Faith is the substance of things hope for, the conviction of realities that are unseen (Hebrew 11:1)
Faith in a different future is hope and resistance. The Professor of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Isabelle Stangers, points out that it is in our capacity of making difference that the nature of faith stands (2017). It is in faith that we critique the present to make a difference in the future. In such a way, we speculate different futures by evaluating the present, by asking what should change. As examples of such speculations are the critical designs, which “[…] are testimonials to what could be, but at the same time, they offer alternatives that highlight weaknesses within existing normality. A gentle refusal, a longing, a desire, a wishful thinking.” (Dunne, Raby, 2013, 34-35). Borrowing such criticality, my will with this speculative essay is to denounce the present, in which a colonial heterosexual Theology is the hegemonic discourse among Christians. The Bible has been used as a manual of instructions without any contextualization, rather historical, social, or cultural. Among centuries, it has been used to justify colonialism, slavery, sexism, crimes of hate, murder, psychological abuse, rape, homophobia, imperialism, among other social injustices.
Growing up in a church has taught me the importance of love, care, respect, knowledge, affection, spirituality, and community. However, the strength of what the Argentinian queer theologist, Marcela Althaus-Reid, calls “T-Theology” is undeniable. The term refers to "a totalitarian construction of what is considered 'The One and Only Theology' which does not admit discussions or challenges from different perspectives, especially in the area of sexual identity and its close relationship with political and racial issues." (2003, 172). Such theological construction brings with itself the allegation of neutrality. In “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Paulo Freire (2007) warns against the danger of claiming an educational project neutral, because to do so results in a universalization of local or individual values. To not hegemonize religious individual values it is important to acknowledge that our social trajectories affect our experiences of religion.
By looking to Latin America, more specifically to Brazil, we can see the political strength of Christian colonial heritage. Even if Brazil is a laic state, evangelic politics still influence in congress decisions. Besides, according to the National Association of Travestis and Transexuals (ANTRA), Brazil is the country that most kills transgender people. The political hate discourses reverberate directly in daily violence against LGBTQIA+ people, and afro based religions. The fundamentalistic church in Brazil still follows the sixteenth century colonial Jesuit mindset. In contraposition to this T-Theological discourses, there are feminist, liberation, and queer theologies, which offer new perspectives to relate with the Bible, with God, and with Christianity. They are projects to decolonize and queer biblical readings.
Born and raised in a middle-class white Christian family, my perceptions and practices, judgments and tastes are part of a CIStem socio-ideologically automated, incorporated in me since childhood. They are a constant reproduction without critical reflection. So, I question myself which are the possibilities to transform my perceptions. The way seems clear: intentional study of non T-Theological discourses. To decolonize and to queer theology is a theoretical effort. However, it is in daily life experiences with God, it is in community that the spirituality takes part. It is through the religious experiences of queer bodies that these ideas are materialized. “This is the scandal of what T-Theology has carefully avoided: God amongst the Queer, and the Queer God present in Godself; God, as found in the complexity of the unruly sexualities and relationships of people […]. The theological scandal is that bodies speak, and God speaks through them.” (Althaus-Reid, 2003, 33-34). When fundamentalist churches silence the Christianity in queer and marginalized bodies, they silence the voice of Godself.
Queering churches is not about reshaping the structure of the sermons and communions, as well as it is not a superficial inclusivity, in which the discourse preaches that God loves all, while the heterosexual norm is still the domain. Queer bodies need to be unapologetic in their Christianity, taking part in the communion, in the discourses, the foundation of Christian communities. I long the day when this will be the present.
The Cuban queer theorist, José Esteban Muñoz, says that “Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. […] We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality. We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future. The future is queerness’s domain. Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present.” (2019, 25). Thus, queerness is the marginal unsatisfaction with the white cis male heteronormative present. Queerness is to critically speculate future possibilities. Queerness is a collective potentiality through the dissatisfaction with the violent present. Queerness is an unapologetic love. Queer speculation is a political imagination. Queerness is the longing for something missing in this world. Queerness is to collective be in the present to survive in the future. Queerness is performative, because it is not simply being, but it is also doing something to reverberate in the future.
Taking in account queerness as a political cruising, as a speculation, I decided to create hypothesize practices of queer Christianity. Then, inspired by “Distinguished Pieces” (1993), which is a series of short choreographies performed by the Spanish artist La Ribot, I speculated a series of short performative activities to be done in the same space. The space could be a studio of the Dance Department in ArtEZ, could be in a room of a church, in a school, in a gallery, etc. The aim of this collective space is to collectively discovery what is the practical meaning of queering Christianity. I believe that collective conversations and practices can create an atmosphere of togetherness, generating intimate mappings. It is through togetherness, through the environment of communion that individuals can express their intimate and social paradigms and transform each other. They can learn from each other and build something that it is impossible to do by oneself. Togetherness promotes intersectionality, and the voice of God through diverse bodies.
In this speculative room, I imagined a series of activities. The fact that the exercises are in the same space and can be experienced for different people at the same time makes possible the circulation of people through the space. Furthermore, it creates an environment where one activity can interfere generating insights to another.
Space L - The Dance Floor
Queer is to collective be in the present to survive the in the future.
In the dance floor, there will be a table with a computer connected to a sound system. In this computer, people can freely ad music they feel that make them believe, that make them close to God, to sacred, to divinity, to spirituality. Let’s not forget that queerness is divine!
Space G - Queer the Bible
Queer speculation is a political imagination.
In this space there will be a set of materials, for example, Bibles, glues, pens and pencils, inks, pictures, glitter, fabrics, papers of different formats and sizes, etc. The idea here is to use the materials and the imagination to queer the Bible. It is a collective and ongoing task. People can expose their outcomes, modify and continue projects that someone else started, make things together.
Space B - Devotional Space
Queerness is the marginal unsatisfaction with the white cis male heteronormative present. Queerness is a collective potentiality through the dissatisfaction with the violent present.
Here there will be a table with books related to the queer theology theme, some poems, chronicles, a computer to do research, an audio recorder, a notebook, and some pens to put some notes. People can come, read whatever they want, make notes about what read in the notebook, record something they are thinking about, related to the reading, and propose more references. It is a place of ongoing collective reflection.
Space T - Wall of Hope
Queerness is to critically speculate future possibilities. Queerness is the longing for something missing in this world.
In this wall people can pin papers or post its with activities propositions, and suggestions for the space in another encounter. The question is: what do you hope that this space becomes? Let us collectively build and dream this space!
Space I – Wall of Shared Wisdom
Queerness is performative, because it is not simply being, but it is also doing something to reverberate in the future.
This is the other side of the wall of hope. Again, people can pin paper and post its. But this time, the messages are prayers, life experiences, advises, recipes for flu, headaches, cramps, heartbroken, among other wisdoms that can be shared!
Space A – Un-confessionary
Queerness is an unapologetic love.
The French philosopher Michael Foucault, in “The History of Sexuality”, provides an analysis of confessional practices and their role concerning the relationship between sex and power. He argues that “[t]he confession is a ritual of discourse […] that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession […]; a ritual [that] produces intrinsic modifications in the person who articulates it: it exonerates, redeems, and purifies him; it unburdens him of his wrongs, liberates him, and promises him salvation.” (1978, 61). In addition, Foucault says that confession had its effects widely spread in our society, playing a part in many areas of our lives: justice, education, family, relationships, love relations, among others. We confess to parents, educators, judges, friends, partners something hidden. The confession can be spontaneous, as an internal imperative, or extract from the person by violence and torture.
My question here is how to transform the place of confession in a space of intimacy and empowerment? To help me to answer this question, there will be a closed dark place with two chairs in front of each other where two people can come in to make confessions to each other for how long they want to.
To speculate the above Christian queer practices gave me a path of how to practically move on in my artistic research. I was feeling stuck in the readings, ones that I was also having difficulty to pursuit. I sincerely hope to experiment the activities that I imagined in the next intensive of the MA Home of Performance Practices program.
References:
Althaus-Reid, M. (2003). The queer God. Routledge, London; New York.
Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais. 2021. Assassinatos. [online] Available at: <https://antrabrasil.org/assassinatos/> [Accessed 25 April 2021].
De Assis Miranda, J. (2017). Branquitude Invisível – Pessoas brancas e a não percepção dos privilégios: verdade ou hipocrisita?. In: T. Pedroso Müller, L. Cardoso, ed., Branquitude: estudos sobre a identidade branca no Brasil. Curitiba: Appris, pp. 53-69.
Dube, Musa W. Who Do You Say That I Am?. Feminist Theology. 15 (2007): p. 346–367.
Parte superior do formulário
DUNNE, A., & RABY, F. (2014). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. [S.l.], MIT.Parte inferior do formulário
FOUCAULT, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. OKS Print. New York, Pantheon Books.
Mesner, K. (2013). Jokering as queer ministry: queer theology meets Theatre of the Oppressed.
MUÑOZ, J. E., CHAMBERS-LETSON, J. T., OCHIENG' NYONGÓ, T. A., & PELLEGRINI, A. (2019). Cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1909803.
Paulo Freire. (2007). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th ed. New York: Continuum.
Ribot, L., n.d. Distinguished Pieces. [online] Laribot.com. Available at: <https://www.laribot.com/distinguished_pieces/66#> [Accessed 25 April 2021].
Stengers, I., 2017. The Insistence of Possibles - Towards a Speculative Pragmatism. [online] PARSE. Available at: <http://parsejournal.com/article/the-insistence-of-possibles%e2%80%a8-towards-a-speculative-pragmatism/> [Accessed 25 April 2021].