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, where they teach courses on ethics, race, gender, and religion. Wolff is the author of “Madonna and Child of Soweto: Black Life Beyond Apartheid and Democracy” in Political Theology (2018) and “Karl Barth’s Christology and Jan Christian Smuts’ Human Rights Rhetoric,” in Stellenbosch Theological Journal (2019). Duke University Press is soliciting Wolff’s book on Sally Gross.
Notes
1. Irenaeus, Origin, Maximus, Aquinas, Gregory Palmas, Luther, and Barth are among some theologians who discuss the transfiguration. Graham Ward briefly explores the economy of love at this event as performing a resurrection hope.
2. For more on this see Swarr’s, Sex in Transition.
3. Salamon, Assuming a Body, 5. “Merleau-Ponty challenges both philosophical accounts of embodiment that rely upon a dualistic conception of body and self and mind/body theorists whose conceptions of the body are predicated on starkly drawn models of inside and outside. Instead, he suggests that our bodies are inextricably intertwined with both our selves and the worlds in which our bodies are situated. I consider his claim that bodies become material only through relations with others and explore the consequences that this might have for theorizing transsubjectivity.”
4. Salamon, Assuming a Body, 1.
5. Salamon, Assuming a Body, 99–100. Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw argues that intersectionality faces unintelligibility within the law, “Demarginalizaing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” 139–67.
6. For a critique of this as a progress narrative of inclusion see Wiegman, Object Lessons, 40–54. Wiegman returns the reader’s attention to the archive of black women and lesbians in women’s studies from the 1960’s, ibid., 64–65.
7. Stryker et al., “Introduction: Trans-, Trans, or Transgender?”.
8. Rubin, Intersex Matters, 11.
9. Cornwall, Sex and Uncertainty; Cornwall, Intersex, Theology and the Bible; Cornwall, “Understanding Gender Dysphoria”; Cornwall, “Asking About What is Better”; Cornwall, “The Kenosis of Unambiguous Sex”; and Cornwall, “Sex Otherwise.”
10. For more on this see Nancy L. Eiseland’s, The Disabled God and Alison Kafer’s, Feminist, Queer, Crip.
11. Tanis, Trans-Gendered; Dowd and Beardsley, Transfaith; Beardsley and O’Brien, This is my Body.
12. Althaus-Reid and Isherwood, Trans-Formations (Controversies in Contextual Theology).
13. Luther, Luther’s Works, 225. Luther asserted the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist – though not in the form of transubstantiation – and in preaching.
14. Matthew 17:1–13 (NET).
15. Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 706.
16. Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe”.
17. Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 22:3; John 18:37.
18. Lee, Transfiguration, 95.
19. Ibid., 51.
20. This observation might be more readily apprehended by a contemporary reader of biblical texts than Peter, James, or John. However, it poses a significant rebuttal to contemporary persons who suggest that if Christ personally manifested himself to them that they could more easily have faith. Perhaps this signals a longing to synchronize the Word and the Word made flesh.
21. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2.
22. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III. q.45 “Of Christ’s Transfiguration,” a. 4.
23. New Testament scholar Colin Yuckman explained the verb “tabernacling” used here which is translated into English as “dwelt” though there is no direct corresponding verb (October 2016).
24. Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 700–701.
25. Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center.
26. Tonstad, God and Difference, 270. Tonstad argues, “We must accept rather than being transparent to us, our faithfulness escapes our control and so is not even ours; it depends on a relationship to a Jesus whom we fail to recognize.”
27. Luther, Luther’s Works, 403.
28. Pumla Dineo Gqola argues: “Queer desire and gender non-conformity were explicitly criminalised and policed in apartheid South Africa, thereby further dissuading gay men and transgender individuals from reporting rape,” Rape: A South African Nightmare, 14.
29. This argument exceeds David Albert Jones’s suggestion that gender transition can be a virtuous Catholic expression of persona in, “Truth in Transition? Gender identity”. Jones makes a useful argument about the analogy of adoption, which is highly compatible with Galatians 3:28.
30. Lee, Transfiguration, 134.
31. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 70–71. For Maximus, Christ’s clothing symbolizes scripture made clear to the disciples and creation itself being worthy of the Word.
32. Luther, Lectures on Galatians 1535, 353. Luther puts it this way: “Therefore Paul teaches that Baptism is not a sign but the garment of Christ, in fact, that Christ Himself is our garment.”
33. In addition to the literal clothing of trans people as a form of disclosing being adopted co-heirs, in baptism we are all spiritually clothed in Christ (Galatians 3:27). Christ’s righteousness frees us from the shame described in Genesis, where Adam and Eve covered their naked bodies. He imparts a new relationship between humanity and our bodies in which we need not feel shame, but rather boldly declare our freedom as clothed in Christ.
34. Lee, Transfiguration, 130.
35. Neuroscience studies of gender identity include: Garcia-Falgueras, “Sexual differentiation,” 41–62; Hines, “Prenatal endocrine influences,” 170–82; Kranz et al., “White Matter Microstructure,” 15466–75.
36. Salamon, Assuming a Body, 98.
37. Galatians 3:28 (NRSV).
38. Thank you to one of my reviewers, who suggested a reference here to E. S. Fiorenza’s, In Memory of Her, Lone Fatum’s, “Image of God and Glory of Man,” in The Image of God: Gender Models in Judeo-Christian Tradition, and Dale Martin’s, “The Queer History of Galatians 3:28: ‘No Male and Female’” in Sex and the Single Savior.
39. Luther, Luther’s Works, 327–78.