QCA 3.0: The “Ragin Revolution” Continues

Abstract

ological study to prove to themselves that what appear to be scriptural injunctions on homosexuality actually result from human beings' own prejudicial and erroneous trans lations and interpretations. A testament to Erzen's talents as a writer and ethnographer is her ability to leave her audience feeling the constant flux and struggle that comes about when such options wholly foreclosed. Both books will prove useful to teachers and scholars interested in religion and/or sexuality in contemporary American society, but each should appeal to a more general audience as well. Both studies address the concerns over American individualism soci ologists often puzzle over, with each point ing out how the individual testimonies culti vated in ex-gay ministries (and similar therapeutic groups) do not simply atomize individuals into anomic little cells, but help individuals to tell their own stories in the context of a broader narrative of history. After all, the individualism we have puzzled over since Tocqueville is itself a collective production, and within its contemporary manifestations, religious and therapeutic dis courses strengthen each other. Producing one's own testimony serves as initiation, per sonal healing, and an evangelistic tool for gathering more potential converts. Likewise, both studies speak to the collec tive production of selves and the discourses at work as people seek to be the kinds of peo ple they believe they should be and to feel the way they believe they should feel. If sociolo gists maintain that the self is a social con struct, and that social power can work in part through micro-level interactions, then we need to examine how intimacy, emotions, and narratives of who we are set the limits of what kind of person it is possible to be. Regarding the born gay/it's a choice debate, both authors acknowledge the con tradictory implications of the liberal argu ment (which implies that homosexuality is tolerable only when it cannot be avoided) and the brutal dismissiveness of the conser vative one. More significantly, both authors detail the processes of reason, self-discovery, and subject-production at work in the terrain where conservative religion and same-sex desire overlap. Each author shows how the ex-gay movement makes sense in its own terms, while shedding light on the complex and nuanced processes through which peo ple become selves in late modern society.