Coming Out with OCD

This month is Pride, a time for coming out and saying who we are as LGBTQ people.  A time to be proud about our identities even when others tell us that we should be ashamed.  Being public about our true selves, we assert, is about casting off shame.  I came out as a lesbian about ten years ago, but now I have to come out in another way . . . 

I'm just going to be open and say it:  I have OCD--Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I'm diagnosed and have been diagnosed for over 15 years, although the symptoms have been with me as long as I can remember.  The diagnosis part is important to me for a couple of reasons.  First, having someone verify my OCD makes me realize that the problem is real.  This is not how people think and live.  Second, one my pet peeves is when people jokingly explain their need for neatness or organizing or for being in control of one thing or another as being OCD.  While a penchant for organizing and tidiness may be on the "spectrum" of OCD, living with OCD is more than being an annoying Felix.

Most people associate OCD with performing rituals, such as compulsive hand washing or checking.  My form of OCD primarily involves internalized rituals, although at times I use external, compulsive actions as a way of coping or releasing the stress of my internalized rituals.  In some sense, the fact that most of my rituals are cognitive, OCD thoughts, makes it easier for me to "pass" as "normal."  Also, my externalized rituals are also seemingly "normal" behavior . . . I may be a little crazy, but I don't look crazy!    

Anyway, my OCD thinking is generally triggered when I believe or realize I have done something wrong, incorrect, stupid, or shameful.  Usually, these are things that I have done wrong or incorrectly:  They aren't just things I make up.  Over the past couple of years, the mistakes have been things related to my professional life.  These are mistakes that can't be un-done.  So this is my pattern:  I obsess about the mistake; I usually have some type of physical panic attack (symptoms include increased pulse, racing heart, sweating, blurred vision, light-headedness, nausea); I begin having uncontrollable thoughts which are about self-harm.  Don't worry, I don't generally act on them.  For example, when I am in an OCD "storm" I often have thoughts about smashing my head in with a hammer.  These thoughts are visual for me:  I repeatedly see myself doing the action in vivid detail.  Sometimes I "feel" the vision as well.  While I know these thoughts are irrational, they somehow bring a momentary release of the obsessive thoughts about my mistakes or imperfections.  However, the release is momentary and I go through the compulsive thoughts over and over and over.  In the midst of these patterns of thinking, I will sometimes do things to try to lessen the agony of the compulsive thoughts.  Some of these behaviors are seemingly "healthy."  For instance, I will seek some type of external reassurance that I'm not a total failure.  The problem is, this reassurance does not help me . . . it only offers me a temporary release from the obsessive thinking patterns and makes me want to seek more and more external reassurance.  Also, I need to learn to be OK with myself, regardless of what others think about me.  More often, I will obsessively research things related to the mistake, although this just makes me feel worse, and worse, and worse.   Sometimes, I will rest my head against a hard surface (odd, I know).  Most of the time, when I'm in this kind of storm, I just want to go to bed, lie down, etc.

So, what do I to manage this?  First, I take medication--primarily sertraline.  When I take it regularly, it really helps me not be triggered and if I am triggered I can usually pull myself out of the spiral.  The problem is, sometimes I don't take my meds as regularly as I should.  As many people know, drugs like sertraline sometime dull a person's emotions.  Sometimes I just want to feel the highs and lows of life and, consequently, I "forget" to take my pills for a few days.  It's not really a deliberate decision, but there are times when I just can't seem to manage taking my pills for a few days.  Second, I have been in counseling on and off for the past 15 years.  Right now I'm "off," although I do have someone I can go to if and when I can't pull myself out of a cycle of obsessive-compulsive thinking.  Third, I try to find and cultivate activities that bring me joy and help me de-stress--working in the yard, making art, cooking, playing with the dogs, traveling.  Sometimes I'm better at finding times to do these things than others.  During the school year, I tend to forget that these things are important for me to feel well.  I really need to keep at these things because they do help me stay grounded and happy.  Finally, I have some resources, books and websites, that I use to help me remember how to manage.  Below is a list of some of my favorites.

Exposing OCD:  This blog is by a woman who lives with OCD.  She uses the blog to practice Exposure Therapy, which is really what this blog entry is about as well.  She did a great series on the ABC's of OCD.

Ordinary Courage:  This blog is written by Dr. Brene Brown, who is probably most well known for her TED talk on imperfection.  She's a shame researcher and she writes about living with imperfection.  She's honest and funny.

Stop Obsessing!:  This book encourages you to do exactly what the title says, Stop Obsessing!  The blog has helpful discussions of the relationship between obsessions and compulsions and offers strategies for living with obsessive thoughts.

Calming Your Anxious Mind:  This books teaches you how to use meditation and meditative reflection to help you deal with anxiety and panic.

My Apocalyptic Autobiography

I was asked (OK, maybe I volunteered) to talk about apocalyptic in a colleague's class on Christian Traditions.  I decided to approach the topic through the lens of my experience growing up in an evangelical Christian context, surrounded by apocalyptic and millenarian thinking and conversations. Here are some pieces of that presentation.

The picture on the left is my mom and me (it's actually probably 1973, but that's as close as I could come). My mom, one of the first college graduates in her family and an elementary school librarian, was a very observant Christian.  She was always interested in learning more about the Bible.  One of the topics that interested her was apocalyptic prophecy, so Hal Lindsey's books were part of our home library.  Although my mother didn't embrace millenarian thinking entirely, conversations about eschatology were familiar in our home and within our family.  In particular, my grandfather, a Russian immigrant, believed that the tribulation had begun in Stalinist Russian.

Like so many kids growing up in the 1970's and 1980's in an evangelical context, I was exposed to apocalyptic rhetoric in various settings, including camp meetings, church youth group, Bible study, etc. I remember attending a beach retreat when I was in grade school (probably about 5th grade) with my youth group and screening "A Thief in the Night" after a full day of fun at the beach. What a way to end a day of fun . . . with a good dose of apocalyptic horror.  (Here's a link to a great article about the 40th anniversary of the move.)

I was a very earnest kid.  In fact, probably too earnest, too serious.  And, beginning in the 4th or 5th grade I began having uncontrollable panic attacks, occasions in which I would experience a range of different symptoms, including rapid heart-beat and breathing, a sense of dread, sweats, nervousness, shaking, lowered blood pressure, nausea, faintness, blurred vision, ringing in my ears.  These panic attacks often would lead to fainting.  While I wouldn't link these panic attacks and the depression that accompanied them to the apocalyptic rhetoric that surrounded me, the fear of being "left behind" and not being "right with God" surely did not help my situation. (Watching films was  a trigger for my panic attacks and for a number of years I was excused from watching movies at school for fear that I would faint.)

In 1988, I was very involved with my church, working as a camp counselor for various congregations in our denomination. During this time, a number of people around me began to circulate the little booklet "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988." While I had some doubts about the book, a part of me believed that it could be true.  I was worried and anxious and . . . I was about to start my first year in college.

This is a picture of me standing by the car that I would take with me to college.  My first week of school corresponded to the week that was supposed to be the end.  I remember be nervous about being away from home, away from my family.  I was confused about why God might choose this particular time in history.  Fact is, I wanted to go to college.  I wanted to experience being away from home.

FYI, the rapture didn't happen in 1988.  

I wasn't disappointed.

But, I did have to rethink my tradition and my understanding of the Bible.

Eventually, when I started a graduate program in New Testament studies, I was not interested in studying Revelation.  I didn't want to touch the book with a 10 foot pole.  I was actually concerned that it might give me panic attacks.  However, after taking a seminar on the text, a seminar which allowed me to think about the text in its historical context, I became fascinated with its imagery.  I became passionate about exploring how a text from the first-century, ostensibly written as a critique of the Roman Empire, could continue to capture the imaginations of readers throughout history.  Why is Revelation so compelling?  How has this poorly written Greek text managed to capture the imaginations of readers throughout history?

My answer begins here: It's the imagery, and the text's ability to conjure the audience's visual imagination.  Among other things of course . . . 

Who is My Family?

Detail from the "Two Brothers" sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum.  Are they two brothers, Peter and Paul, or a couple?  Inquiring minds want to know?

Since I haven't posted in awhile, I thought I would post the sermon I preached at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Winston-Salem earlier this summer.  It was their Pride Sunday service:

I want to thank you for inviting me to speak on Pride Sunday.  I’m honored to mark this day with a congregation that stands in support of LGBTQ equality and justice.  I am, as I’m sure many of you are, still processing and trying to understand the implications of the vote on May 8.  Given this I want to frame my comments in relation to this vote, an event that signals that we still have a long way to go to winning over the hearts and minds of our neighbors.  Many of these neighbors, folks who supported the Amendment, identify as Christian and they claim the Bible as justification for their perspective, a perspective that is often described as “pro-family.”  Given the importance of this “family” language, the campaign against Amendment One was cast in similar terms, protecting all North Carolina families.  In some sense, the fight for LGBTQ equality here in North Carolina was cast in terms that tried to make LGBTQ individuals and families seem less threatening and, perhaps, even more “Christian.”  Gay and lesbians may seem scary, but surely families aren’t threatening . . . or are they?

As someone who studies and teaches the New Testament, I resist the notion that the writings of the New Testament unequivocally and primarily support the vision of family espoused by the Right in our country.  I also resist the suggestion that “family,” understood in terms of the heterosexual, nuclear family unit, is a superior value within the New Testament.  In contrast, the texts that we will explore today suggest early Christian ambivalence about traditional notions of family and prioritize love of God and neighbor before family and marriage.  Hopefully, thinking about these texts together can inform our conversations with our Christian neighbors, but also help us find pride in the variety of ways we configure our closest relationships.

Who is my family?

The Gospel of Mark is my favorite Gospel.  This is primarily because Mark’s depiction of Jesus is so different than the saccharine portraits of Jesus we’re used to seeing around us.  Unlike Luke and Matthew, Mark doesn’t dwell on the birth and infancy of Jesus, instead introducing us to an adult male who seeks baptism from a radical religious leader in the wilderness before preaching his own message about the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God (1:15).  Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is a man of few words and when he does speak, nobody quite understands him for he speaks in parables and riddles (Mark 4:12).  Mark’s Jesus is more interested in faith, than understanding.  Early on in the story of Mark, Jesus is noted for challenging social mores, eating alongside of tax collectors and sinners and even taking it upon himself to pronounce people forgiven of their wrongdoings.  That is, Jesus flaunts social expectations and acts in ways that seem . . . perhaps . . . a little queer.

In Mark 3, after healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath (another action that resists social convention), Jesus returns to his family home only to have a crowd begin to gather around him.  The crowd is so large, in fact, that Jesus and his followers can’t even eat, according to the text.  The scene is one of chaos.  Given this, those “around him,” which English translations often render as “his family,” try to restrain Jesus because he is “beside himself” or “out of his mind” (3:21).  In other words, those who should be close to him, namely his family, have been made so uncomfortable by Jesus’ actions that they think he’s crazy.  Perhaps they are embarrassed by the company he keeps.  Or, perhaps, they are offended by his failure to follow social rules and expectations.  Whatever the motivation of those around him, the idea that Jesus’ family might have tried to restrain because of his odd and inappropriate behavior is a striking image, as we think about all the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and trans children, teens, and even adults who are rejected by their families because their behavior is deemed strange, abnormal, or sinful.  Families, for many of us, can be threatening.

In the first century world of Roman occupied Judea, the land in which the Jesus movement emerged, family was the most important social unit.  According to historian Ross Kraemer, “much ordinary social life was family life” (p. 539).  You ate with your family, cooked with your family, worked with your family, worshipped with your family.  Your family determined who you would marry and what type of role you played in the wider community.  It was through the nexus of the family that you interacted with the rest of the world.  Families were so important in this context that an individual’s actions necessarily shaped how the entire family was understood and treated by the rest of the community.  The last thing anyone would want to do would be to bring shame upon his or her entire family in some way.

Eventually, after contending with some local officials who accuse him of being an agent of Satan, an evil person in other words, Jesus’ mother and brothers begin asking for Jesus.  At this point maybe they are trying to do some damage control.  If they could just get ahold of him and get him inside the house, maybe, perhaps, the family could still save face.  Jesus, however, resists their attempts at bringing him back into the household.  He rejects those who would have him restrained, turning to the crowd of people who had followed him there and asking the crowd, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”  In one question, Jesus challenges the importance of the biological and socially determined family.  And then, answering his own question, Jesus explains, “"Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."  Risking social shame by rejecting his biological family, Jesus proclaims that true family is defined by a shared commitment.  In these few lines, Jesus replaces his biological family with an intentional and alternative a family. 

The commitment that binds the alternative family affirmed by Jesus is a commitment to God’s will, which in this ancient tradition is associated with loving God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind and loving one’s neighbor as oneself (12:28-31).  This is described in Mark as “the greatest commandment.”  In fact, this understanding of God’s will as love of God and neighbor is not unique to Jesus, but was a part of the Jewish tradition of Jesus’ day.  This is important for a number of reasons.  First, Jesus does not define his true family by whether or not they do what he wants. This radical new family structure is not built out of narcissism, it is not a cult of personality.  Rather, it is a family based upon acting in love toward God and neighbor.  Second, given the history of Christian oppression of Jews and Judaism, it is important to recognize that in this moment Jesus isn’t rejecting his tradition, but building an alternative family based upon the heart of this tradition.

From my perspective, I find in this text a bit of good news, which is what “gospel” literally means.  For those of us who have been rejected by our families, we see that experience being acknowledged here.  The Gospel story is our story.  We also see that the option of creating an alternative family through intentional community is honored.  Moreover, we are offered a precedent for challenging the norm of what’s socially acceptable in terms of our family configurations.  Here, family, as traditionally understood and socially sanctioned, is not the ultimate good; instead, the love of neighbor that binds us to one another is essential.

The ambivalent attitude exhibited by Mark’s Jesus toward his biological family is not unique in early Christian tradition.   Historically, the Christian tradition has challenged the societal tendency to lift the family relationship, including the marriage relationship, above all others.

The apostle Paul, the Christian tradition’s earliest witness and one of its most controversial, offers the most detailed discussion of marriage in the New Testament in a letter sent to the Corinthian Church.  This is a congregation in turmoil.  It is a congregation divided, as different groups compete for status, trying to one up each other in terms of piety, faithfulness, and wisdom.  They are apparently arguing about who offers the most important gifts to the congregation, who has the best or most “faithful” diet, and who is the best leader to be baptized by.  The congregation seems a mess.  In fact, the congregation also is trying to out-do one another in terms of their familial arrangements, arguing that one type of familial arrangement is better than another—some apparently advocating marriage, while others advocating celibacy.  You can imagine that each group brings to the argument an absolute sense of being right.  “Surely, God wants us to be married!”  “Surely, God wants us to be celibate!”

During the first century Roman Empire, the setting for Paul’s ministry, marriage was understood in terms of being a good citizen.  Marriage supposedly ensured the strength and longevity of the Empire, by promoting childbirth.  There were legal incentives, as there are today, for citizens who married.  While marriage was highly valued in the Empire, only Roman citizens could legally or officially marry one another.  Soldiers, even if there were citizens, were not allowed to marry.  In other words, only some within Paul’s communities, only a portion of early Christians, would have been able to legally marry; most would have lived in common-law, unofficial, marriages.  In light of this, when Paul talks about marriage he might actually not be talking about legal unions since marriage was limited to only an exclusive group.

But back to the Corinthians, Paul responds to the issue of whether marriage or celibacy is the best way, by explaining that while his personal preference is that people are unmarried, as he himself is unmarried, both positions are fine:  marriage is fine and being unmarried is fine.  If you can’t keep yourself from having sex, get married.  If you can exercise self-control, stay unmarried as marriage leads to anxieties.  The reason for Paul’s ambivalence here has to do with two things.  First, he believes Jesus is coming back any minute . . . so, it doesn’t much matter if people are married or not.  Second, and more important for our purposes, is that these social relationships are secondary to the primary relationship the community should embrace.  That is, the community should be focused upon living as a single body, in spite of their differences.  Arguing over what to eat, proclaiming superiority because of one’s gifts, debating over whether it is better to marry or not marry creates division.  Instead of division, Paul advocates unity through love.  It is in light of this that Paul writes one of his most famous passages.  Talking about the Christian community and not about couples, Paul proclaims,  “4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. “

In this way, the members of the community are called to love one another; they are to put aside differences, hierarchies, and status markers to be united in love.  For Paul, the greatest virtue within the community is not marriage, but love within community.

While we would be hard pressed to say that Paul offers a positive perspective on homosexuality, as a product of his day “gay” and “lesbian” identities are a completely foreign concept to him.  However, Paul does go against the norm of his day by suggesting that marriage is an option that is no better than not being married.  In other words, he challenges the perception that a heterosexual pairing is the best and most desirable relationship to have.  He refuses to mimic imperial rhetoric that values marriages as a means of strengthening the state.  Rather, Paul downgrades the importance of marriage in favor of the love shared within Christian community.  Again, love of God, love of neighbor, love of community is valued over the socially dominant vision of the family. 

I share these two New Testament traditions with you today, Pride Sunday, because, first of all, they complicate the dominant assumption that the Bible is “pro-family,” meaning that the Bible values heterosexual families as an ultimate value.  And, as we saw in Mark, there are instances when the traditional vision of family is challenged or rejected.  There is the recognition that families sometimes can be threatening and that there are times when there is a need for redefining family and for creating intentional families.  There is a precedent for creating families outside of the strictures of what the broader family finds acceptable.  This, for me, is a powerful witness to the importance of non-traditional families.

Second, in both of these traditions we see the valuing of love.  This does not preclude love within traditional families, but it includes love of family within the context of something bigger—love of God, love of neighbor, love of community.  This is an expansive notion of love, which calls us to put aside differences and loves none-the-less.  We can and should love those within traditional families and we can and should love those within non-traditional families and we can and should love those who would understand themselves as family-less.  This is a picture of love that I hope we all can embrace.  A picture of love in which we can find our pride.

Perspectives on Marriage: Elon Community Church Town Hall

The following are my comments from a community town hall meeting at Elon Community Church on April 17th, 2012.

I want to thank Elon Community Church for sponsoring this important event and I want to thank my co-panelists for their comments, and I want to thank you all for having a spirit of inquiry.  Our state will be making an important decision on May 8 and I hope that I can help folks become more informed as they go to the polls.  When Rev. Orwig approached me about this panel, he underscored that the panelists should present a balanced perspective regarding Amendment One.  I hope to do my best to provide a fair accounting; however, as someone trained to interpret the New Testament, the best I can do is to give you a glimpse at the biblical text’s approach to marriage and family within the text’s historical context.  In other words, in the next few minutes I want to highlight some of the ways that the writers of the biblical texts have understood marriage, so that you might use this information as a lens to assess different groups’ claims about Amendment One.

  One of the claims made by those in support of Amendment One is that it preserves a “traditional” or “biblical” view of marriage.  Supporters of Amendment One and legislation like it, maintain that historically marriage has been between one man and one woman and that this legislation will offer an unprecedented change to a historically static and even “God given” institution.  In particular, supporters of Amendment One note that the Bible never commends marriage between two men or two women, that the codes in Leviticus forbid a man laying with another man as with a woman, that the first couple imagined within the Book of Genesis is comprised of a male and female.  Thus, marriage “traditionalists,” as we might call this position, argue that these point to a relatively fixed and historically consistent picture of marriage being between one man and one woman. 

This traditionalist perspective, however, glosses over the fact that Old Testament depictions of marriage also include positive evaluations of men who took slaves as concubines (e.g. Abraham) and men who had multiple wives (e.g. Jacob had two wives and Solomon had 700, according to 1 Kings 11).  In the biblical texts and in the ancient world, these marriages were considered appropriate, even though we, living in the twenty-first century, may see these marriages as far from ideal or fair.  The issue here is, the biblical texts present marriage as something shaped by historical context and cultural practices, and the texts suggest that marriage changes over time.  In light of these examples we, particularly Christians who claim the Bible as source of God’s direction and guidance, are forced to ask which depictions or discussions of marriage in the biblical texts are authoritative, for the biblical image of marriage is more complicated than the “one man plus one woman equals marriage” often depicted on bumper stickers and yard signs.

In fact, one of the most poignant images of faithful love in the Old Testament tradition is Ruth’s devotion to her mother-in-law Naomi.  Just as in Genesis it suggests that a man will leave his home and “cling” to his wife, so Ruth clings to Naomi in Ruth 1:14.  To be sure, Ruth and Naomi are not necessarily described as married (even though some might argue the word “cling” conveys this), but their story brings into relief the fact that Old Testament tradition also does depict a range of relationships between men and women, and men and men, and women and women.  There is a valuing in the texts of familial configurations beyond the traditionalist vision. 

But let me turn to the texts and traditions with which I am most familiar, the texts that for many are the heart of the Christian tradition—the New Testament. 

One of the things that my students find most surprising when studying the New Testament is the portrayal of Jesus as disinterested in what were traditional notions of marriage and family in his time.  The Gospel writers record one instance (recorded by both Mark and Matthew) in which Jesus offers an explicit teaching about marriage or, to be more accurate, about divorce.  In response to questioning, Jesus teaches that divorce should happen only in the case of un-chastity; a teaching that is reinterpreted by many today.  Very few Christians take this text literally, especially Jesus’ explanation that remarriage after divorce is adultery.  In response to Jesus’ stringent proclamation, for Jesus’ teaching is stricter than other first-century Jewish teachings about divorce, the disciples suggest, perhaps facetiously, that it is better not to marry.  Jesus doesn’t disagree with them and then he positively references those who are eunuchs for kingdom and those who renounce marriage.  This episode, described in Matthew 19, surely does not offer a clear support of marriage.  In fact, the importance of marriage is qualified by commitment to the kingdom of God.  Marriage, here, is not God-given and Jesus explicitly seeks to offer a new and different teaching about marriage or divorce. 

Jesus’ disinterested in traditional perspectives on marriage is also evidenced in his call to the disciples.  Culturally and historically, we can imagine that Jesus’ closest disciples, as adult Jewish males, would have been married.  Families were eager to have sons marry, as it meant another set of hands to work within the household.  In spite of this, Jesus still calls them to follow him as wanders throughout Judea and Galilee.  They are to leave everything, including presumably wives and children, as they accompany Jesus toward his certain death at the hands of Rome.  Throughout the Gospels Jesus calls individuals to abandon their familial connections and to follow him.  In fact, Jesus shows little respect for his own biological family and is depicted, in the Gospel of Mark, as defining those who follow God’s commandments as his true family.  This was pretty radical in a time when one’s family was the primary means through which an individual related to his or her community.  Individuals were defined by their familial relationships (e.g. Jesus is the son of Joseph, James the son of Zebedee), but Jesus is portrayed as defining individuals by their commitment to the greatest commandment, loving God fully and loving ones neighbor.  Marriage, in the Gospels, isn’t the greatest good.

The apostle Paul, the Christian traditions earliest witness, offers the most explicit discussion of marriage in the New Testament in a letter sent to the Corinthian Church.  In this letter, Paul clearly explains that marriage is fine . . . for those who cannot manage to remain unmarried as he happens to be.  Marriage is a compromise; instead, given his belief that the Lord will return soon, Paul advocates a life of celibacy or virginity.  In fact, within the first century Roman Empire, the setting for Paul’s ministry, only Roman citizens could legally marry.  Soldiers, even if citizens, were not allowed to marry.   In other words, only some within Paul’s communities, only a portion of early Christians, would have been able to legally marry; most would have lived in common-law, unofficial, “marriages.”  In light of this, when Paul talks about marriage he might actually not be talking about legal unions since marriage was limited to only an exclusive group.  Again, this points to the fact that in the biblical texts, marriage is not depicted as something unchanging and eternal, as something that should be protected as an ultimate good.  To use the biblical text in this way is problematic.

More importantly, throughout his message to the Corinthian community, a community torn up by divisions, Paul advocates putting aside hierarchies and status markers to be united in love.  Talking about the Christian community and not about couples, Paul proclaims in 1 Corinthians 13,

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

For Paul, the greatest virtue is love within the community and not love in marriage. 

I’m sharing these perspectives with you to underscore two things.  First, the Bible as a whole and the New Testament in particular does not offer an unequivocal picture of marriage and family.  Just as it does not commend same-sex marriage, it does not offer a pro-marriage, vision.  It does not idealize or idolize the image of one man and one woman, as some would argue.  Second, the writings of the New Testament, including the Gospels and the Pauline letters, subordinate social relationships, such as marriage, to love, love of neighbor and love within the community.  I hope that as you listen to perspectives on Amendment One, you think carefully about how people use the biblical texts to justify their position.  The Bible is not a tool for arguing for or against other-sexed or same-sex marriage. 

Speaking personally, as someone within the Christian community, my fear is that Amendment One runs the risk of bringing animosity between neighbors and dividing communities.  To pass legislation which is redundant, to go out of the way to amend the Constitution with the only outcome being the reassertion that one group has rights and privileges that another group does not have is antithetical to love.  It is hurtful and hateful.  

Boundaries, Elves and Writing

Today a colleague of mine shared with me that he had seen a medieval Christian incantation to ward off elves. Besides the fact that I didn't realize that elves were something that someone would want or need to ward off (aren't they benevolent and beautiful?), I'm still tickled when I run across something that patently challenges our notions about what is "Christian" or "Pagan." The ways that individuals and communities blend, bend and borrow seemingly disparate and immutable categories, beliefs and practices is simply fascinating to me. Maybe this is one of the reasons I enjoy studying religion. I find the mixing of kinds and the breaking of boundaries enjoyable in my scholarship as well.

While I was trained as a New Testament scholar, which is a field known for its sometimes strict boundaries, I entered the field (my doctoral studies) with a pretty broad range of interests. Unlike some of my colleagues, I didn't follow a neat trajectory from college to grad work in NT. After dong an undergraduate degree in philosophy (even though what I really wanted to study was art) and spending some time working for an urban community organizing, faith-based non profit, I graduated with little sense of a specific career path. Yet, a love of literature and existential philosophy pushed me to think about grad schools. When I applied to masters degree programs, however, I applied to a variety of programs ranging from philosophy programs to masters in divinity. I went where the money was (i.e. a full ride fellowship)--divinity school. Even there I didn't entirely focus on NT or biblical texts, even though a NT professor I had the first semester began serving as an unofficial mentor. I continued my affair with the melancholy Dane, worked on my art, did some congregational analysis, along with studying Greek and Hebrew. As I thought about Ph. D. programs, I decided to do NT since I thought it would tether me to a single era/ set of literature from which I could then explore a variety of questions, methods, interpretations, ideas, images, etc, etc.

But, as is typically the case, grad school meant focus, even though I was also encouraged by some of my mentors to push on the boundaries of the field. (At least to some extent.) I embraced conceptual metaphor theory and cognitive linguistics as methodological tools and I sought to engage not only ancient, but also medieval and modern feminist interpretations of the text in my work. Still, for the sake "finishing" my dissertation I ended up with a fairly traditional piece of work. Since then my scholarship largely has been confined to more traditional NT work. It's been focused on the ancient world and employs the theoretical primarily as a tool for explicating the text. It's fine, but not the creative blend of interests that followed me into graduate school.

More recently, however, I've been trying to recapture the fun that I had when I first entered academia. I used to enjoy odd pairings, crossing disciplinary boundaries, employing the theoretical as I engaged the concrete. I want to recapture those impulses--as long as my fears don't get the best of me. I've written one essay that should come out shortly that really does push these sorts of boundaries, as I engage Revelation's image of the Whore, ancient and modern understandings of prostitution and queer theory. And now I'm working on the book that I wanted my dissertation to be, which is an exploration of how real readers have envisioned Revelation's city-bride imagery, the image of the New Jerusalem. This requires, obviously, engaging the works of interpreters who are not necessarily within my field of expertise (NT). In fact, I'm engaging the writings of two medieval women and the multi-media works of two modern women. This definitely requires me to do a lot of work in areas that push the boundaries of my knowledge, but it is, quite simply, fun and invigorating work. Still, there are times when I worry that I'm pushing too far. How will my colleagues in other disciplines feel? Am I stepping on any toes? Will anyone understand what I'm trying to do? I try to approach my work with humility. I realize that I'm not a medieval historian, art historian, church historian, theorist on modern American hermeneutics, etc, etc, etc. I'm not and I'm not trying to be. Still, I would like to be in conversations with other disciplines and scholars. I think these conversations can help me be a better New Testament scholar, a better reader of texts. Engaging a variety of conversations and media can, hopefully, make me a better interpreter of the subtle ways that texts challenge and inspire. So, as I move forward with my work, I resolve to embrace the challenge of working across disciplines, the possibility of engaging multiple intellectual senses. I want to be a little like the elvish incantation--breaking boundaries and challenging people's perceptions. I'll try not to worry too much . . .

Hooray! My Student Had a Thought Today!

So the title of this post really isn't supposed to be "snarky" or facetious. I am genuinely excited about my student having "a thought" today.

I guess that I should start by explaining that I am participating in a Summer Undergraduate Research program with one of my advisees. The program is intended to give students a chance at doing research side-by-side with a faculty person as she does her own research over the summer. The model, like so many undergraduate research (UR) programs, is based upon how work happens in the sciences. It assumes that the faculty person has a project that a student might be able to participate in/ help with. My sense is that natural and social scientists might be able to isolate a small part of their own research for a student to expand upon, verify, analyze, etc. Hopefully, this will be beneficial for student and faculty person. Based upon this model of UR, our university encourages students to apply for (with approval of participating faculty members of course) a chance to do "hands on" and "engaged" summer research. The brochures for these types of programs almost always show student and mentor in matching lab coats looking through microscopes or pouring bright blue fluid into beakers. Whatever they are doing, they have the lab coats.

UR in the Humanities looks a little different. First, we don't normally wear lab coats. Total bummer. Second, Humanities research isn't always so active and faculty research projects are not usually something that we can share with students. In my own field, New Testament, students do not have the language training that would make it possible for them to help me. And, I don't feel like teaching enough sections of koine Greek to get students up to speed. Oh my. Thus, students who work with me in the summer, usually end up developing their own, independent research project. This, of course, involves a lot of reading. Thus, if "University Relations" came to my office to shoot photos for the Summer UR program brochure, they would capture student and faculty member sitting somewhat in the same vicinity, reading, writing, staring, face-booking, chocolate eating, reading, note-taking, face-booking, sitting, writing . . . you get the picture. It's just not "sexy" like the lab coats.

So, back to the thought. My student is doing research on space, temples and visionary texts (i.e. Ezekiel and Revelation). For the past couple of weeks she's been reading the texts in different translations, taking notes in commentaries, looking for articles, face-booking, taking notes, reading, sitting, etc. Today, however, in the midst of all of this, she called out from the table outside of my office, "I just realized something!" She was so excited. She was absolutely giddy. She explained, "I just connected Ezekiel's use of blah, blah, blah, blah! I can't believe it!!" (I don't want to give away her thought.) By looking at the text, poking around the sources, playing around with the text, she had come up with an insight on the text that was genuinely her idea. A thought. She had a thought. Now, the chances are good that others have had similar thoughts about the text, even though her thought is not something that we've seen everywhere. But in UR that doesn't really matter (at least from my perspective). What matters is that she processed the text and sources and came up with an interesting idea about the text, an idea that is her own.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would never say that she came up with this idea 100% on her own. She's taken classes related to her topic, she's read articles, she's talked with me about the text (and of course that's really made her super smart), she's been in conversation with others, etc. In other words, her thought does not emerge out of isolation. Still, she has processed all of her interactions with the text, with others, etc in her own way and it has become her own. In fact, I think that this is what she was really excited about--she now had an idea that could argue, demonstrate, explain in her own terms. This became evident as we shared lunch with a couple other people who are on campus doing work. She shared her thought with them and answered their questions over pizza. Other scholars might be used as evidence or as conversation partners, but she seemed to see herself as the authority on this particular idea. It was kind of marvelous. Because on this day, I got to see my student have a thought, a thought that really seemed to empower her.

Of course, I hope my student has more moments like this, especially since I'll be working with her over the next two years. But, I'm really happy that I got to experience this moment. Sometimes I wonder why I bother going in to the office every day of the summer "just" to work alongside my student. Some faculty just meet up occasionally with their students for "check-ins." But, at times like these, I have a little glimpse of why I come in during summer and why I do what I do in general. It's a good experience.

Teaching Imperfection

I'm a bit of a self-help book junkie, although I'm pretty picky about which books I buy/ like/ admit to reading. Currently I'm reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (published by Hazelden, naturally). The fact that I'm even mentioning it means that I like it. I love Brown's writing style, which is self-reflective and pretty funny. Brown, a prof at University of Houston, researches shame and uses her own experiences of dealing with shame to help her reader work through issues related to perfectionism. I like it and am finding it really insightful.

One of the things that Brown talks about is how embracing our imperfections becomes a way of becoming more compassionate and courageous. As the title of her book suggests, these are the gifts of imperfection. In some sense, this is what I call a "no-duh" observation. It's so obvious and rings true. Still, my tendency is to try to hide my imperfections, shake them off, make light of them, secretly be ashamed of them or obsess over them. (The last option is my favorite course of action.) What if I did embrace them? What might my life look like? I definitely think I would be much happier, but the thought is somewhat intimidating.

As I've been thinking about imperfections and how to embrace them, I noticed something about how I work with my undergraduate research (UR) students. My university is very excited about UR and does a lot to support it. I've been actively involved in mentoring students, including mentoring them over the summer for intensive projects, and have even published a bit on mentoring UR in my field. The students who sign up for UR, especially the summer programs, tend to be perfectionists. They are honor students who take 18-20 hours a semester, volunteer for countless service projects, travel abroad at the drop of a hat, work part time on campus, get straight "A"s, juggle fire batons, rescue small animals from burning buildings, invent new technologies to save the world, etc. Most of them have never had to rewrite a paper, had a professor challenge their perspectives or had to toss out a thesis on which they've been working. But this is exactly what the UR experience is about. They sign up for extended research projects and rarely do they realize that a bulk of the experience will involve dead ends, reworking, rewriting, rethinking--imperfections.

So, how do I deal with my perfectionist students who are coming face to face with their imperfections? I remind them that no one is perfect and that research is about false starts, second chances and "shitty first-drafts" (to quote Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird). I tell them that no one expects perfection, that the idea is to think about a problem or topic in a new way as a means of furthering the conversation not ending the conversation. I even tell them stories about my own writing mishaps, published mistakes and the like, as well as the stories shared with me by own mentors. "Look at us! We're all imperfect and incomplete! That's part of being humans and scholars!" In other words, when sitting down with a student to talk about the difficulties of research and the reality of imperfection and failure, I show compassion. I show compassion to my students! I'm living and experiencing what Brown discusses, using the gifts of my own imperfection to show kindness toward others and to mentor others. Maybe now that I see this, I can work on channeling some of that kindness toward myself.

Did I Stutter?

Talk about procrastination while writing a dissertation. As I was supposedly trying to finish my diss, I had the crazy idea that I should start a comic strip and online zine. It had various names, "Did I Stutter?" and "AnxietyGirl" being the top two contenders. Recently, I stumbled across some of my illustrations. This one is still relevant and kind of cracks me up. Enjoy!

Dismantling Anti-Jewish Thinking in Intro to the NT?

As someone who teaches New Testament in a mid-sized liberal arts college, one of the biggest challenges I face is the insidiousness of anti-Jewish perspectives among many of my Christian, even culturally Christian, students. Students are not overtly anti-Semitic--they don't use slanderous language or ethnic stereo-types. Yet, when they read the New Testament, the Gospels in particular, they have an incredibly difficult time understanding that the depiction of Jewish groups in these texts are 1) the result of intra-Jewish conversation and conflict and 2) part of the authors' literary strategies. Students (including some adults I've had the opportunity to teach in church settings) tend to embrace the gnostic/ Marcionite perspective regarding the character of the divine. I can't even count how often I've heard a student say something along the lines of, "The God of the NT is so loving in comparison to the God of the OT." In other words, "the God" of the OT is described as vengeful, unloving, bloodthirsty, etc. My first response, as someone who's research is on the Apocalypse, is, "Have you read the Book of Revelation?" Yet, no matter how often I remind my class that "the God" of the NT is the same as the divine of the Jewish Scriptures and writings, from an early Christian and Christian perspective, there are always students who can not or will not shake this dichotomy. A-J Levine, in a speech at UNC-Greensboro a few years ago, explained that she responds to this by referencing the 23rd Psalm, an oft-memorized passage in Christian Sunday Schools: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want/ He biddeth me to lie down in green pastures/ He restoreth my soul." (Of course, when I grew up we memorized this in the KJV. Old school, represent!) Even this sometimes falls on deaf ears, as students explain that in "most of the OT" God is a big meany.

So for many students (of course not all!) the multiple depictions of the divine in the Hebrew Bible are diminished into an image of an ogre and the depictions of a wrathful and justice-seeking God of the NT are dismissed as marginal. Revelation is at the end of the canon for a reason . . . it's not really meant to be read or taken seriously. (Of course, for some students, these perspectives are held deeply because they've heard them all their lives, from church pulpits, Sunday school teachers, etc. But that's a whole other can of worms.)

In light of this, I do try to find avenues for dismantling anti-Jewish thinking in my NT courses. In fact, this is one of the "unstated goals" of my Introduction to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature course. But as I write this, I am struck by the fact that, perhaps, I need to be more upfront with this goal. Maybe it is time to name this, along with uncovering how NT texts have been used to justify slave-holding and to oppress women, as one of my central student learning outcomes. In doing this, I think I also need to find new strategies for challenging these perspectives, new strategies for unsettling this simplistic and hurtful thinking. This is one thing I hope to think about this summer as I rework my Intro syllabus. Hopefully, I can begin to share some of these here.

Books to guide me as I explore these questions:

• bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress.
• Terrance Donaldson, Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament: Decision Points and Divergent Traditions.
  
• Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.

And, of course, I'm always happy for suggestions and insights.

Apocalyptic Wordle

A word cloud based upon a forthcoming article. If you click on the image it will take you to larger version.

Way Too Long: Update

It's been a little while since I posted anything here. Thankfully, it's because I've been busy. In the first few weeks of November, I was occupied with writing papers for the Society of Biblical Literature. One was sort of an introduction to reading Revelation from a queer perspective and the the other was on how two modern visionary artists, Myrtice West and Sister Gertrude Morgan, interpret Revelation's bridal imagery in their paintings. I was happy with both papers. I received some especially helpful feedback on the queer readings paper: There was a respondent, a scholar I respect immensely, who pushed me to think in some different directions and encouraged me to flesh out one piece of the paper for publication. So more work for me! The second paper, on the visionary artists, made me dive into some material for the book project, material that I hadn't thought about in awhile. It was good to move into it, as it allowed me to see that I really do have a book in my head that could see the light of day in the future! Overall, my SBL experience this year was exactly what it should be . . . an academic push forward.

Since SBL, I've been working on a bibliography about Satan. It's been a ton of work, but I've enjoyed it a great deal. I forgot how fun new research can be. I think I needed the intellectual challenge of this project, even though it has drawn me away from the book (as well as from the blog). The due date on this project is Jan 31, so Satan will be out of my hair soon enough!

In one week I'm back in the classroom--sabbatical is over. O-V-E-R. Even though it got off to a rough start, I think it was a good experience. People keep asking me if it was "productive," which makes me bristle a bit. Isn't part of the idea of sabbatical rest and regrouping? I think I was able to do that to some extent, but I wouldn't necessarily call that "productive." In fact, one of the best things about sabbatical was the opportunity to detach from the workplace. I know some people have a difficult time doing that and there were a couple instances when I let myself be pulled in, but overall I think I was successful in setting limits. What a wonderful thing: I was able to gain some perspective by pulling away my attention. I was able to realize that curriculum revision, general studies assessment, departmental events and searches are not the beginning and end of the world. Yes, all of these things are important, but they are not the only things in this world that are meaningful and worthy of my time. Moreover, I was reminded that things will move forward without me. I, personally, don't have to do everything. I'm hoping that I'll be able to maintain this perspective as I return to school.

Another great thing about sabbatical has been the flexibility to spend time with my dad, who is getting up there in years. Because I didn't have to be in the classroom, I was able to take him to his 60th high school reunion and plan and host his 80th birthday party. I'm so thankful that I had these opportunities. This makes the fact that I can't live near my dad, since I can't find a job in the area where he lives, more bearable.

Still, even though the question of productivity irritates me, I did manage to get some work done that really needed to get done. Over the summer and early fall I completed a chapter of the book and in the fall I was able to make significant headway on the second chapter. I began to see this thing as a whole, which was a first. And, as mentioned above, I was able to start tackling another chapter by writing my SBL paper on visionary artists. And, with this Satan bibliography, I'll have another publication under my belt. These aren't necessarily all the things I had hoped to get done, but I'm pretty satisfied.

So, overall, sabbatical was successful. I'm ready to get back into the classroom and into the university mix . . . although I'm sure I'll soon be looking forward to the next time away!

Writing Project Runway

Last night I was sad to see Mondo not win Project Runway. Earlier in the season I had actually liked some of Gretchen's designs and I always pull for folks from Portland, OR, but Mondo one me over with his personal quirkiness, his feelings of insecurity and, well, his designs. (Besides Gretchen, as she was portrayed, seemed so pretentious.)

As I was watching the season finale and not working on one of my various writing projects, I couldn't help but think about the similarities between the writing process and Project Runway. The different challenges parallel the different types of writing projects we do: We have the "team challenge," which involves working with collaborators and all that entails; the "making a couture gown out of garbage challenge," which might parallel revising a chapter from the dissertation into an article; we have the "design a cocktail dress for a regular gal" challenge, which might be like writing a piece for a popular audience or an audience outside of your field; there is always "design a garment for a celebrity," which reminds me of writing a piece for that eminent scholar or journal . . . even when the project might be a bit out of your league at the moment. Rarely, do the contestants get to design something completely on their own terms. The closest they probably come is at the end, when they design their own line . . . but even then there are expectations set by others. Likewise, those of us at the beginning of our careers often have projects that respond to the needs and conform to the rules of others. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. At least for me, it's how it has been.

Watching the show, I also thought about how the contestants evolve and grow over the show. It takes them time to get used to working under pressure and in their new surroundings--"the workroom." Similarly, I guess I should have anticipated that moving from grad school into a full time job might also take some adjustment, but I'm not sure if really could have anticipated how much time it has taken to start getting used to "the challenges." In other words, some of my early writing pieces or projects have been hits and some have probably been misses, although I can definitely see my work evolve. Also, I can also tell that I'm starting to develop a style. Not only do my writing projects revolve around similar themes and questions (kind of like designing for a particular "type" of client), but I'm getting a sense of my voice . . . the colors and patterns that I'm most comfortable working with. In fact, putting together my tenure file last fall helped me see some of this progress and development--a good thing to see within the midst of the tenure process. (Thankfully, it was a successful process.)

Returning to Gretchen's win and Mondo's "not-win" (I can't call it a loss), I was struck by the fact that even though Mondo didn't come out on top the judges were still confident about him being a successful designer. The same with Andy and even Michael C. Wow. What a novel concept, winning isn't everything. Hopefully, I can translate that into my writing/ academic life!

Lessons from the Midpoint

So, I'm just over half way through the sabbatical. Here are some of the things I've learned so far about sabbatical, my work and Satan.

1. Change can be difficult. Even if the change is positive in nature, like having time to work and reflect, adjusting to different work patterns, different work expectations, different surroundings, etc. can be unsettling. When things change, I need to allow myself some time to adjust or even some time to flail about resisting the change before I can move forward.

2. Personally, I am happiest with my work if I have more than one project going at a time. If I get frustrated with one project or am simply tired with reading one set of materials, it's nice to be able to change pace without having to stop work all together. That's where Satan comes in: Picking up a project on Satan (an annotated online bibliography) this month has allowed me to have something to focus upon besides Revelation's bridal imagery. Thank God, or Satan, or whoever (esp. the person who recommended me to the OUP editor) . . . because I needed a diversion.

3. Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a break, literally and figuratively. Literally, sometimes we just need a little time to relax and to let work sit for awhile. If we focus on anything too long, we have a distorted perspective on it. I had a colleague a number of years ago who used to take a mental health day once a semester. She could tell when she was pushing herself too hard and so, before she started biting heads off students and pushing colleagues out of windows, she took a day off of work just to catch up on stuff she needed to do and to relax. She was really one of the most well adjusted people I've met. Figuratively, we need to quit being so hard on ourselves. OK, I need to quit being so hard on myself. I need to give myself a break from the constant criticism and unattainable expectations. I'm not perfect and I never will be and it's not really fair that I demand that of myself at work, at home, with my friends, with my family, etc. No one else is perfect, even if they may have perfected the art of performing perfection.

4. I have some good ideas and I know some things about the Book of Revelation.

5. Writing can be hard work. Of course I knew this before sabbatical, but I'm being reminded again. I told a friend yesterday that writing, at times, is like pulling bags of wet laundry out of my brain. It takes effort and some persistence.

6. I'm who I need to be right now. The things I'm experiencing today, whether I'm struggling with feelings of inadequacy or happy about a line or two that I've written, are part of my lesson for the moment. Yes, I know that sounds like something out of a Hazelden self-help book, but . . . oh well. "It is what it is," as the chef-testants on Top Chef often say.

herod's theater box

This summer I had the opportunity to visit a number of sites related to Herodian Dynasty in Israel. One of the interesting things about Herod the Great (37 BCE-4 BCE) is his relationship to the major players involved in the emergence of the Roman Empire. Initially allied with Mark Antony, after Octavian's victory, Herod courted his favor. He met Octavian at Rhodes where he turned his loyalty to Mark Antony into a positive factor, proclaiming that his loyalty would now be directed toward Octavian. After Octavian's acceptance of his loyalty, Herod built Ceasarea Maritima in the then-named Augustus' honor.

Ceasarea wasn't the only Herodian building project reflecting Roman influence. Although Herod's building at Herodium, a hill South of Jerusalem, began prior to Herod's connections to Augustus, archeologist Ehud Netzer suggests that the building project may have been part of Herod's attempt at demonstrating his sophistication to Roman elites. The site at Herodium included a luxury palace, gardens, a large bath complex and a theater. Recently, Netzer and his team, who had been searching for Herod's tomb, discovered a private theater box at the top of theater. This box has recently been featured in the National Geographic. As the images in the article reveal, the box was sumptuously painted, including faux windows and scenes of the Nile, which were especially popular among Romans. When the group I traveled with this summer met with Netzer, he showed us the box, which Zealots later turned into a kitchen, explaining that he believed Herod had this painted especially to impress his Roman guests. These paintings, in fact, are some of the few Roman paintings in Judea with human and animal figures. Other Herodian decorative arts, such as the mosaics at Masada, refrain from depicting such figures. This is something scholars have attributed to Herod's compliance with the Jewish prohibitions against images. This box potentially challenges some of the the assumptions scholars have held about Herod and his relation to Jewish tradition.

Kiki, Herb and Grilled Cheezus

In the past few weeks, with the allegations being made against Bishop Eddie Long and the spate of gay teen suicides, the attention of many Americans has been drawn to questions of homosexuality and religion, specifically Christianity. While productions schedules suggest that the Fox network’s show Glee could not have planned the recent “Grilled Cheesus” episode as a response to these issues, the episode does reflect the current climate. In this episode, the Glee club is interested in celebrating their faiths. Kurt, a young gay man, expresses a sentiment shared by many LGBTQ individuals: “"Sorry, but if I wanted to sing about Jesus, I'd go to church. And the reason I don't go to church is because most churches don't think very much of gay people. Or women. Or science." After making his views clear, Kurt’s father suffers a serious heart attack. While his friends turn to faith for comfort and want him to do the same, Kurt is resolute in his stance. At one point, Kurt’s friend Mercedes pleads with him to believe in something. Kurt’s sadness and pain is visible in his every move, yet the expressions of the divine offered to Kurt by his friends is simply not sufficient to meet his pain. Finally, in tears by his father’s bedside, Kurt proclaims his belief in their relationship, their family. His comatose father lightly grabs Kurt’s hand, as the rest of the cast sings Joan Osborne’s “What if God Were One of Us.” The message being that the queer divine, that queer religiosity, is found in relationship.

The conclusion to Kurt’s spiritual struggle is one that many LGBTQ individuals reach: The divine is not for us; our church is in the community we create with one another. While this is a perfectly legitimate position, for some LGBTQ individuals within the Christian tradition there is a desire for a queer Christology that plumbs the depths of our experiences and even pain. In a less well known, yet critically acclaimed, drag act, Kiki and Herb’s “Year of Magical Drinking Tour” (recorded at the Knitting Factory in 2007), we are presented a theological reflection that pushes us to think about the figure of Christ in relation to queer experience.

Kiki, the drag persona created by artist and actor Justin Bond, and Herb, played by pianist Kenny Mellman, have been performing together since the late 1980’s/ early 1990’s. Kiki is the weathered and often drunk lounge singer, while Herb is her long-suffering, gay accompanist. As Kiki explains in this performance, she is the “hag” to Herb’s “fag.” Biblical or religious references comprise a recurring theme in their shows: Their off Broadway Christmas show, which won an Obie award in 2001, was entitled “Jesus Wept.” Their more recent comeback tour was called “The Second Coming” and in “Kiki and Herb Would Die For You” Kiki describes Jesus as the ultimate showbiz martyr. While the duo has toured internationally and received critical attention, their work is certainly not as mainstream Glee.

This particular show opens with Kiki dressed in a black cocktail dress covered with red-glitter explosions and a large black bow in her teased blonde hair. Kenny wears a lamé tuxedo jacket. Both of their faces are lined with “wrinkles,” obviously drawn with stage makeup. Kiki, drink in hand, explains that the “Year of Magical Drinking” celebrates their Tony nomination and the death of Jerry Fallwell. The costumes, the dramatic atmosphere, the biting humor are pure camp.

In all of their performances, Kiki offers extended monologues, seemingly alcohol infused prattle, which spin a fantastic narrative about their fictional lives. In this particular show, she explains her and Herb’s connection to Jesus. Present in the stable at Christ’s birth and a little hungry, since they were poor little Jewish urchins, they drink milk from a cow that has eaten Jesus’ afterbirth. The milk grants the duo eternal life and they grow up alongside of Jesus. Continuing the story as she drinks her cocktail, Kiki offers that both she and Herb have a “hot nut” for younger men and, consequently, have known Jesus in the “biblical sense.” In fact, Kiki had quite an affair with Jesus, who she describes as a tender lover. She then tells of Jesus’ true character, as the “first hippie,” who drove people like Fallwell out of the Temple. People today have gotten the story turned around, Kiki intones: If Jesus was still in the grave, than he’d be rolling over in it. Jesus was just coming into his sexuality when he died and had he lived he would have likely gone in “Herb’s direction.” The singer wistfully proclaims that Jesus “was bisexual, spiritual and beautiful . . . and they killed him.” It’s a cautionary tale not to “challenge the man.” She then describes how both she and Mary Magdalene plead, upon seeing Jesus on the cross, “Bring him down!” Kiki ends this monologue by explaining that she is looking forward to Christ’s supposed return and she dedicates a song, a poignant rendition of Emmylou Harris’ “From Boulder to Birmingham,” to the only man she ever loved--Jesus Christ.

One of the most striking aspects of this show is the way Kiki, or Justin Bond, appropriates the tradition of a lounge act monologue in order to collapse time, subvert the conventions of history and construct a queer history. This a-historicity, an ability to exist in the present, past, and future, is characteristic of camp: A camp queen can live in the 30’s and 40’s as the incomparable Marlene Dietrich, while drag king Murray Hill stylistically inhabits the late 60’s, early 70’s. By retelling their history into the history of Jesus’ life, Kiki and Herb point to the fact that all history, including Gospel accounts of Jesus, is story, is constructed. In some way, Kiki is a modern day Albert Schweitzer as her story reveals how interpreters weave their historical and cultural perspectives into the life of Jesus. She reminds us that even things such as Jesus’ gender and sexual identity are constructed in the stories of his life as they are told and re-told. Furthermore, Bond collapses history, taking Kiki and Herb back and time, in order to weave Jesus into queer history or the shared cultural memory of the queer community. This is arguably one of the functions of camp for queer communities, whose histories have been erased and assaulted by heteronormative constructions of history.

In her re-telling of Jesus’ life, Kiki offers a portrait of Jesus quite unlike the seemingly straight Jesus depicted in so many popular contexts (e.g. the Jesus played by Jack Black in “Prop 8: The Musical). In terms of sexuality, Jesus’ identity is fluid, having had affairs with Mary Magdalene, according to Kiki, Kiki herself, Herb, and moving in the direction of being gay. Likewise, Jesus embraces a queer gender identity, embodying characteristics typically associated with the feminine, such as tenderness, beauty, spirituality. Kiki even feminizies Jesus through her re-reading of biblical events, describing the wonderful pedicures that Jesus gave at the Last Supper. While spiked with humor, Kiki offers her audience a thoroughly queer and emphatically incarnational theology. As Marcella Althaus-Reid argued in a 2007 article, Queer Theology assumes, “God dwells in flesh and when this happens all our myopic earth-bound ideas are subject to change, the dynamic life force which is the divine erupts in diversity and the energy of it will not be inhibited by laws and statues.” (“Thinking Theology and Queer Theory.” Feminist Theology 15.3 (2007): 302-214). In this incarnational vein, Bond interprets Jesus’ death as a point of connection with those in the queer and LGBT communities who have challenged the dominant culture’s construction of gender and sexuality. It is a powerful move when you consider the violence, emotional, social, and physically, experienced by so many.

Toward the end of the show, Kiki becomes drunk and angry. No holds are barred as she explains how she was unable to protect Herb from being raped when they were both institutionalized in the ‘50s. In response, she launches into a medley of “Heroin” by Lou Reed, comparing the rush of the drug to being like Jesus’ son, “Wild Side” also by Lou Reed, highlighting the drag aspect of the song, and Radiohead’s “Creep.” Kiki screams, “But I'm a creep/ I'm a weirdo/ What the hell am I doing here?/ I don't belong here.” This medley ends and Kiki and Herb break into a frenzied rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” combined with “O Happy Day,” replete with evangelistic recitations of John 3:16 and Psalm 23. Finally, Kiki ends with the song, “Cunts Are Still Running the World” by Jarvis Cocker which offers a biting critique of social hierarchy. Interpreting this pastiche of religious allusions, queer images and raw emotion in light of Kiki’s earlier discussion of Jesus’ crucifixion, I am reminded of Mark’s depiction of Jesus on the cross. Could this be Kiki’s re-enactment of Jesus’ cry, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Has she become the crucified Messiah who cannot save his close companions from the violence and social upheaval that he knows is to come, just as Kiki could not protect her beloved Herb? Is she giving voice to the sense of forsakenness felt by queers, gays, lesbians and trans-people, who have been rejected by their families, communities, governments and religions? As in the Markan narrative, it is in the midst of this forsakenness that Jesus’ identity is made known. In spite of the pain, or perhaps on account of the pain, Kiki asserts Jesus’ identity and love and proclaims the protection of the Good Shepherd: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and staff, they comfort me.” Even though the privileged and well-positioned, and we would add straight, people control the world, Kiki is comforted by a queer/ embodied Jesus . . . a Good Shepherd who has a “rod.”

Kiki’s Jesus, I would argue, is a Jesus of queer experience. It is a version of Jesus who shares the pain of Kurt as he sits by his father’s bedside, unable to take comfort in the churches that exclude him. It is also the Jesus who experiences the pain of bullying and violence and the despair of suicide. Behold, the Queer Jesus.

I presented a version of this paper at the 2009 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.