Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319726854
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

LGBT Humanity as a Threat to Christianity

Although the effects of the Anglican edicts and Kornily’s pronouncements effectively withhold recognition of LGBT humanity while tacitly acknowledging the existence of LGBT people—albeit while relegating them to subhuman status—the final example I wish to share is the most complex. Significant numbers of evangelical protestants, predominantly in America, treat the possibility of queer humanity as a substantive threat to Christianity. Queerness is presented as posing such a threat to Christianity that heteronormativity becomes entirely inseparable from religion within the evangelical episteme. This is evident in the publication of the Nashville Statement4 by the Coalition for Biblical Sexuality, otherwise known as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, in late August 2017. While the statement remains controversial, having been condemned by key figures from across the theological spectrum including conservatives (Beaty 2017), it is an evocative and valuable insight into the core beliefs of many within powerful sections of conservative (predominantly white) evangelicalism. Moreover, the statement attempts to create beliefs about non-heteronormative gender, sex, and sexuality as the “litmus test” for evangelical beliefs (ibid.).

The 14-clause statement articulates key beliefs on gender and sexuality and is endorsed by significant supporters of current US President Donald Trump. It refutes any religious validity to “homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous” marriages (Article I), or to the claim that sexuality can be expressed outside marriage (II). It expressly withholds recognition of “homosexual and transgender self-conception as consistent with God’s holy purpose in creation and redemption” (VII), and reiterates the idea that heterosexuality is exclusively natural and therefore to be privileged (especially VIII).

Article X, however, is the most problematic: “We deny that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which other faithful Christians should agree to disagree.” In other words, recognition of queer humanity is a threat to heteronormativity, and thus to Christianity. It is not a matter of moral inconsequence, and any indication that people should “agree to disagree” is met with comprehensive and strenuous rejection. The language makes clear that, within the system of knowledge upheld by adherents to the Nashville Statement, there is no capacity for recognition of any humanity beyond the heteronormative model they promote. Where they depart from Kornily’s model of sexuality and that of the Anglican church, however, is to withhold the recognition of Christian humanity from those who challenge these beliefs as well as from LGBT people. In this case, queerness is treated as a contagion, and the only way to protect the sanctity of the episteme is to “undo” the humanity of all those recognized as tainted by alternative discourses of gender, sex, and sexuality. Systems which make visible the epistemic violence, such as the Nashville Statement, are therefore put in place to invalidate, silence, and expel dissonant voices.

Yet, hidden behind this uncompromising language and epistemic violence, we can detect a glimmer of queer and human recognition—a possibility that will not lead to humanity being “undone.” In its expression of fear-driven epistemic violence, the Nashville Statement appears to acknowledge (inadvertently perhaps) that “homosexual and transgender” people may be human.

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