Keeping with yesterday's post, here's another excerpt from my candidate statement...
Queer theology, like all identity-based theologies that have gone before it, has reached a crossroads. Much of the work done to this point has been somewhat adolescent, working a "transgressive" angle for what often appears to be the shock value.
Transgressive? Yes. But is it theological?
Like other systems before it, much of queer theology suffers from problems both ontological and epistemological that arise when a particular group and its experience is placed at the center of constructive theological endeavors.
- How might we be mindful of both the setbacks and the hard-won wisdom of the LGBTQ community without creating a theology that is completely anthropocentric?
- What role does a marginalized group's experience play in relation to other authorities in a constructive theological project?
- What does it look like to balance the needs of actual LGBTQ people while looking beyond immediate exigencies to the broader project of participating within the life of the world?
These are a few of the questions that could benefit from a conversation with Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
