Category: Scholars/Theorists/Exegetes

Womanist Spirituality and Consciousness Provides Endurance for Injustice

Womanist spirituality and conscientiousness provide perseverance to marginalized individuals embittered by incessant oppression. For example, queer advocates have fought for same-sex marriage and the ordination of queer individuals since the statement, “[t]he United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching,” entered the governing book of the UMC (the Book of […]

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Postcolonial, Feminist, Queer, and Ethnic Hermeneutics Reveal Social Construction of Biblical Meaning

Postcolonial, feminist, queer, and ethnic hermeneutics helps readers of the bible to develop a feminist sociology of biblical hermeneutics that subverts the ideology of universal truth within the biblical narrative. In her chapter, Convert, Prostitute, or Traitor? Rahab as the Anti-Matriarch in Contemporary Biblical Interpretations, feminist biblical scholar, Susanne Scholz identifies four main sociological clusters that underlie the biblical hermeneutics […]

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Recent Jussie Smollett Attack Calls for Response from Queer Theologians

Queer theologians must address current events, such as the recent Jussie Smollett case, to challenge hegemonic, heteronormative white supremacist society in the United States. For example, on January 29, 2019, Jussie Smollett, an openly gay, Black television star from the popular TV series Empirewas assaulted on the streets of Chicago. He was barraged with racial and homophobic slurs, dowsed with […]

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From the Pulpit to the Pew: A New Hermeneutic

There is hope in the struggle for faithful LGBTQ people to see themselves in the Holy texts that shape their churches and communities.[1]  When people of faith ask, “where does authority come from for the direction of our journey,” in most mainline denominations the answer is: “From the Bible.”[2] This answer sounds reasonable from a Christian standpoint. The problem arises […]

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Marcella Althaus-Reid

“Her work was groundbreaking and controversial.”[1]  Perhaps no sentence better describes the theological undertakings of Marcella Althaus-Reid.  Through her work in a variety of theological fields, Althaus-Reid challenged the status quo of theology and railed against traditional assumptions of class, sexuality, gender, and much, much more.  Scholars of liberation theology, queer theology, feminist theology, and postcolonial theology laud the contributions […]

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Sexuality as a Construct (Foucault)

Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction explains power and ultimately demonstrates that sexuality is a construct created by discourse.  To begin to understand Foucault’s argument, we must start by learning why he believed that our widely held theory on sexuality was erroneous.  The repressive hypothesis is a prevalent theory that analyzes how our current notions […]

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Judith Butler

I wailed as tears cascaded down my cheeks!  It just couldn’t be true.  I sat on his lap a week ago and stroked his big, fluffy beard.  I saw the empty plate where I left cookies.  My whole childhood world was rocked!  If the Santa example does not hold any significance for you, take a second and think of how […]

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