“It Was a Gift”: Indonesian Christian Bisexual Seminary Students’ Theological Reinterpretation of Bisexuality and Religious Belief

Abstract

In the Indonesian context, as a religious-heteronormative nation, bisexual identity is generally interpreted as a negative identity in theological discourse. This article offers an alternative theological discourse regarding the meaning of bisexual identity by five Christian bisexual seminary students as a form of self-empowerment within a religious-heteronormative context. This article describes the experiences and theological struggles of five bisexual seminary students in embracing their sexual identities, which are collected through in-depth interviews. This article explores how Indonesian Christian seminary bisexuals synchronize their Christian faith alongside their bisexual identity. The interview data were analyzed using a feminist phenomenological approach. The results showed that Indonesian Christian bisexual seminary students experienced at least three existential struggles due to the incompatibility of their faith and sexual identity: personal, theological, and socio-religious. Theological reinterpretations of non-heteronormative sexual identities, such as bisexuality, became a negotiation strategy to set aside Christian faith and bisexual identity for them. Through hermeneutic and progressive theological discourse exposure in the seminary’s formal education and media, they are queering the theology to reach an existential awareness of bisexuality as a compatible identity besides their Christian faith. This article provides an alternative (queer) discourse based on empirical research that empowers Christian bisexual individuals to uphold their faith without denying their bisexual identity. In addition, this article also exposes the voices and experiences of religious bisexual individuals with low visibility on the LGBTIQ + spectrum, especially in the Southeast Asian context. This article proposes that LGBTIQ + support groups, especially in religious-heteronormative nations like Indonesia, equip religious LGBTIQ + individuals with progressive theological discourse and hermeneutical methods in interpreting sacred texts and beliefs since the progressive theological discourses and hermeneutics are essential to religious LGBTIQ + individuals in upholding their faith and non-heteronormative sexual identity.