23AR28-33

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AR 28:33 - "Queering" Jesus: It's going mainstream

In this issue:

NONES - most "are not born, they are made"

WOKEISM - "Queering" Jesus at progressive churches, top divinity schools

Apologia Report 28:33 (1,630)
September 21, 2023

NONES

"How many believers exit their childhood faith? And where are they headed these days?" by Ryan Burge (GetReligion, Jul 12 '23) -- Doesn't this opening line from Burge sound like he's disillusioned? "Being an academic is an exercise in the absurd." He continues: "That's what I've realized after doing this for the better part of two decades." That opening paragraph ends with the question: "When people are asked about their current religious status on surveys, what is the mental process they go through to arrive at an answer?"

   Bottom line: "[M]y basic premise in social science is simply this: when people tell you who they are, you have to believe them." (One would think this makes the survey question wording critical.) Yet Burge adds: "That's what makes religious switching such a fascinating topic. ...

   "Just how often is switching happening? And are there certain traditions that seem to be more porous than others? ...

   "I used the General Social Survey <gss.norc.org> to answer those questions. Luckily, since the very beginning of the GSS in 1973, they have been asking, "In what religion were you raised?" That means that we can track switching over nearly the last 50 years."

   However, "trend lines have not stayed flat over the last five decades. ...

   "It used to be that 2/3 of those raised nones identified with a religion as adults. ... [M]ost people raised none are still a none now. That wasn't the case forty years ago. ...

   "Evangelicals have very good retention rates, even in the last decade nearly three quarters were still part of the same faith tradition as adults. The overall retention decline for evangelicals is just five percentage points. For mainline it's much worse. ...

   "[A]bout a third of folks raised Catholic are no longer part of the church. ...

   "For evangelicals, 73% stick around. But the next most popular destination? Nones. Thirteen percent of those raised evangelical end up as nones as adults. That rate is actually low compared to mainline Protestants. ...

   "For Catholics, the most popular destination is also no religion — 17% in this data. The only other popular destination for ex-Catholics is evangelicalism. Nearly one in 10 cradle Catholics are now evangelicals.

   "What's interesting are the non-religious however. ... About half of them start identifying as evangelical Christians as adults. The remainder are scattered...."

   Burge concludes: "Most nones are not born, they are made." <www.bit.ly/3EFyykN>

   Related: "Religious Identity Doesn’t Control Worship Attendance" by Burge, Paul A. Djupe, and Christopher R.H. Garneau (Religion in Public, Aug 24 '23) - "In our new research to be published open access in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, we report on two recent surveys of American adults…. [in which we asked:] 'Would you say that you attend a congregation that shares the religious affiliation that you just provided?' In both surveys, after omitting the portion of the sample that does not attend any congregation, we found that about a fifth of worship-attending Americans indicated that it does not (20 percent in the 2022 survey and 18 percent in the 2023 survey). That is, twenty percent are attending a congregation that does not match their religious identity." <www.tinyurl.com/y5nwh8xv>, full statistics at <www.tinyurl.com/5n996h2z>.

   For a more extensive treatment of these issues, see Burge's book The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going (Second Edition) <www.tinyurl.com/t366d4dj>

 ---

WOKEISM

As Queer Theory takes hold, it appears that "traditional Christianity" - at least for mainline denominations - is being sheared off at its roots. John Murawski (RealClearInvestigations, Jun 13 '23) provides an update with this intensely vulgar current example: "Queering Jesus: How It's Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools." (Content warning!)

   Murawski includes historical detail to cushion the theological shock ahead: "Queer theology is an outgrowth of academic queer theory and Latin American Liberation Theology, a Marxist movement advocating for peasants, indigenous groups, and other oppressed classes, and builds on earlier social justice movements, such as radical feminism and gay rights."

   Some examples from this year and last "are just a few illustrating how progressive churches are moving beyond gay rights, even beyond transgender acceptance, and venturing into the realm of 'queer theology.' Rather than merely settling for the acceptance of gender-nonconforming people within existing marital norms and social expectations, queer theology questions heterosexual assumptions and binary gender norms as limiting, oppressive and anti-biblical, and centers queerness as the redemptive message of Christianity.

   "In this form of worship, 'queering' encourages the faithful to problematize, disrupt, and destabilize the assumptions behind heteronormativity and related social structures such as monogamy, marriage, and capitalism. These provocative theologians and ministers assert that queerness is not only natural and healthy but biblically celebrated. They assert that God is not the patron deity of the respectable, the privileged, and the comfortable, but rather God has a 'preferential option' for the promiscuous, the outcast, the excluded and the impure. ...

   "Queer theology traces its origins back to at least 1955 when an Anglican priest, Derrick Sherwin Bailey, published the pioneering historical study, 'Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition'...." <www.tinyurl.com/yc8kumy5> Earlier in his report, Murawski notes that "Back in 2018, Duke divinity students walked out in protest during the divinity dean's State of the School speech to demand a queer theology course. Today Duke Divinity School offers a certificate in Gender, Sexuality, Theology, and Ministry.... 

   "Queer theology is punctuated by a penchant for the outrageous and the scandalous, deploying graphic, carnal - and at times pornographic - imagery for shock value and dramatic effect, but its core religious claims are dead serious." Murawski includes samples.

   He continues: "Thus it is in the presence of the sexually marginalized - such as in a gay bathhouse or bondage dungeon - where we find the presence of Jesus. In the language of queer theology, queerness is a sign of God's love because 'queer flesh is sacramental flesh,' and authentic 'Christian theology is a fundamentally queer enterprise,' whereas traditional Christianity has been corrupted into 'a systematic calumny against hedonist love.' ...

   "[Q]ueer theology is a mature, established theological subject of scholarship now in its third decade and armed with well-honed arguments that queerness is grounded in biblical texts and classic commentaries. Most newly minted ministers coming out of mainline divinity schools today have some exposure to queer theology....

   "Courses on queer theology are offered at the leading progressive divinity schools, such as Harvard Divinity School, whose spring 2023 catalog lists 'Queering Congregations: Contextual Approaches for Dismantling Heteronormativity.' The class trains ministers and educators in 'subverting the heterosexist paradigms and binary assumptions that perpetuate oppression in American ecclesial spaces.' ...

   "Linn Marie Tonstad [is] professor of systematic theology at Yale Divinity School.... <www.tinyurl.com/yc32ydd9>

   "The daughter of a minister and New Testament scholar, Tonstad was brought up by Seventh Day Adventists, [and] read the Bible cover-to-cover at age 9...."

   Tonstad, who is now "one of the leading figures of the movement today, said in a podcast that queer theology will need to exist only as long as the world is organized to marginalize and stigmatize 'unimpeachable bodily practices.' ...

   "Tonstad amplified these theological insights in her 2018 book, 'Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics,' which stated that 'Christ's body is symbolically multigendered.'  

   "'Christianity, rightly understood, is about the transgression of boundaries,' Tonstad wrote. 'Christians believe in a God whose love undoes every binary.'"

   Murawski helpfully includes: "Perverse, blasphemous, narcissistic, heathenish, heretical and cultish are the ways in which queer theology will appear to traditional Christians and to many nonreligious people with a conventional notion of religion. Robert Gagnon, a professor of New Testament theology at Houston Baptist Seminary [mentioned in Apologia Report <www.bit.ly/3E3AjIr> on multiple occasions], described the movement as a form of Gnosticism, referring to a heresy that has surfaced in various periods of church history. Followers of Gnostic cults claimed they possessed esoteric or mystical knowledge that is not accessible to the uninitiated and the impure, Gagnon said, a belief that often leads to obsessive or outlandish sexual practices, like radical abstinence and purity, or libertinism and licentiousness."

   In reference to Gagnon, Murawski adds: "Beneath the theological posturing about disrupting power, he said, is an insatiable will to accumulate power.

   "'They're only for subversion until they're in power,' Gagnon said. 'And then they're adamantly opposed to subversion.' ...

   "Queer theologians invite readers to see God as a sodomite, Jesus as a pervert, the disciples as gay, the Trinity as an orgy, and Christian unconditional love as a 'glory hole.'   

   "By 'queering' holy writ and 'cruising' the scriptures - two of the ways in which queer theologians use gay slang to describe their hermeneutical strategy - God's revelation is 'coming out' (of the closet), and those who opt to transition their gender experience the power of Christ's resurrection. ...

   "The queer theology movement has been likened to a 'a rehearsal for the end times,' and a 'new Pentecost' that allows the Holy Spirit to 'blow where it chooses,' according to 'Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theory,' a 2011 book." <www.bit.ly/44z9kzn>

   Along with the link to this item, <www.bit.ly/44hCEKn> we want you to be advised: If you haven't already suspected it, the complete text by Murawski here also includes raw language used by Queer theorists. It often features intensely lewd, and intentionally provocative rebellious profanity reminiscent of a ceremonially vile, angry, God-hating Wiccan chant invocation. (When I [RP] first moved to Colorado in 1999 and eventually began to use the Iliff Seminary <www.iliff.edu/stand> library in Denver, I unexpectedly discovered that many seminary students there were Wiccans, not making the connection with Queer Theory until much later.) 

   For an excellent summary of woke socialism, its goals, and how Queer Theory fits in, check out this short address <www.youtu.be/OVZPYQS1dFA> delivered to a conference at the European Union Parliament in Brussels by James Lindsay <www.bit.ly/3YLhiDT> on Mar 29 '23: "This speech has been widely recognized as making the nature of the Neo-Marxist Cultural Revolution engulfing the West extremely clear, with a sharp warning to Europe not to follow in the footsteps of the Anglophone countries."

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