Is Tamar of Genesis 38 queer? Such a question invites another: what do we mean by queer? The narrative of Tamar and Judah within the broader Israelite origin story context describes Tamar’s efforts to survive through trickery, deception, taboo sex, and the humiliation of a patriarch. What is queer about that? The trickery? The sex? Her bringing a patriarch to his knees?
Read MoreAs I write this paper, I am aware that my biblical interpretation is shaped by the multiplicity of my identities and their interaction. I identify as queer, bisexual, and female—identities that have been historically marginalized and have forced me to approach scripture with a posture of skepticism and distrust.
Read MoreThe church slogan—“No Perfect People Allowed”—screamed at me in neon green letters. Below, there was a box with a list of all the types of imperfect people they wanted to come.I skimmed the list, mostly curious to see what qualities the person who made the flyer decided made someone imperfect. I was not surprised by what I found, until I got closer to the end of the list. There it was; two words benignly nestled among a host of supposedly negative qualities. Straight. Gay.
Read MoreMy hope is that reading the Bible will help me to deepen my love for the God who is for us in Jesus and my love for all the people whom God is for. For me, biblical interpretation is never just an intellectual exercise. Reading the Bible is an act of faith and devotion.
Read MoreFor this reader in particular, the woman at Endor is especially compelling. Her differences from my own social location are part of the allure. She is a non-Israelite woman, a minority; I am a white woman in North America where Whiteness is still the predominant culture. She is unattached to a man or institution in a heteropatriarchal society;
Read MoreA hallmark of the queer experience is that of “coming out.” For this paper, I define “coming out” as the act of openly revealing oneself as LGBTQ+. As I thought about this experience and all that comes with it, I began to think about what happens to family relationships once one is “out.” I thought of my own friends who have lost a mother, father, brother, and/or sister. The loss I refer to is the loss of relationship as they once knew it. In the aftermath of coming out, queer people are often forced to find chosen family—friends who become family. The queer community is adaptable and resilient in this way. We find family wherever we go. I chose Luke 14:25-35 because of these experiences.
Read MoreIn this essay, I will be focusing on the story of Rahab in Joshua 2, a story that struck me due to the way blurs lines of identity, subverts binaries, and has a profound history of being used as a tool of oppression within the larger story of Joshua. Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, exists on the margins of society, occupying a queer space that exists between the binary of Canaanite and Israelite, of betrayer and hero, of oppressed and oppressor. She subverts expectations, and her story leaves room for far more interpretations that it has been traditionally ascribed.
Read MoreAs a Quaker, I try to choose nonviolence more often than not. It is a beautiful thing to resist using my hands or sharp words to respond to someone else who has also been created by the Divine. However, as I have leaned into my identities as a powerful queer, Black woman that is a Quaker, pacifism isn’t always loving because it isn’t always loving to me. Therefore, throughout this exegesis of Matthew 5:38-44, I will argue that Jesus’ words to love my enemies does not only mean to choose pacifism but to love my enemies is to love myself enough to resist by any means necessary.
Read MoreSong of Songs – or the Sexy Sexy Book as I like to call it – is widely untouched in today’s Christian churches. When referenced it is the example of what sex after marriage will be or is interpreted allegorically.
Read MoreTattooed on forearms, adhered over family room windows, feverishly underlined in red ink on its dog-eared page, and etched into the minds of myriad believers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and David is the beloved Micah 6:8, which reads: “[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”[i]
Read MoreIn a sermon on the Book of Job delivered in July of 1985, John Piper describes what appears to be “good theology.” This “good theology” comes from Job’s friends, like the words of Zophar in Job 11:1-20 (NRSV): “Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.”
Read MoreMy personal hermeneutic, is rooted in a belief that God is committed to the emancipation of oppressed individuals and communities across human history. My introduction to the academic study of theology came from Ernst Bloch’s Atheism in Christianity.[vii] From Bloch I learned to read biblical texts with the critical eye of a Marxist and the eschatological hope of a Christian. From Bloch’s disciple in queer theory, José Esteban Muñoz, I also find that which is for me the most compelling definition of queerness: “Queerness is not yet here.“
Read MoreThe Gospel narratives invite readers to embrace the beauty, pain, and rich history of the life and teachings of Jesus. Each account slightly different from the last, yet all enhancing and enriching the experience of the story with each turn of a page.
Read More“But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit…” we can all relate to doing something irrational when we are annoyed that we regret. The problem with this text is that Paul, the author of Acts, and the Christian Church have chosen to cover up Paul’s lack of compassion for the slave girl and promoted him in this passage as a defender of the gospel.
Read MoreIn our Scriptural records, Jesus often spoke in parables about lifting sinners into salvation. In this paper, I will write with the assumption that no one’s salvation is in question, but rather, my reader is seeking to provide relevant and accessible pastoral support to a wide range of believers and Christ-seeking bodies.
Read MoreI am a queer, female, white, upper-middleclass pastor from South Carolina. I bring both my hope and my scars to the table as I read the Bible and practice ministry. I approach the Bible with respect and caution as a Divinely inspired collection of stories written by human hands.
Read MoreI chose this text for my exegetical essay and queer interpretation for a number of reasons. The most significant one is that this story was one of the first ones that I encountered in college that allowed me to challenge the conservative white Christianity that I was indoctrinated in while growing up.
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