“Agape love is justice”: Black clergies’ public and theological support of Black gay men

Abstract

This study explored how 60 Black clergy came to publicly and theologically support Black gay men. They participated in three 90-minute life history interviews to address the study aims. Open, axial and selective coding were used to understand and order themes within their accounts while addressing specific aims. Life events, purpose-driven theological training and a commitment to justice provide the basis for theological and public support of Black gay men. Clergies’ understanding of justice is an expression of agape love. Such love inspires both the support and advocacy of stigmatised, marginalised and overly burdened populations. Study findings question monolithic understandings of both Black clergy and the Black church as homophobic and heteronormative. The informants’ data reveal agape love as a key motivation of ministerial holistic support for marginalised and oppressed populations, including Black gay men. Finally, these data assert that agape love is inconsistent with heteronomative and homophobic scriptural interpretation.

Keywords:

• Black
• clergy
• gay
• justice
• theological

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to LaRon Nelson and Michael Keefer of The Center for AIDS Research at The University of Rochester Medical Center. The intellectual generosity of Michelle Harris, Katharine Briar-Lawson, Ricky Fortune as well as Teresa Frye Brown and Randall. C. Bailey is deeply appreciated. I owe a particular debt of gratitude for the enduring support of Rosetta Elaine DuBois Gadson, the first inspiration for this study. Finally, to the informants, I am changed because of you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church guide church governance. In 2004, the delegates at The General Conference of The African Methodist Episcopal Church unanimously voted to prohibit their clerics from participating in same-sex civil unions or marriage. The General Conference and the Doctrine remain silent on the ordination of gay men and lesbians to ministry.

2 Some scholarship suggests homophobia is a denial of African cultural history. There is ample evidence both in the religious and non-religiously oriented African history to support the presence of same-sex behaviour was only rendered taboo with the arrival of the Europeans who endeavoured to colonise Africa (Makofane 2013).

3 The AME denomination is one of several denominations with a domestic and international HIV prevention mission. https://www.ame-church.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/International-Health-Commission-Leadership-Report-to-the-2017-General-Conference.pdf

4 National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. June 21, 2012. https://resources.razorplanet.com/510611-8783/785169_SamesexMarriageVotingandChristianResponsibility.pdf

5 While gay marriage may not be the highest priority for Black gay men or other sexual minorities, marriage barriers further accentuate marginalisation and oppression.

6 Miguel A. De La Torre (2002).

7 William Hawkins, an English man and slave trader travelled along the coast of Sierra Leon. He was a successful slaver. In 1564, Queen Elizabeth sponsored Hawkins by lending him her 700-ton vessel, Jesus of Lubeck. With those resources, he sailed to Serre Leon and enticed the Africans with the promise of meeting a god, Jesus, if they boarded the ship. After boarding, they were barred from disembarking, kidnapped, and sold to slavers in what would become the Dominican Republic. Williamson (1927).

8 Jespersen (1981) provides a history of the northern European origin of the naming of the Jesus of Lubeck carrack.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute (Grant number T31840GG).