The International Journal for Queer Ministry

Feature Article: Medieval Church History and Queer Ministry: Using the Historical Imaginary to Build Theological Community

2007-11-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

Dr Vicky Gunn

Dr Gunn is a Christian ecuminist and a lecturer in historical Theology.

In this essay, Dr Gunn discusses her powerful understand of the “Historical Imaginary” to suggest ways in which an understanding of medieval church history can be of benefit within Christian ministry and community. Offering some useful theoretical frameworks, she then goes on to work them into the practical, utilising case studies of this “historical imaginary” in practice, as she explores the imoplications for practical Queer theology. Reminding us always to avoid naivety and encouraging us to humour, Dr Gunn leads us into a Queered reading of ecclesiastical history; as vocational as it is enlightening.

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Article 2: God made them Gay and Lesbian

2007-11-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Rev Jide Rowland Macaulay

In this article, Rev Macauley makes a bold inroad into queering the Word. He begins with a reclamation of biblical female figures, moving through the difficulties experiences by Queer students of divinity, into how we view an omnigendered, omnisexual God, in whose image we made.

Discussing the current situation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transegendered people in Nigeria, Rev Macaulay points to the diversity of a people divided over tribal, religious, geographic and orientational differences. He makes clear the fact that his ministry is specifically for Queer Nigerians alone; a message of healing desperately needed for a group in immediate danger in their own country.

“Spiritual blindness”, as he calls it, fails to acknowledge the diversity of a creation made in God’s image. Healing, he states, is part of this blindness; indeed, it is “spiritual deception”. This work in Nigeria is frontline; in the face of his own father’s infamous and conservative theological stance, Rev Macaulay is making a stance for progressive theology that is intrinsically Queer.

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Article 3: What is Queer Ministry?

2007-11-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

Rev Jake Tatton

Queer ministry is, of course, nothing but a concept; perhaps no more than an aspiration. Yet, as our Queer communities journey towards God's New Realm, these aspirational concepts must be dwelt upon. This paper will identify definitions of Queer and of ministry. It will then overlay the two, in order to offer a vision of Queer ministry as the activity of integration into wholeness of individuals and community, through transgression and transcendence. This activity seeks to cultivate the establishment of God's New Realm. I will identify this transgressive integration as Queer hospitality ethics; central to our Queer, Christian communities.

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