Embodiment as Incarnation: An Incipient Queer Christology

Abstract

This article suggests that modern contextual Christology could benefit from the articulation of a Christology from the social location of sexual orientation. Queer people (that is, those identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersexual, supportively heterosexual or a combination thereof) indoctrinated in the Judaeo-Christian tradition often display what the author terms ‘christophobia’ — a revulsion both toward all things Christian and toward Jesus Christ himself. This christophobia, developed in response to generations of homophobic religion, oppression and religious gay-bashing, and based not on fact but on millennia of heteropatriarchal interpretation, consumes many queer people and forces them away from a productive and wholistic journey with the Christ. This paper suggests that once christophobia is recognized, queer Christ-seekers can access a part of their very selves from which they have been kept separate: the divine anointedness that is the very Christ presence. This requires going back to the basics—re-examining the spiritual landscape, looking for clues to the Queer Christ who empowers queer consciousness. This author begins his quest for the Queer Christ with Mary of Nazareth, who bore the Christ in her very body. Examining the biblical stories of the Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity, he demonstrates how modern-day queer Christians can conceive and birth the Christ in their very bodies, in their very sexualities, as Mary herself did so many centuries ago. Once this Christ presence is birthed by queer people, it ‘queers’ whatever it comes in contact with, stirring up heteropatriarchal traditions and spoiling the heteronormativity that has gone unchallenged for so long. This Christ presence animates its bearers to reclaim their position in church and society as the true, queer anointed.