And God Becomes Chaos

Incoherency in Indecent Theology

Senior Integrative Project

Lindsey Myrick

“

”

Is incoherency the only

legitimately liberating

theological methodology?

RESEARCH QUESTION

Although incoherency is necessary for upsetting internalized effects of

ideology, it cannot facilitate the construction of a less

oppressive reality. Liberation theology can and should be

coherent to some extent.

CLAIM

argued that liberation theology has failed to

sufficiently address sexuality, both the lived sexuality of

the poor and heterosexuality’s relationship

to knowledge production

On theologian Marcella Althaus-Red

“For there are many longings amongst the nomadic people of God which go frustrated or even unacknowledged: but could the same be said about God’s own heart?”

Decency

promotes binarism, imperialism, and institutionalized stability

Indecency  subversion of this decency through the inclusion of indecent topics and

ways of knowing

IS built upon constructed realities (norms) that undergird the act of

theologizing  

   

coherency  

- Monogamy is the natural and ideal state of romantic relationships -

“Theology’s permanent search for coherency is only an expression of hegemonizing objectives.”

“From the sexual experiences of Queer people who experience love in casual and in friendship relationships, we may learn that God is a God of moments and that moments can be different but the momentary is divine.”

On INCOHERENCY

“The monopolistic production of God and Jesus has been done with such authority and for such a long time, that it’s interpellative strength is difficult to confront.”

The process by which individuals are persuaded by ideology to occupy a

subject position that has been prepared for them

“The very structure of [marginalized communities] thought has been conditioned by the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity.”

Paolo Freire

“Sexual ideologization tends to be pervasive...within Lesbian and Gay Theologies. How? By assuming a fixed sexual identity in non-heterosexual people. Why? Because a heterosexual ideology, as a central discourse of authority, extends its perspective of sexuality and relationships to non-heterosexual identity.”

PART HOMO, PART HETERO

Historical dimensions of a given reality that may have been normalized and therefore made invisible

 

Limit Situations

Limit act Actions that negate and overcome those limit

situations, refusing to accept the inevitability of the state of affairs

“And God becomes Chaos: the smell of our bodies when making love, our fluid and excretions, the hardening of muscles and the erectness of nipples.”

On resistance versus transformation

“God the white upper-class woman who has made of us passive supporters of a patriarchal system.”

On loving relationships

“Norms materialize human subjectivity…the repetition or reiteration of normatively requires practices makes on into a ‘person’ which is why those who refuse such practices can also be denied ‘personhood.’”

Janet Jakobsen

Norms

normativity

Network of Norms

THANK YOU

Religion faculty

Religion majors

My friends

My family

“ ”

“We were in a barn with all the lights out and a

nice warm heater; it was lovely. So, she was settling

in for the night, and I went to the stall and I just

sat in the corner. I let her come to me, and that’s one

of the things I am very adamant about: I never use a

halter or any kind of restraint. So, she chooses to

come with me, and I leave her food and she puts her

head on my chest and we snuggle and I whisper sweet

nothings in her ear and rub her cheeks — what she

likes. By this stage, she knows I’ll rub her thighs. She

really loves the area between the back of her legs

touched. So, she turned around and she actually

backed into me while I’m sitting down. I slip my hands

up a little further up and play with her genitals.”