"Pure Theology"
How do we chose our spiritual foundation
Tripp Hudgins and I have begun exchanging letters to gather our thoughts and challenge one another. We chose to post them in this way in the hopes that they would be an encouragement and catalyst for you as well. Because we need each other. You can find the rest of the conversation here:
Hi Tripp,
I think you’re right to start with intersectionality and marginalized bodies as the root of how they show up in liturgies. And I think you’re right to say that our liturgies are mirrors we should hold up to better see our communities.
Let me see if I understand you correctly.
The Scriptures were never written to represent me. They were written by one dominant culture to another dominant culture. This isn’t necessarily bad, if you ask me. For example: what if Europe leads the way to end water scarcity once and for all in Europe. The plan works better than everyone thinks, and lo and behold it can even be applied to other continents. The language of the plan will always be rooted in European concepts. The soil, the cultures, and the people will all be European-based. We should then of course not be surprised that, as good as the foundations of the research are, we will never read ourselves directly in it.
The same goes for me and Scripture. When I read it, I don’t find stories that I connect with.
Three movements
There’s a concept in intersectional theology that forces us to pause when we read the text and ask who’s being centered, who’s not being heard, and who’s being actively left out. For many men it is very easy to identify with Scripture because it was written by them and for them. Need receipts? Hold my beer: of the 1,426 names mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, 1,315 are male, and of the 93 female mentions, only 49 are named. Let’s not forget that over 90% of the speakers in scripture are male. Now I’m excited and eager to find out what that breakdown in the New Testament is.
This brings me to the next movement: how, then, can women read scripture? They have to do a lot of extra work to read themselves in the text. I don’t necessarily disagree with feminist theologians who claim that it’s often women who preserve the messianic line, like Ruth, or who are responsible for the preservation of a nation, like the midwives, mother, and sister of Moses. But where Ruth gets a tiny book with a few chapters, David gets entire sagas written about him. Where Esther gets a book where God isn’t even named, the books of Judges, Samuel, Kings (notice the masculine title), and Chronicles are almost entirely written about the exploits of men. So yes, women can read themselves in scripture and can identify with some of the characters, but they have to do a lot of work.
So let’s move on to the last movement. How do I read myself in the text as a transgender woman? Some might argue eunuchs, but that’s a whole rabbit hole I’d rather not walk into. I have and will argue that Jesus’s incarnation is a trans experience, because Jesus is a divine being in a human body, something I find solace in. But you can see how it’s easy for men, harder for women, and even harder for trans individuals. I find it ironic that we needed to come up with an entire new hermeneutical framework called “queering the text” just to find one nugget of text that’s about us. As much as I respect queer theologians, I’ll pass.
The same can be said for other marginalized identities. Sure, Moses marries a woman from Cush, and Miriam and Aaron complain about it and God rebukes them, even striking Miriam with leprosy (only Miriam, of course). But we don’t even know what’s going on there: is Zipporah Midianite or Cushite, or is there a second wife? Neither explanation makes a good case. The woman from Cush is a problem to be brought to God, not a participant and creator of our origin stories.
And this is what I mean when I say scripture is not written for people who hold multiple intersectional identities. Just as liturgy is a mirror of who we are, so is scripture. If scripture is a mirror that shows a man, how can liturgy do anything else?
So this complicates matters very much. You encapsulate it so well when you say: “We aspire to be more than we are. We aspire to be children of God and reflect that identity in particular ways. And those aspirations show up in our liturgy.” I believe you name this correctly. We are in some sort of sick impurity cult and I have a hard time seeing how we crawl our way out of this.
However, I’m starting to think that we just need to hit the reset button altogether. We have to at least hold the three movements I described above as a possibility. Interweaving confession as you propose is beautiful, but what do I say? When we confess “we have fucked up,” I am the body being confessed about, not with.
My point is that it is the same problem, both with the scripture that built the liturgy and the system that produced the scripture. Every fix I can imagine, whether it’s better confession language, a more inclusive lectionary, or liturgy that names intersectional bodies without erasing them, is renovation inside a house that was not designed to hold me.
Systems Critique
One framework I return to when I’m out of answers is systems critique: everything we try to make better inside this system is just optimization. The system was not designed to benefit those without power. The system is the problem, and the system needs to be dismantled. When you say we are benefiting from these systems, that is exactly what I mean.
Last week I did a short interview for a course built for survivors of conversion therapy. My section had to address the fear that “affirming theology is just watered-down theology.” Before I started speaking, I gave a disclaimer: I’m probably not going to answer with “affirming theology is strong and solid theology,” because I believe that framing is missing the point. Calling something affirming gives space for there to be another, non-affirming, more original theology out there. That theology treated gay people like a problem that needed to be dealt with, which is how we got conversion therapy. So by creating affirming theology, we basically just moved from the accuser’s bench to the defender’s bench in the same courtroom. What the fuck are we even doing? No one needs a theology to say that they are valid, that they exist, or that they are loved by God. No gay person who survived conversion therapy needs an affirming theology that tells them what is foundationally true: you are not a problem, you are exactly as you are meant to be.
An affirming liturgy suffers from the same problem. It feels like it gives me permission to worship God, or to have scripture passages that don’t hurt me, and that’s not sitting well with me. I think we need a reset on our liturgy. A reset on our lectionary.
Something tells me that Richmond Hill is an excellent place to start, because at least we’re not denominational. With its Christian roots, it lets Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, and ragtag trans Christian Jews worship together. Of course the problem is that we “get” to worship together, as if God is the property of a secret group that controls who has access but I digress.
I like what Dillard says about wearing helmets. We should be ready to be transformed and to be uncomfortable. I don’t think the presence of God has ever come without a strong sense of awe. Maybe I can be that eschatological interruption of the liturgy. It’s not officially my job, and somehow it is completely my job. If no trans person stands up and makes a ruckus, how will we ever learn?
Back to you Tripp
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