The Episcopal Church and the resistance to conservative claims to a biblical monopoly: towards a biblical gay and lesbian narrative?

Abstract

Whereas the liberal deconstruction of conservative claims about the Bible “obviously” condemning homosexual practice of any kind has been a great help to Christian and Jewish gays and lesbians seeking to reconcile their sexual and religious identities, it has done little to help them use the Bible in a gay-affirmative way. By being in essence a counter-argument against anti-gay discourse, it still leaves the Bible in a perillously close connection to homophobic imagination. Queer readings of the Bible have come as a welcome remedy. They turn their back on the question of what the Bible condemns, reclaiming the Scriptures as a positive spiritual resource for LGBT people. This is both a political and a deeply spiritual move, and it is empowering gays and lesbians in church and synagogue. Strikingly however, queer Bible commentaries do not seem to have made their way into the institutional debates of as gay-friendly a denomination as the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion. In the recent Episcopalian discussion that has led to authorising the blessing of same-sex marriage, however, one may see the signs of some future full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the grand biblical narrative of creation, redemption and renewal, which is central to Christian identity.