My travel’s during the first part of this year has been one of practical ministry and a full plate of justice. What I have gleaned from these experiences is that we, that is, you and I are our best advocate. This was never made as true as when I visited Washington D. C. this past week for transgender lobby days. The justice we seek is a justice we fight for in the halls of congress, Supreme Court, the White House and the Church.
As a student who has chosen to answer the call of God this call is serious because the unjust policies supported by some right wing, conservative extremists seek to diminish, demise and kill anyone that doesn’t conform to their way of looking at the world. The senators and representative get tons of emails, letters and phone calls from right wing operatives that seek to take any rights away that those of us on the progressive side have. Some of them seemingly operate from a position of apocalyptic fear as if the world would fall apart based on who we sleep, what our gender is to begin with.
If we seek a just and fair world we must fight for it. There really isn’t any other way than to struggle and fight for every last piece of cultural/societal real estate. Not to fight for what we believe is just and fair would be caving in to the very hatred we deplore. Further this is not just our fight but a generational fight for our children and grandchildren.
Now these words could sound similar to the words used by those on the right who are fearful an afraid but the difference is that I write from a point of grace, love and dialogue where all of God’s creation are embraced for who they are regardless of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity or orientation. Finally if we are to walk in the footsteps of Jesus then we must love all people because each person is a manifestation of God’s thought, precious in God’s sight and highly favored.
]]>Justice Cries Out
The cry of justice is a cry of the sacred, a cry to continue the work of the Christ event. I say event because the effects of Christ life reach over 2000+ years. The cry of the sacred work of justice asks where is your heart, yes, where is your heart on matters of justice. For those who follow Christ where are you hearts on issues of racism, poverty, child abuse, homophobia, transphobia, inclusive marriage and other oppressive cultural and societal issues. In his book Jesus and the Disinherited Dr. Thurman writes,
The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of the Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed.
When we experience the Christ event we engage life with a new consciousness and a new heart with justice at its core. For at the center of the Christ event is justice for all creation and if justice is at the center of the Christ event the righteousness of the supreme cosmological God is revealed. One of Dr. Thurman’s protégés Martin Luther King Jr., believed that
Justice would never flourish until we allow the virtue of justice to reign in our hearts, so we courageously fight the evil of poverty as well as the evil of an unjust legal system. Peace, too will never flourish until we become wholly peaceful in the deepest recesses of the heart – peaceful with ourselves and others.
The sacred work of justice is finally the sacred work and the key component of a loving God’s moral order of the universe. It is this loving God who embraced creation through the ministry and sacrifice of Christ so that justice might be experienced by all creation. Scripture says in Isaiah 42:1, 6-7
Here is my servant...I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations....I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon.
II
Actions of Justice
The Commonwealth of Believers
The sacred work of justice is continued today by the Church or the Commonwealth of believers. I use commonwealth of believers because the Christ event is the one event that binds all believers in a mystical unity for the sacred work of justice. So as believers we articulate the work of justice through Romans 8:22-25 states
We know that the whole of creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
The commonwealth of believers is called to continue the work of justice through developing a justice centered environment that articulates the sacred as an ontological, transformative, transfigurative significance on a cosmological scale first for the oppressed and then on creation as a whole. The reality of justice can only be fulfilled by the commonwealth of believers with a heart of justice. The sacred work of justice has been proven to be a work of mental/emotional and spiritual courage that requires our hearts, and our times of meditation.
The following thoughts seek to engage the commonwealth of believers in developing realities of justice, hope and most of all God’s love.
Developing Action of Justice
1. A deep abiding faith in God’s love of justice and that reveals the righteousness of God.
2. The awareness that justice is inclusive and secures the future of all creation.
3. Justice is necessary for a new consciousness, a Christ consciousness essential for the
beloved community.
4. Justice calls for action. Through my actions God makes a way. The future is not only to be
dreamed of but fought for.
5. Justice requires hope and creativity.
6. Justice enables and empowers to keep from passively being shape in the image of
the majority.
7. Justice requires cruciformed living. Creating a new consciousness, a new awareness and
pulling awayfrom the old world and into the new world causes pain, suffering and
sometimes death.While Iconceded the aforementioned we must concede that birth pangs
ofnew birth can seemoverwhelmingbut when fighting against power structures that will
not willinglyconceded power wecannot run away orallow it to consume us.
Were it not for thosewho have gonebefore us sufferingfor the good of humanitywhere
would the fight for justicebe and where would you and I be today.
Finally, the objective of the commonwealth of believers, the Church, is to prepare all humanity for a personal ontological event of transformative, transfigurative and cosmological significance. The matters of preparation are of head and heart leading to a Christ consciousness. The preparation is not about a pious, dogmatic/doctrine based colonization or any human construct but about a personal, mystical reformation.
]]>Introduction
There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... Identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results.
Judith Butler
Reclaiming my queer identity is a work that arises from my need to more fully engage gender and its many varieties and complexities in the context of a transgender/feminist theology. As such the quote from Mona West frames my life, work and ministry as an African American Transgendered woman. This work is done from an African American Transgendered women’s daily consciousness of her learning curve as it relates to societal and cultural expectations of “womanhood” which is fluid and changing. Not having those experiences when I was in my formative years when most girls learn womanhood I experience acutely the ups and down of learning the expectations of womanhood now after spending over half of my life learning, living and practicing “manhood”. The aforementioned experiences and this paper are framed in the context of Proverbs 22:6 where the Hebrew teacher (Quholeth) writes “Train up a child in the way they should go, even when they are old they will not depart from it.”
When I was in my formative years I would pray that I wake up one day and magically be a girl, a beautiful girl like the ones in Jet or Ebony magazines. I also wanted to get married and have children. But of course being raised in the sixties who would believe a boy dreamed of being a girl in South Central Los Angeles. So I kept it inside and determined to practice, learn and live and master, with my father’s help, boyhood and someday manhood. My father believed that the bible taught parents how to raise a family and he sought to instill these teachings in my sister and me.
Manufacturing an identity of maleness enabled me to adhere to societal and cultural norms and expectations associated with my body. Whether or not that was my authenticity was beside the point because life was not about authenticity, it was about adhering to the expectations of a male oriented society.
To continue to adhere to the expectations cultural and society had placed on me I joined the military, got married, and had children. Thinking that surely that would help me maintain the practice if manhood. It worked for about fourteen years but eventually failed. So now I find myself living in the authenticity that always was. Now I am free to learn my authenticity as a transgendered woman.
Through my experiences of gender I have found that it is a systematic practice and is reinforced through the Church, laws, ignorance and violence. For most of my transgendered brothers and sisters it a harrowing experience that requires a faith in something else other than bible and church.
The task of children learning gender in a certain way of acting and action in society can be a fearful reality, fraught with violence, ignorance and a lack of respect by a public that seemingly thinks in absolutes especially when it comes to gender. It is my daily experiences on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) as well as on the streets of the Berkeley and other places in the Bay area that give my task of learning gender and this paper on performance, performativity, parody and politics such urgency. As such this paper will discuss the pedagogy of gender including its prefabrication, and the task of the American Church as a subversive, transformative change agent that creates a safe space first for the authenticity of the child and then for the inclusion of all of God’s children in the family of God.
II
The Pedagogy of Constructing Gender
The term pedagogy is appropriate for this chapter on the construction of gender because it relates to strategies of instruction or style of instruction and therefore is a necessary link in the discussion of gender construction. The task of gender construction is to define actions, activities and gestures including semiotics-sexualized representations exemplified through pornography in the context of societal and cultural expectations for the appropriate usage and productivity.[1] But I would also add that in addition to the construction of gender I would say that the concept of prefabrication should be considered when discussing gender construction in reference to the practice of acts and actions. I make this observation simply because there are certain acts and action that the male child must do for appropriate activity.
The aforementioned actions of gender construction are necessarily accomplished through the pedagogical action of performance, performativity, parody, and politics (P4) affirmed by the powers of culture and society. As discussed in the introduction it is my opinion that this is a pedagogical articulation of Proverbs 22:6 which I will now begin to discuss below beginning with performance.
First and most often, we think of a person’s gestures, tastes, desires and ways of being in the world, as the expression of an innate, autonomous, and unique core, an ‘I’. But according to many post structuralist theorist, the ‘individual’ as it is conceived here, is a truth-effect of systems and power/knowledge that are culturally and historically specific rather than being something that exists in an essential sense.[2]
Proverbs 22:6 specifically states to “train up a child.” During the time of the Quholeth circa. 1000-500 B.C.E the agrarian culture was the primary means of production and cultivation. In that context the individual had a very different purpose of being in comparison to the American Culture in existence today. American Culture has different needs and therefore the individual must have a different construction to accommodate the present 21st century usage, production and manufacturing. The aforementioned concludes that the construction of gender is different depending on the needs and expectations of an agrarian based culture as opposed to a capitalist based culture. This directly impacts the instructional environment of Proverbs 22:6. While the overall concept of the P4 is essentially the same the purpose and outcomes are different and much more pervasive. The articulation of Proverbs 22:6 by American Culture is in part a binary construction of domination, reproduction and sexual control that could be considered a pernicious leftover of a long gone and dead culture.
I remember when I played Tuba in my high school concert band we would practice music for hours until we could perform the piece fluidly, and in some aspect we came to a point that we embodied the piece. The same concept of performance is present in the ideal of creating gender. If the individual keeps on practicing and performing then they will eventually get it, they will become what they practice. Of course this begs the question of whom or what wrote the music or script.
In her seminal text, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler argues that gender is neither natural nor innate, but rather, is a social construct which serves particular purposes and institutions. Gender, she says is the performative effect of reiterative acts, that is, acts that can be and are, repeated. These acts which are repeated in and through a highly rigid regulatory frame ‘congeal’ over time to produce the appearance of a substance, of a natural sort of being.[3]
The repetition of the gendered act seeks to solidify the norms of culture and society in existence at the present moment in time and is not necessarily the authenticity of the individual irrespective of the gender construct, necessarily causing more challenges for the individual and the society that created and dictated the script. Many regulations and laws are in existence that criminalize non-conformist gendered individuals and treat the individual as a criminal or commit them to mental institutions.
The gender regulations and laws decry certain acts that each gender is required or made to do. Males do male acts and females do female acts. This is called “Gender Performativity”, a term created by feminist philosopher Judith Butler in her 1990 book Gender Trouble. In it, Butler characterizes gender as the effect of reiterated acting, one that produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and instability of any single person's gender act.
This effect produces what we can consider to be 'true gender', a narrative that is sustained by "the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those manufacturing’s – and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them." The performative acts which Butler is discussing she names to be performative and within the larger social, unseen world, they exist within performativity.[4]
Secondly, the concept and reality of performativity acknowledges that the (gender) identity is a compilation of acts, expressions and gestures which are learned over a period of time. The end result of learning the dictated script is that it appears to be a fabrication, a set of instructions dictated by family, school, church and government and not innate at all.
Prefabricated and dictated gender scripting brings back to my memory when I was in junior and senior high school where I spent a lot of time with the girls and in home economics and not big on sports or letterman jackets. I found myself for a time unable to negotiate the constructive fabrication of gender. Living in South Central Los Angeles is was an imperative to master or to parody the gender. In the study of parody for this paper I lift Judith Butler notion of parody as a method of socialization but also I lift it up as a respectful all be it flamboyant homage to the construction and as a thumbed that characterizes the strange absurdity of the construct itself.[5]
P4 points to the construction of gender identity, a technique of living, and a technique of existence in the context of the present society and culture and more specifically that Los Angeles neighborhood where I grew up.[6] Parody, the third point of P4, by the “drag” queens and kings of a fabricated binary gender system attain a humorist point in the world of heterosexuality thereby revealing the scandalous nature of the whole thing.
A parody, a parody with a kind of miraculous gift to make it absurder than it was. Ben Johnson[7]
Ben Johnson’s quote describes parody and the “drag” seen in a nutshell. The parody of drag transgresses, subverts and parodies the very notion of an original, revealing that the supposed original that the performer copies is an imitation without an origin: gender is always already the embodiment and bodying forth of a set of culturally shared gestures, actions, and so on, and these shared gestures have no identifiable origin.[8] Though drag ceases to exist outside of the heterosexual matrix or could be situated in opposition to it, it nevertheless strips bare the fallacy of gender construction and reveal it as and art form of manufacturing with systemic cultural and societal implications. The art form of drag as a parody, a comment on an absurd gender-cult informs the construction of gender revealing gender as a fluid, non-static ontological and temporal effect.
In a P4 pedagogical development it is necessary to consider the subject, the human being, and the intention of power structures that seek to maintain their dominance through systems, structures and processes known as socialization thereby marginalizing any authenticity or innateness of the individual. The individual becomes merely an enaction of the socialization of hegemonic patriarchy. Transgender, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual communities simply through their existence and organizational solidarity debunk the gendered structures of oppression and calls into question those systems and processes of socialization itself as well as compulsory heteronormality.[9]
Another question that parody asks is the question of economic manufacturing. In a highly stylized economic system the gender construct promotes an economic system that polarizes male and female genders. The female lives in the context of a type of ownership by the male as seen in the culturally necessary choice of naming. Seemingly the male is still considered the king of his castle and the rest of the family loyal or disloyal objects. The female is not only in a context of ownership she is also objectified by the cultural establishment.
Traditional pedagogy socializes the female gender in a subordinate framework of domestication to the male gender (this would include take the male gender sir name). The female gender is always supposed to appease the gaze of the male gender. She is the nice tidy gender, the one that manages the household and raises his children. He is the messy gender that always needs to be taken care of. Seemingly her purpose is always to be a caretaker with no real life of her own. In fact her body is not her own as displayed in the abortion debate.
Parody also brings into question the manufacturing of the self. Traditional P4 socialization processes produce a self based in part on the existing social construct immersed in part on the economics of consumerism and manufacturing. The self is constituted in and through action rather than being the origin and cause of action.[10] The actions in producing the self are firmly based in a P4 pedagogical model without any innate origin centered in a socio-political context with the underpinnings of economics.[11].
The actions in producing the self involve family, government and religious institutions all theoretically supporting the economic and political systems ensuring that the self is produced in accordance with socio-economic and cultural specifications and more importantly expectations. In creation of the self the social, economic and culture matrixes utilize technological systems that seek to ensure the current gender construct.
Michel Foucault in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth writes, as a context we must understand that there are four major types of these technologies,” each matrix of practical reason: (1) technologies of manufacturing, which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit use to use signs, meanings symbols, or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, and objectivizing of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and a way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain certain of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection , or immortality.[12]
The use of technologies in the context of socialization is used in the subordination of the self to structures of power and economics. Although I agree with Foucault on the four major types of technologies I tend to tend look at the reality of technology as another tool of the P4 pedagogy development of the self. The manufacturing of the self is not an independent endeavor as previously addressed therefore it is never fully self-styled but rather there is a history that limits the possibilities of the self.
The manufacturing of the self requires the practice of engaging “others” through actions and behaviors that are understood as shared socio-cultural practices. Certain practices have been established over time that seemingly reveals a common social world through which we develop habits, modes of movement, and gestures that have a common meaning.[13] The “others” are an important and vital connection in the body-subjects awareness of the self in the context of socio-cultural practices. The body-subject can only experience itself it they experience the “other” body-subjects as socio-politically constructed beings.
I find that this is most evident in high school or settings where the individuals are not yet secure in their own selves and deem any so called transgression of the heterosexual body-subject construct to be an abomination and something to laugh at. If the individual does not adhere to the socio-cultural practices in those areas it can created a polarizing and fear situation.
The above discussion on parody and socio-cultural practices effectively bleeds into the socio-political aspect of constructing and living gender. Because the self is engaged with “others” and with a global system there is necessarily a political context which is the constitution of relations with others in the world.
Parody necessarily reveals the preexisting or prefabricated gender that acknowledges a programmatic script that children are taught to memorize through practice and continual verbal and visual environmental input. This prefabricated gender comes complete with “natural” identity markers that include political agency based in part on the reproductive organs of the child. Children with “acceptable” gonads and penises are male identified and those with a menstruating are female identified by a doctor licensed by the state and in some cases ordained by the Church. So the culture ends up with an agency based in part on the reproductive organ. This structure of reproductive agency reveals the location of gender politics conceptualized as a matter of penetration and reception.
Practice of parody can serve to reengage and reconsolidate the very distinction between privileged and naturalized gender configuration and one that appears as derived, phantasmatic, mimetic-as failed copy, as it were. And surely parody has been used to further the politics of despair, one which affirms a seemingly inevitable exclusion of marginal genders from the territory of the natural and the real. [14]
The aforementioned statement reminds me of all of the times my transgendered sisters and brothers failed or refused to parody the practice of their prefabricated gender and were either put out of their family’s house or put in jail or even institutionalized for being a non-conformist, which brings up the fourth point of politics in P4. Judith Butler mentions “exclusion of marginal genders” in her book Gender Trouble which begs the question of the political agency and voice of those that are marginally gendered. What voice does a transgendered, bisexual, lesbian, gay (TBLG) child have in this binary gender political world?
The voice of a citizen in a culture of production and consumerism which is predicated on categories and definitions paint a grotesque picture of culture intelligibility. To be fully engaged and appreciated in a culture that sees absolutes based in part on reproduction in the context of prefabrication the child must be “trained” to adhere to the very ideologies and philosophies that don’t sufficiently develop the child into a strong vibrant adult. These are the children that get thrown away by family and culture to somehow be forgotten and to find their own way.
The tacit constraints that produce culturally intelligible “sex” ought to be understood as generative political structures rather than naturalized foundation. Paradoxically, the reconceptualization of identity as an effect, that is, as produced or generated, opens up possibilities of agency that are insidiously foreclosed by positions that take identity categories as foundational or fixed. [15] And then once the vast seemingly ignorant public is educated that the binary gender construct is a prefabricated product of society and culture theoretically agency should be expanded and deepened for all people to have a voice in the public, political forum.
III
Challenge to the American Church
The American Church may conjure up images of a morbid somewhat exclusive institution for people who are part of institutional society and culture, for those who have seemingly practiced long and hard the sacred script of the gospel of American capitalism yet for those of us who see a place of hope and the gospel of Jesus Christ we must consider ourselves in the light of Jesus and the Pharisees of his time. Using Jesus as the model we must grow the Church through a prophetic revelation that calls the Church to engage the challenges that confront it. I have pointed out three challenges that once addressed could go a long way in guiding the Church to the authentic shores of hope and justice.
The first challenge is to overcome the segregation of evangelism from social action and social action for evangelism.[16]
Evangelism is social action. The American Church must see its role as a change agent in the context of social action and therefore evangelism. The task of the Church is to be the articulation of the love, grace and hope that Jesus lived and preached. It is my opinion that the core of what Jesus preached was evangelism and social action in the context of love. While the Church has tremendous agency on a global scale its primary task is to articulate the love of Christ beyond the constructs of culture and society. It should include programs the embrace Children in their authenticity and not try to fit the child into any prefabricated pedagogical model. An example of evangelism and social action occurs at City of Refuge, United Church of Christ, San Francisco, California. The ministry at City of Refuge integrates the concept of reaching through the church food pantry, and transgender services in the form of clinics and educational tools for the community. The greatest articulation of the love of Christ is the radical hospitality of City of Refuge. At City of Refuge the concepts of evangelism and social action are embodied by the congregation.
The second challenge of the American Church is to embrace an historical presence of the Church as a subversive advocate for the people.
All too often the American Church has failed at being the subversive. The Church’s agenda must include all people regardless of gender or sexual ontology. I feel that the American Church likes to be the co-partner with the government in the governing and peace keeping of a population that sleep walks through each day oblivious to the pain and suffering of the people that sit in the pews. Could it be that the Church feels that it is charged with keeping the sacred text of prefabrication that keeps it from truly and freely articulating the words of Jesus.
I suspect that the American Church would never want to be known as being subversive but it is my opinion that the Church must adopt a deconstructive hermeneutics of subversion. I recently saw the movie about Arch Bishop Oscar Romero and his work in San Salvador as an advocate for the people. Surely the American Church can learn from the work of Oscar Romero and reclaim it truest call as a subversive body. As I look back on the life of Jesus as found in the Bible and other historical texts I found that Jesus wasn’t crucified for just helping the people; but was crucified for subverting the will of the Jewish Pharisees and the Roman authorities. If he were just feeding the people food that would be fine but he was also feeding the bread of life. He was creating an awakened population of people to the reality of the Kingdom of God beyond the construct that was present at the time.
The American Church must the advocate for a generation of awakened children. That is children that are awakened to their own authenticity and uniqueness. It must also create parenting programs that center around uniqueness and diversity and the definition of God’s family based on Galatians 3:28 and Romans 8:18-25. The Church cannot continue to be a part of the binary gender construct but it must subvert the binary gender construct through programs, preaching, and development of a pedagogy that reflects the teachings of the gospels and finally the American Church must be the justice it seeks to advocate. The Church must be there for the children, the parents and the community not as an institution and copartner with a government, culture and society of production and consumerism but a subversive advocate for the children and the family.
Finally as the American Church revisits Jesus not only will it see a subversive, a change agent but also a person that created a place and space for transformative experiences. I would say that one of the goals of subversion is transformation. That is transformation on a mental, emotional and even physical plane and beyond. Church must also be that subversive, transformative space and change agent that advocates first for children as an awakened generation and then the family as an awakened kingdom of God.
The third challenge of the American Church is to revisit Jesus to study how he related to community and to people in the context of power.
The first question that the Church needs to ask is how Jesus used his agency? The gospel writers wrote about the healings, miracles, the listening to the woman at the well and even the cross. Yet the question should not be how did he use or even do those divine encounters but how did he use them to articulate his agency. It is my opinion that a study of the agency of Jesus in the context of community would be a very poignant teaching for the Church to give. A second component of a teaching on the agency of Jesus would be his authenticity of Jesus and the power flowing from that authenticity.
The fourth challenge to the American Church is to fully articulate the following words of scripture, “Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.
Luke 18:16
The American Church needs to revisit this scripture to glean the truth of who and what the Church is. The American Church’s efforts to be worldly wise, smart, and intelligent and mature have cast a long shadow of suspicion over the ministry of Jesus. The American Church must ask the question, what does it mean to be a child of Jesus Christ and what does it mean when Jesus say come to me, don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. One component in the makeup of a child is the authenticity of the child before they practice the ontology of a binary gender construct.
IV
Conclusion
This paper discussed the training of children as written in Proverbs 22:6 in the context of American culture from a transgender/feminist theological perspective. This paper also looked at Proverbs 22:6 in the context of a prefabricated gender script and sought to identify and evaluate the components of performance, performativity, parody and politics (P4). In the queering of Proverbs 22:6 this paper also discussed the need to understand the difference between an agrarian culture of 1000 – 500 B.C.E. and a culture of the 21st center C.E. and how the training of that time was for radically different needs than our culture has today.
This paper also discussed the domestication of the female gender based on an outmoded and insidious heteronormative practice of patriarchical superiority all ordained by the Church and state. Through the lens of the transgender/feminist theology this paper addressed the realities of parody and the politics of agency as it relates to transgendered identities that are not intelligible and therefore have a limited voice in the public forum.
Finally this paper presented three challenges to the American Church that would lead it to the authentic shores of hope. The one challenge that would seemingly do the American Church well would be using Jesus and Oscar Romero as examples to become a subversive Church. It is the subversive Church that creates the sacred space for advocacy, transformation and an agent of change first for an awakened generation of children and then the family as an awakened kingdom of God.
In closing the key component is a subversive American Church. I make this statement because the American is charged in my opinion with maintaining the sacred script. If the Church became the Subversive Jesus of today I think it would radically change how our society functions and even view itself on gender and sexuality and the training of children in accordance with their God given authenticity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bessenecker, S., Quest for Hope in the Slum Community, A Global Reader Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, 2005
Bornstein, K., My Gender Workbook, how to become a real man, a real woman, the real you or something else entirely, New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 1998
Butler, J., Gender Trouble, New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 1990
Foucault, M., Ethics Subjectivity and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, New York, NY: The New Press, 1994
Hutcheon, L., A Theory of Parody, The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms,
Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000
Sullivan, N., A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003
[1] Bornstein K., My Gender Workbook, How to become a real man, a real woman or something else entirely (New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 1998) p 134
[2] Sullivan, N., A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003) p 81
[3] Sullivan, N., A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003) p 82
[4] Wikipedia accessed November 27th 2008
[5] Hutcheon, L., A Theory of Parody, The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000) p 33
[6] Foucault, M., Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (New York, NY: New York Press, 1994) p 89
[7] Hutcheon, L., A Theory of Parody, The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000) p 30
[8] Sullivan, N., A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003) p 86
[9] Wikipedia accessed December 1st 2008
[10] Sullivan, N., A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2003) p 89
[11] Ibid, p 94
[12] Foucault, M., Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (New York, NY: New York Press, 1994) p 225
[13] Ibid, p 93
[14] Butler, G., Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, NY: Rutledge Publishing, 1990) p 200
[15] Butler, G., Gender Trouble, Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, NY: Rutledge Publishing, 1990) p 201
[16] Bessenecker, S., Quest for Hope in the Slum Community, A Global Reader (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media) p 17
]]>As a graduate student of divinity and studying history the passage of prop 8 has echoes of the days when a persecuted Church was struggling for its own justice in the midst of society that did not want it. That society felt that the Christians were not right and were a threat to that society. It killed Christians by the thousands. Christians experienced bigotry, discrimination, legislative marginalization and more. Of course there have been other events in history that confirm the shortcomings of humanity.
My question is this why repeat the oppression that the Church and others fought long and hard to stop. Oh how hypocritical and evil is prop 8.
]]>I fear that a constitutional amendment defining the marital status or bed is a slippery slope to Hitler’s Germany and I pray that the courts will act appropriately. Eventually God's justice, grace and enlightenment will prevail even on the die hard bigots and those that are ignorant. For now we must continue to fight the good fight of faith knowing the God has ordained justice, grace and mercy for all of God's creation.
]]>Why do you and I fight oppression yet maintain oppression at the same time? What about justice? Is it all predicated on ignorance and self preservation or is it power? There are so many variables in the equation.
For me the question is about justice. My faith journey informs me that the practice of life is about justice and the actions that articulate that justice. If I believe that all of creation yearns to be whole and at liberty then my actions must stem from that basis. Romans 8:18-25 which states:
Indeed, I consider suffering of the present to be nothing compared with the glory that will be revealed in us. All creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of the divine. Creation was subjected to transience and futility, not of its own accord, but because of the one who subjected it-in the hope that creation itself would be freed from its slavery to corruption and would come to share in the glorious freedom of the children of the divine. We know that from the beginning until now, all of creation has been groaning in one great act of giving birth. And not only creation, but all of us who possess first fruits of the Spirit-we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free.
(Inclusive bible)
All of my actions and models must be in line with making all of creation free. If my actions do not line up with the above scripture then I am part of the challenge, the problem and I prolong the groaning and birth pains of a creation longing for freedom. Creation longs to give birth, it longs for freedom. If we look at Jesus of Nazareth we must ask ourselves certain questions 1) how did Jesus create models that exhibited Romans 8:18-25 2) what actions did he take to activate those models and 3) what were his intentions. If Jesus is my example of how to walk my faith journey then I must also ask myself those same questions.
But of course Romans 8:18-25 can be used by a lot of groups to claim that same mission yet be completely opposed to prop 8 based on the same scripture. So let us look at Isaiah 55:8-9 which states the following:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
If we take Isaiah 55:8-9 as a beginning premise then what does justice mean, what does grace mean and what does prop 8 mean. If, as a Christian I seek to model Romans 8:18-25 I must also acknowledge that I really don’t know the thoughts of God, the ways of God and that the thoughts of God are beyond my thoughts. And if I don’t know then Iwhat does that mean for my actions in Romans passage.
In light of the Isaiah passage and the Romans passage what does justice mean in reference to prop 8?
To be continued
]]>I seek to live the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ in my own life moment by moment to be the contagious agent of transformation in society. This necessarily requires me to embrace the authenticity of my divine wholeness in relation to Jesus and not in relation to a dogmatic oppressive theology or ideology.
Through Jesus I find the power of life through authenticity and non else. Hence when I reflect on my spirituality and sexuality I come to the realization that the authentic me, the I am, is the wholeness and most of all the truth of who I am, the reconciliation and integration of both.
It is crucial for me to reconcile and integrate my spirituality and sexuality because the power to transform society into the beloved community to a large extent finds itself in me.
As I am called to be a disciple of Jesus empowered to transform and heal society I can only do it through the wholeness that yields the fruit that manifests that vision.
The authentic mission of Christ
Would the whole Church be discarded over peripheral issues? Did Jesus sacrifice his life only for the sexual and/or gender identity of humanity? Is this what the journey of the Church is about at least here in the United States? Does the foundation of the Church rest on its sexual/gender identity?
Are the arguments of Heterosexism, homophobia, Genderism legitimate arguments to have in the face of the cross of Jesus Christ that calls all of humanity to life? Are the aforementioned concerns the common ground of the Church or is Jesus the common ground? I submit that if Jesus is the common ground then all else is sinking sand.
Holy Scripture does not rest on the partial proof texting of dogmatic interpretation but the whole rest on the radical inclusive love of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. All scripture must be framed in the context of Jesus. In Mt 16:18 Jesus speaks to Peter and states the following:
“And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon the rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
As Jesus speaks to Peter he says (3) short words reflecting ownership. He says “I” – twice and “my” (once). These words mean originator, ownership. He then states that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He will defend his church against even the gates of hell. Why doesn’t Jesus just say hell? Why does he say gates of hell? The words say that Jesus defends his church and while the disciples take a junior partnership in that defense the primary defense rests with Jesus.
And verse 19 states that whatever the disciples need for the Church to grow, function and transform society Jesus will provide. The Church is called and empowered by Jesus to live out the mission statement of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ.
Now who is the Church that Jesus refers to? Luke 4:18 describes who the church is in the following statement
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Here Jesus clearly and succinctly describes his church – the center of his heart. The following people groups of the church are delineated below:
Those that are poor
Those that are brokenhearted
Deliverance of those that are captive
Those that are blind
To set at liberty those that are bruised
And finally in verse 19 Jesus says “To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
The aforementioned community is transformed and transformative – it is the beloved community, it is Jesus and the disinherited. The Church relates to Jesus through relationship and that relationship is articulated through (1) prayer (2) empowerment of the Holy Spirit (3) authenticity and finally (4) minimal dogma.
If this is the Church that Jesus calls and ordains then what of discrimination, bigotry, and marginalization? Where is the Church in relation to Jesus? Shall the Church be servant of dogma and society? What or who is the common ground? If the Church is called to be that transformative agent in the community then it must return to its founder.
The Church must not conform to the culture or society, and it must not be a resource of political and social conformity. The church must be the Jesus in the community. And then, any and all dogma must be viewed in the context of Jesus of Nazareth.
In contrast if the Church is not about Jesus it should not call itself a Church. It must deny Jesus and embrace the state and society openly. Then the Church could openly practice Heterosexism, homophobia, Genderism openly and then those that are GLBTQQI etc. would be clear and honest in their decision.
]]>(A Process Theology of the Spring - Pollinization and fertilization of the Creator’s Gift)
Hebrews 11:1-13 states Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he[a]considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
If, based on Holy Scripture and all creative consistency then it must be a logical conclusion that all life is in a state of continual and consistent revelatory truth within a divinely evolving process. The truth in the morning of creation as it relates to the beginning of earth’s existence and the truth in the afternoon of earth’s existence is different. While the logic of early truth remains as a building block it cannot be used to justify or even to identify the truth of today. This would necessarily determine how I look at God, how I see the processes of God and therefore it is necessary for me to look at life from the context of a total environmental conceptual point of view. It is my belief that God’s revelatory truth was revealed to each of the people is Hebrews 11 within the context of where they were within their environments and not without and therefore I must conclude that if God is unchanging and consistent and that the same processes are in effect today. If I put this progressive truth in the context of a flower then I find myself understanding the processes of God more readily as affirmed below:
As an example if we look at the flower we realize that there is a time of pollinization, and fertilization, a period of growth, an expansion, a change in the dynamics of the flower as the flower blossoms revealing the newness and character of life.
It is this pollinization or this imbuing of matter into the flower that causes an inescapable growth and change of dynamics in the flower that begins; this is the springtime of the flowers evolutionary existence. If my view of God rests in a truth that is a progressive reality, reflecting the dynamics of a flower versus a static truth that denies God’s dynamic infinite processes found in the flower, then I miss the wonders and blessings of a Holy God.
This life has been pollinated by Jesus Christ and the Cross with the love of God and therefore life is forever changed revealing the power and evolutionary dynamics of the processes of God. (This dynamic is an expansion of faith). Upon the acceptance and reception of God’s love the creation is then fertilized revealing that spring newness in the life of the created being.
As life evolves in its search for form and function it is incumbent upon humanity to choose to comprehend the enormity and complexity of divine evolution yet the simplicity of the divine evolutionary process primarily a mysitcal event. Each moment in terra firma must be seen from the perspective of a divine evolutionary processes stemming from the divine. The simplicity of the divine evolutionary process is made complex because of humanities prideful need to somehow interpret life for its own not necessarily to comprehend its place in the divine. We must question the selfish identification and motives of humanity as the apex of the divine and reassess humanity in the context of life seeking form and function divine imperative.