Linn Tonstad - Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics (Cascade Companions Book 0)

Queer Theology

Beyond Apologetics

Linn Marie Tonstad

Queer Theology

Beyond Apologetics

Cascade Companions

Copyright 2018 Linn Marie Tonstad. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, W. th Ave., Suite , Eugene, OR 97401 .

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

W. th Ave., Suite

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-1879-5

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-1881-8

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-1880-1

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Tonstad, Linn Marie, author.

Title: Queer theology : beyond apologetics / by Linn Marie Tonstad.

Description: Eugene, OR : Cascade Books, 2018. | Cascade Companions | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-1879-5 ( paperback ). | isbn 978-1-4982-1881-8 ( hardcover ). | isbn 978-1-4982-1880-1 ( ebook ).

Subjects: LCSH: HomosexualityReligious aspectsChristianity. | Liberation theology. | Theology.

Classification: BR115 H6 T65 2018 ( paperback ) | BR115 ( epub ).

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 11/16/16

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cascade Companions

The Christian theological tradition provides an embarrassment of riches: from Scripture to modern scholarship, we are blessed with a vast and complex theological inheritance. And yet this feast of traditional riches is too frequently inaccessible to the general reader.

The Cascade Companions series addresses the challenge by publishing books that combine academic rigor with broad appeal and readability. They aim to introduce nonspecialist readers to that vital storehouse of authors, documents, themes, histories, arguments, and movements that comprise this heritage with brief yet compelling volumes.

Titles in this series:

Reading Augustine by Jason Byassee

Conflict, Community, and Honor by John H. Elliott

An Introduction to the Desert Fathers by Jason Byassee

Reading Paul by Michael J. Gorman

Theology and Culture by D. Stephen Long

Creation and Evolution by Tatha Wiley

Theological Interpretation of Scripture by Stephen Fowl

Reading Bonhoeffer by Geffrey B. Kelly

Justpeace Ethics by Jarem Sawatsky

Feminism and Christianity by Caryn D. Griswold

Angels, Worms, and Bogeys by Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom

Christianity and Politics by C. C. Pecknold

A Way to Scholasticism by Peter S. Dillard

Theological Theodicy by Daniel Castelo

The Letter to the Hebrews in Social-Scientific Perspective by David A. deSilva

Basil of Caesarea by Andrew Radde-Galwitz

A Guide to St. Symeon the New Theologian by Hannah Hunt

Reading John by Christopher W. Skinner

Forgiveness by Anthony Bash

Jacob Arminius by Rustin Brian

Reading Jeremiah by Jack Lundbom

John Calvin by Donald McKim

Because we cannot all enroll in Linn Marie Tonstads Queer Theology seminar, we owe it to ourselves, and to the vitality of queer theology itself, to readand re-readthis book so we can learn from the one of its best practitioners the radical art of queer theological truth-telling.

Kent Brintnall

Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Linn Tonstad is the best queer theologian of her generation, and she has written a superb introduction to the field. Tonstad lucidly explicates, and she judges, pointing to the limitations of queer theological projects that are insufficiently intersectional in their analysis as well as the possibilities being unleashed by a younger generation of queer theologians who adamantly refuse heteropatriarchy, racism, colonialism, and capitalismall the while taking Christian traditions seriously.

Vincent Lloyd

Associate Professor, Villanova University

In this brilliant burst of theological becoming, Linn Tonstad leads us beyond liberal apologetics for sexual difference. Queer Theology reveals something indispensable and yet irreducible to theology itself: arching between desire and death, theology here faces its deformations and unleashes its transformations. Vibrantly engaging her students as well as her theorists, the text queers the deep questions of Christianity.

Catherine Keller

Professor, Drew University, The Theological School

At last, a truly helpful introduction to a hotly contested notion: queer theology. Tonstad clarifies in graceful prose the limitations, stakes, and pleasures of what could be queer in Christian theology. Timely and long overdue, this book will help students, queer theologians, and other theological adventurers recognize the far deeper challenges and possibilities that queer theologies beyond apology may offer to Christian understanding and justice-making efforts.

Laurel C. Schneider

Professor, Vanderbilt University

This pacey, accessible introduction steers a course adroitly through queer theologys choppy waters without flattening out its complexities. Tonstad orients readers to theological and cultural markers they will recognize, and lucidly outlines some emerging developments in the field.

Susannah Cornwall

Lecturer, University of Exeter, United Kingdom

W hat is queer theology? And what does queer have to do with Christianity? Different answers to these questions often reflect disagreement about what queer means, and so about what queering Christianity would require. Much of what gets called queer theology in Christianity is theology that in some way is about queer peoplethat is, people who identify and understand themselves either as persons whose sexuality is not wholly heterosexual, or whose gender is not the one assigned by medical authorities at birth, or of course both.

Terminological note: In this book, trans* is shorthand for various forms of trans identification and experience. Trans* can indicate someone who was assigned male at birth, but who is female or vice versa, or someone who identifies specifically as trans (without transitioning to a particular gender), or as gender-nonconforming. Trans* identification is possible regardless of whether or not one transitions socially or medically.

In ancient Rome, there was a geographic distinction between trans-alpine Gaul and cis-alpine Gaul. Trans-alpine Gaul was on the other side of the Alps, while cis-alpine Gaul was on the same side as Rome. In analogy to this distinction, saying that someone is cis means that they identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Many gender-nonconforming people identify as trans*, but some do not.

Other terms that indicate nonnormative gender identification or performance include nonbinary (neither male nor female in a binary way; maybe more female on one day and more male on another, or neither all the time), agender (having no gender), and genderqueer (not captured by stable gender categories). Intersex people, whose genital morphology and/or chromosomes trouble binary gender identification, have different and often ambivalent relationships to gender nonnormativity. These categories shift as people take up and discard language as it works or ceases to work for them. Sexual and gender minorities have long histories of inventing language according to need, and leaving it behind when it becomes less useful. This book tries to avoid excessively fixing language, as if getting language right were equivalent to doing justice. The book takes for granted that people should be referred to in whatever way they prefer, using whatever terms make sense for them.