Kim-Kort - Outside the lines: how embracing queerness will transform your faith

To Andy

I started this book around the winter of 2015, not really knowing where it would take me. Here it is nearly 2018, three years later, and Im full of wonder and gratitude.

The old adage about how it takes a village to raise a child is definitely true in this case, for me, for this book. So many people were my muses and angels; they held my feet to the fire and cheered me on, especially toward the end. While there are too many to name here, I want to thank these beloved ones in particular:

My sisters who form a hedge of protection around me, my tribe and community, who have walked hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart with me these last few years: Jodi Houge, Kerlin Richter, Emily Scott, Austin Channing Brown, Jes Kast, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Nichole Flores, Rachel Kurtz, Neichelle Guidry, Tiffany Thomas, Rozella White, Winnie Varghese, Rachel Held Evans.

Friends with connections to Bloomington who hold it down for me, who know me inside and out, and who teach me more and more about friendship, dedication, and life together: Christie Popp, April Hennessey, Rachel Varon, Tanya Kennedy, Meg Foster, Tiffany Roman, Ashley Miller.

Friends and loved ones near and far who get me so deeply and push me to not hold back: Jeff Chu, Kenji Kuramitsu, Erica Liu, Larissa Kwong Abazia, Katie Baker, Joanna Kim, Laura Cheifetz, Chris Hong, Grace Ji-Sun Kim.

The team at Fortress Press, especially my patient and dedicated editor, Lisa Kloskin, who combed through my words providing honest and critical feedback, and most importantly, talked me off the ledge numerous times when I felt ready to abandon the whole project. I could not have done this without them.

My family, whom I love and adore always: my parents, Yong and Son, who spent countless hours with the children so I could make some semblance of sense with this jumble of words; my brother, Joseph; my sister-in-law, Nayoung; and my in-laws, Tom, Corrine, and Sarah.

Last but certainly never least, my spouse, Andy, for walking with me through so many questions and being faithfully and intimately present in it all, and my children, Desmond, Anna, and Oswald, for all the ways you show me that love keeps coming.

The word hospitable may seem more suited for describing a cozy coffee shop or comfortable guest room than a person, but as Ive traveled the world and met many of its inhabitants, Ive found that there are just some people with whom you always feel at home. Mihee Kim-Kort is one of those people.

Warm, thoughtful, curious, and brave, Mihee immediately sets those around her at ease. To be in her presence is to be in the presence of a friend, whether youve known her your whole life, for just ten minutes, or like me, through many years of correspondence and collaboration. A typical conversation with Mihee is likely to meander comfortably from the challenges of ministry to the daily adventures of parenthood, to the real-life implications of incarnational theology and gender theory. At some point, you will probably end up spilling your guts, because with Mihee, you know your most sacred and tender stories are safe. Thats no small thing.

It was a true delight to recognize so much of the woman I know in real life in the pages of the book you now hold in your hands. Outside the Lines is a beautifully crafted work of hospitality that manages to be at once provocative and comforting, a challenge and a relief. With disarming vulnerability, Mihee weaves together stories from her own life with profound insights from Christian theology, biblical studies, and queer spirituality, to lead the reader into a richer understanding of this complex, mysterious, and indeed queer world God has created. Its rare to find a book on gender and sexuality that is this intellectually rigorous and this relatable. There were passages that made me pause to think, passages that made me laugh, passages that took my breath away. I finished certain I was better prepared to love God, my neighbor, and myself.

For many, this book will be an eye-opener. For others, especially those whose identities and self-understanding fall outside the lines, it will be a lifesaver. It is, ultimately, a book about lovethe real and actual, in-the-flesh-and-blood-and-tears love, as Mihee puts it, that we experience in our relationships with one another and with Jesus, who breaks every boundary to welcome us into his body.

I find it fitting that the word hospitable shares its roots with the word hospital, for the most welcoming people in our lives are always ultimately healers. With this book, Mihee offers both an antidote and a balman antidote to the poisonous lies that the culture and the church tell us about our bodies and our identities, and a balm to soothe and heal the pain those lies have caused. What a gift this work is to the church and to the world.

So, even if youre a little intimidated by the path ahead, reader, read on! You are in the most capable and loving hands.

Rachel Held Evans

Why queer?

More than a decade ago, I went with a good friend to visit a photographer she was checking out for her wedding. I was dressed in my usual T-shirt, shorts, and sandals, with my long hair loose and no makeup. As my friend and the photographer discussed the calendar, I was standing in the waiting room with my back turned to them, looking at the photographs on the wall. At one point, I heard the photographer say to my friend, Do you want to ask your fianc if he wants to come and look at these samples? I turned around and looked at her quizzically. When she realized she had made a mistake, she turned bright red with embarrassment and apologized profusely to both of us.

Though I laughed awkwardly, I was devastated and ashamed, because this misunderstanding wasnt new to me. I have often felt a disconnect between the internal and externalemotionally, physically, even spirituallybetween my internal experience of myself and the way others perceived me as I interacted and connected with them. For a long while, I had experienced the incongruity that what I felt on the inside didnt always match what people read, saw, interpreted, or understood on the surface of my life.

These days, for the most part, to the world I read cisgender (identifying with the gender that was assigned at birth) and heterosexual. I intentionally fulfilled those scripts in adulthood by getting an education, getting a job, getting married (to a man), having kids, and getting a house. I grew up in the most traditional and conventional Korean immigrant familyChristian, hardworking, morally upstanding, and hardly making any waves. On the surface, I appear to be very clear on my identity, my ministry and work, my faith, and my passions and desires. So why does queerness matter to me?