Video Transcript:
Nii: As you may already know, this website is the work of a group of students at Princeton Theological Seminary. We took a class together called Queer Hermeneutics in the fall of 2019. Queer Hermeneutics was the first class of its kind at PTS, and for many of us, it was more than just a learning experience.
Riley: This class provided a space for me to reflect on and use my own lived experiences as I read and interpret scripture. I learned how to better embrace my queerness as a gift; my queerness bumps up against systems of heteronormativity that I don’t fit into and leads me to be critical of these systems. This in turn gives permission to all people who struggle with cis/het norms and want to be critical of them but may not have the language to do so. It was a privilege and a gift to participate in a class that was queer-centered, despite the prevalent cisgender/hetero normativity in theological education. This class ignited my imagination and made me see all the ways that the Bible is already queer. It opened up new possibilities for me and inspired creativity. As a queer woman in ministry, I hear voices that tell me I don’t belong in a pulpit. Through this class, I claimed my queerness as the gift it is to the world, and especially to the Church.
Casey: I’ll often tell people that the most academically transformative course I ever took was a wide-ranging seminar on queer theory in my junior year at UNC Charlotte. Nevertheless, as powerful as that course was for my academic career, so much of what I learned in that classroom remained theoretical. I have never been in any space quite like this Queer Hermeneutics class, which was personally transformative. This course invited me to think about my body, my sexuality, and my unique experiences as viable “texts” to read alongside scripture. As a cisgender, straight-identifying white man, I run the risk of mistaking my experience of the world and of scripture as normative or objective. But my experience of the world is never disembodied—it is never disconnected from my privilege, my desire, or my unique position in the world. This class challenged me to center and learn from desires and experiences that differ from my own—and especially from those who live on the other side of many of the very systems I benefit from—but it also gave me the tools to queer my own reading of scripture and the world around me, in a way that is both authentic to and not limited by my story.
Nii: As you can see, this class was unlike anything most of us had ever experienced as students. So in addition to providing the stories and resources on the rest of the site, we wanted to give you just a little taste of what it was like to be in the classroom with us. On this page, we walk you through each unit of the course. You’ll find summaries of the most important things we learned on the journey, along with lists of what we read, watched, and listened to. We’ve also included some discussion questions based on our readings that can guide your personal reading or spark conversation in a group. We hope that all of this will be a gift to you, just like this class was a gift to us.
UNIT 1: INTRODUCING HERMENEUTICS
Sanders, Cody J. Queer Lessons for Churches on the Straight and Narrow: What All Christians Can Learn from LGBTQ Lives. Macon, GA: Faithlab, 2013. Pages xiii-xvi.
Watch “Moving from Pain to Power,” an interview with bell hooks, Darnell Moore, and Marci Blackman.
Hermeneutics as an academic discipline reflects on questions of meaning-making and interpretation. Scholars who study biblical hermeneutics—theories and principles that guide a person’s reading—ask questions like: “Who or what determines the meanings of Scripture?” “What happens when we read the Bible?” As a class, we spent some time reflecting on these questions together. We realized that the meanings of Scripture cannot simply be determined by what its original author may have intended or what the words on the page meant in their original context. Because we read Scripture in our contexts today, the meanings of Scripture emerge from the interaction between readers and texts. When we read the Bible, we bring our identities, experiences, biases, and limitations to the text—even without realizing it. We all read with our own personal hermeneutic, making conscious and unconscious decisions about what makes Scripture meaningful. Of course, that means that reading Scripture can be difficult for queer folks, because queer identities and experiences are often impacted by harmful interpretations of Scripture. Together we spent time finding new ways to tell our stories, using narrative therapy techniques and learning from the stories of queer Christians who have decided to bring their queer selves fully into their readings of Scripture. A queer hermeneutic opens up new possibilities of meaning and helps readers see their own lives as sources of power.
What happens when we read the Bible?
Borg, Marcus J. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001. Pages ix-53, 297-302.
Clark-Soles, Jaime. Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010. Pages 13-34, 127-148.
Lorde, Audre. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. Pages 40-44.
Porter, Stanley E. and Beth M. Stovell. “Introduction: Trajectories in Biblical Hermeneutics.” In Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Beth M. Stovell. Spectrum Multiview Book. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012. Pages 9-24, 48-69.
Spencer, F. Scott. “The Literary/Postmodern View.” In Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Beth M. Stovell. Spectrum Multiview Book. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012. Pages 48-69.
How does my story affect how I read?
Beardsley, Christina, and Michelle O’Brien, eds. “Nos. 2-9.” In This is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians. London: Dartmon, Longman and Todd, 2016. 129-61.
Denborough, David. Retelling the Stories of our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and Transform Experience. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2014. Pages 3-24.
Tippett, Krista. “Darnell Moore -- Self-Reflection and Social Evolution.” On Being with Krista Tippett. 8 August 2019. https://onbeing.org/programs/darnell-moore-self-reflection-and-social-evolution/.
Discussion Questions for Unit 1:
What are some of the factors that influence the way we read Scripture?
Who or what determines the meaning of Scripture?
What do we do when our interpretations of Scripture clash with one another?
UNIT 2: SURVEYING THE FIELD
Part of our course on Queer Hermeneutics required that we take stock of current conversations and debates around sexuality and the Bible. This means grappling with Christian theologians and biblical scholars who have been less-than-affirming of queer lives and experiences, or with some of the most violently-deployed “clobber passages” of scripture (Gen. 19, Lev. 18-20, Rom. 1, 1 Cor. 6, 1 Tim. 1). Our class did not linger on these interpretations and passages very long, mostly because queer Christians have already witnessed the ways in which these texts are weaponized against them, because queer exegesis and queer hermeneutical methods should not be forced to always take the defensive position, and because these passages “pathologize and stigmatize queerness.” It may be helpful to engage this unit as a way to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Some of these readings demonstrate the ways in which non-affirming readings of scripture are based on lazy exegesis that in one way or another “discounts the complexity involved in the process of interpreting Scripture.” Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger,” meanwhile, offers a different approach to the clobber passages and those who would wield them irresponsibly: not defensive engagement on the terms of queerphobic readers, but the usefulness of anger in dealing with trauma and suffering. And, as it turns out, what the Bible “says” about sexuality is more complicated than can be condensed into a few short verses. Queer hermeneutics should not only be about defending queer lives from invalidating theologies—it should also be about the construction of affirming and life-giving theologies! As a class, we dove particularly into Acts 8:26-40 (the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch) to find the celebration of difference and the inclusion of the marginalized at the heart of the New Testament.
What do people say about sexuality and Scripture?
Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. Pages 124-133.
Johnson, William Stacey. A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006. Pages 45-76.
Kaltenbach, Caleb and Matthew Vines. “Debating the Bible Verses on Homosexuality.” The New York Times. 8 June 2015.
What else does the Bible ‘say’ about sexuality?
Sanders, Cody. Queer Lessons for Churches on the Straight and Narrow: What All Christians Can Learn from LGBTQ Lives. Macon, GA: Faithlab, 2013. Pages 1-16, 151-156.
Blount, Brian. “Reading and Understanding the New Testament on Homosexuality.” In Homosexuality and Christian Community. Edited by Choon-Leong Seow. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999. Pages 28-38.
Guest, Deryn, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, and Thomas Bohache, editors. The Queer Bible Commentary. London: SCM Press, 2006. Pages 1-18.
Johnson, William Stacey. A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006. Pages 77-114.
Discussion Questions for Unit 2:
What are the most helpful or effective resources for dealing with Bible-induced grief, trauma, and exclusion?
How might queer interpreters most effectively refute harmful readings and theologies?
Where in scripture would you turn to construct an affirming, life-giving theology of queerness?
UNIT 3: THE ART OF QUEER READING
All interpretation is rooted in its historical context. This means that all anti-gay readings of a text are historically contingent; which is to say, no interpretation is set in stone as an ultimate truth. Biblical literalism, plain and “clear” readings of a text, tells us that certain passages have always meant the same thing or that their interpretations are universally agreed upon. However, we bring our social location and experiences to a text and that affects how we read. Queer readings of a text question, expose, and disrupt cis/hetero normativity and open the text up to new possibilities that have been silenced or obscured. Queer readings are not just for queer people; queer people are permission givers to all people who are struggling with the cis/het norms. In the academic world, queer theory has created a kind of social space where queer people find each other. More generally, queer commentary allows space for experimenting, prancing, and squatting; it's made up along the way, developed by people who aren't playing by existing rules defined by academia. As we take queer approaches to our reading and/or preaching, we must be vigilant against taking up “The Master’s Tools”—of power and control—even in the name of liberation.
How can we disrupt the current discourse?
Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. Pages 110-113.
What does it mean to take a ‘queer’ approach?
Warner, Michael. “Queer and Then?” The Chronicle of Higher Education. 1 January 2012.
Queer approaches to the Bible:
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. “Reading the Bible from Low and Outside: Lesbitransgay People as God’s Tricksters.” In Take Back the Word. Edited by Robert E. Goss and Mona West. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000. Pages 13-22.
“John 1 Beyond the Binary.” In Come and Read: Interpretive Approaches to the Gospel of John. Edited by Alicia Myers and Lindsey Jodrey. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Forthcoming, 2019.
Discussion Questions for Unit 3:
What are the real conditions of your life?
How can you use the knowledge of your experiences to inform the way you read or interact in the world?
What was difficult about these readings? What questions do you have?
What was ignited in your imagination as you read queer approaches to scripture?
UNIT 4: GIVING YOU THE TOOLS
The readings in this final chapter shift our focus toward a diverse array of queer biblical exegesis and theologizing. These readings are imaginative and innovative. They were selected with the idea of inviting us as seminarian readers into queerer and more creative practices of reading texts. As you read these essays, let them open your imagination up. Let them inspire you, and expose you to new ways of thinking about and working with scripture. Head over on Instagram to @holyblackedout and practice black out poetry as well, as our class did with Antonia Terrazas; after all, taking a queer approach to reading or interpreting a text does not have to mean salvaging it—it can also look like vandalizing and playing with harmful texts.
How can I take a ‘queer’ approach?
hooks, bell. “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness.” In Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990. Pages 145-53.
Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Scholarship. Edited by T.J. Hornsby and Ken Stone. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2011. Pages 9-43.
Stone, Ken. “Queer Reading Between the Bible and Film: Paris is Burning and the ‘Legendary Houses’ of David and Saul.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Scholarship. Edited by T.J. Hornsby and Ken Stone. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2011. Pages 75-98.
What is exegesis again, and how can we queer it?
Menéndez-Antuña, Luis. “Is There a Room for Queer Desires in the House of Biblical Scholarship? A Methodological Reflection on Queer Desires in the Context of Contemporary New Testament Studies.” Biblical Interpretation 23 (2015): 399-427.
Monroe, Irene. “When and Where I Enter, Then the Whole Race Enters with Me: Que(e)ryingExodus.” In Take Back the Word. Edited by Robert E. Goss and Mona West. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000. Pages 82-91.
Rose, Dawn Robinson. “Insider Out: Unmasking the Abusing God.” In Take Back the Word. Edited by Robert E. Goss and Mona West. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000. Pages 143-52.
Discussion Questions for Unit 4:
Which readings caught your attention? Shocked you? Persuaded you? Inspired you?
What other media forms, like @holyblackedout, might allow you to queer the texts that have been used against you?
What will you do next to celebrate queerness and draw queerness out of the already-queer Bible?