Intersex and Transgender Theology

By Kwok Pui Lan

The Episcopal Church took the courageous step to approve same-sex blessing service at the General Convention last July. At the same time, the Church voted to amend church laws to include that no one would be discriminated based on “gender identity and expression.” The church affirms “gender identity (one’s inner sense of being male or female) and expression (the way in which one manifests that gender identity in the world) should not be bases for exclusion, in and of themselves, from consideration for participation in the ministries of the Church.”
 

The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, an Episcopal priest and chaplain at Boston University, has worked with others for a number of years for the passage of the amendment. He was one of the panelists to speak about intersex and transgender theology at the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) on September 7. Other panelists include Dr. Susannah Cornwall from University of Manchester, Dr. Megan K. DeFranza of Gordon College, and Iain Stanford, a doctoral student at Harvard Divinity School.

Professor Patrick S. Cheng of EDS moderated the panel and said in his opening remarks that the Christian community has talked more about lesbian and gay issues than transgender and intersex concerns. He welcomed Dr. Cornwall, an expert on intersex theology and ministry from England, to EDS to have a dialogue with other scholars in Boston.

Intersex people are those persons whose biological sex cannot be classified as clearly male or female, because they have combinations of physical features of both. Intersex people have also been called “hermaphrodite” or people with “disorder of sex development” (DSD), although these terms are contested.

Cornwall’s book, Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ: Intersex Conditions and Christian Theology, is the first full-length examination of the theological implications pf intersex conditions and their medical treatment. Currently she is interviewing intersex Christians to deepen her study. She said that the Church of England has begun to discuss ministry to intersex and transgender persons, which is a step forward.

Cornwall emphasized that intersex persons challenge a binary construction of gender, which has dominated Christian theology for centuries. The acceptance of a non-pathological understanding of the intersexed necessitates the re-examination of some of the Christian images and teachings, such as the church as a feminine bride to a masculine god, the maleness of Christ, body and perfection, and marriage based on complementarities of the male and the female sexes.

In her intriguing remarks, DeFranza pointed out that the Bible offers material to discuss intersex issues. As someone who has grown up in a fundamentalist church in which women were not allowed to even pass the offering plate, she was surprised to find discussion of “atypical” bodies in the Bible. For example, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:1-12, Jesus refers to different types of eunuchs, including those who have been so from birth (as different from those who have been castrated). DeFranza argues that intersex persons would have been included in this group. In Isaiah 56:3-5, the eunuchs who hold fast to God’s covenant are blessed. DeFranza said that instead of “an icon of shame,” the eunuch is raised up as “a model of discipleship.” The Bible also refers numerous times to barren women and some among them might have been intersex.

Just as intersex persons disrupt our ways of constructing gender, transgender people challenge us to see gender identity and expression not as fixed, but in a continuum. Partridge and Stanford reminded us that transgender theology concerns the whole church, because it affects how we see theological anthropology, the nature of creation, and the Body of Christ.

Partridge said that the feast he liked most is the Feast of Transfiguration. It marks the liminal space that life is not static and Christians are called to grow to be like God, as in the doctrine of theosis in the Eastern Church. He invited us to see creation as variegated and always changing and to have an expansive notion of the collective embodiment of the Body of Christ. With such an inclusive understanding of creation and the church, each person will be free to discern who God has called him or her to be and to embody the vocation that God has given.

Stanford was at the General Convention when the Episcopal Church passed the amendment not to discriminate transgender people. He noted that in church politics, the blessing of same-sex union is considered a “sexuality” issue, while the inclusion of transgender persons is seen as a “gender” issue. But the two are much related and often overlap with each other. He reminded us that homosexuals were called “inverts” by nineteenth-century sexologists such as Havelock Ellis. For them, the problem had more to do with gender non-conformity than what these people did in their bedrooms. He, too, exhorted the church to transform its understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality in its theology and ministry.

The panel provides much food for thought at the beginning of the semester. To continue the conversation, Professor Cheng is organizing a group to further discuss lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer issues and theology. The video of the panel will be available later at the Episcopal Divinity School website.

Kwok Pui Lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School and her book OccupyReligion: Theology of the Multitude is forthcoming from Rowman and Littlefield.

East Meets West: Chi and the Holy Spirit

By Grace Ji-Sun Kim

What would an Asian theology of the Holy Spirit look like?

If you have ever attended a Tae-Kwon-Do, Tai-Chi or Akido class, you will recognize the word “Chi” or “Ki.” These three art forms of movement try to harness the intangible form of energy called Chi. Practicing them creates not only more energy, but greater health and life within one’s self.

Chi is part of the everyday lives of Asian people just as it is part of their everyday vernacular. People will greet one another and try to gauge each other’s Chi level or compliment each other’s good Chi. They will even express their sickness or low energy as having “low levels of Chi.” Chi is a powerful energy which brings wholeness, health, and vitality. Chi gives life and without it, there is no life.

In many ways, Chi sounds like “ruach” in the Hebrew Scriptures or “pneuma” in the New Testament. Is it possible that the western notion of the Spirit as found in Christianity is the same energy as Chi? This question leads me to explore the possibility of an Asian understanding of Chi which can nurture a stronger theological perspective on the Holy Spirit.

In an increasingly multireligious, multilingual, and multicultural world, recognizing the differences and similarities among people, cultures, and religions is essential. The religions in different parts of the world do not display many spirits; rather in them we find various names for the Spirit.

Spirit is a universal concept which can discover new methods of addressing, thinking about, and conceptualizing God. But the first step will be to reexamine Spirit-Chi. Spirit-Chi is found within everyone. It is a source of empowerment and healing for the wounded.

Still, Spirit-Chi is beyond mystery and conceptualization. It requires us to admit to the limitations of the human understanding. We will never be able fully to comprehend the Divine. But Spirit-Chi provides us with new language and tools to address the mysterious encounters with the Holy we have experienced in the past and continue to experience. Within this hybrid space, our understanding of Spirit-Chi can draw us closer to God. It helps us develop a deeper understanding of the Creator of all that is, was, or ever will be.

Spirit-Chi is also beyond culture, religion, and society, as it undergirds the ethos of people around the globe. When people recognize this, instead of being a barrier, Spirit-Chi will open doors for further dialogue, understanding, and acceptance. The more language we can use to talk about the Divine, the more we open our discourse and work toward accepting, welcoming, and embracing those who are different, subjugated, and Othered. So it is important to understand God as Spirit-Chi and thereby break down barriers that colonialism has established. This Spirit-Chi is within us, empowering us toward emancipation and liberation.

As we recognize the commonality among people, it will be easier to embrace and accept the Other. The Spirit that is in all things will help us step closer to welcoming and embracing one another. Spirit-Chi embraces life and makes it whole. So it is essential that humanity recognizes, welcomes, and affirms the Spirit in all faiths.

A compelling aspect of Spirit-Chi is the way it is emancipatory: it frees us from the bonds of evil that prevent us from celebrating life. It makes us stronger and builds bridges between us and our neighbors. Spirit-Chi is salvific within us and between us and Others. It is a Spirit that bonds and pulls humanity closer to all other living creatures. It will sustain us and keep us aware of our interconnectedness and interreliance.

In this broken postcolonial world, this means western Christianity can no longer monopolize the Spirit. God’s Spirit-Chi fills us up, makes us whole, and helps build harmony and peace. It transcends problems endemic to the postcolonial world and liberates those caught in the middle. The Spirit is free to roam and be what it will be.

My new book, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology, works toward a global and intercultural pneumatology that will encourage people to live harmoniously and peacefully with one another in a postcolonial world. The next time you are in a Tae-Kwon-Do class or watching the graceful movements of Tai-Chi, be mindful of the one Spirit, which is within us all and gives us life, fully.

*Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim is Associate Professor of Doctrinal Theology and the Director of the MATS program at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Grace of Sophia (Pilgrim Press).

Radical Love: Why Christian Theology Is a Queer Thing

By Patrick S. Cheng*

Queer theology—that is, the place where Christian theology and queer theory meet—is all about radical love.

Radical love, I contend, is a love so extreme that it dissolves our existing boundaries, whether they are boundaries that separate us from other people, that separate us from preconceived notions of sexuality and gender identity, or that separate us from God.

Radical love lies at the heart of both Christian theology and queer theory.

Radical love is at the heart of Christian theology because we Christians believe in a God who, through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, has dissolved the boundaries between death and life, time and eternity, and the human and the divine.

Similarly, radical love is also at the heart of queer theory because it challenges our existing boundaries with respect to sexuality and gender identity (for example, “gay” vs. “straight,” or “male” vs. “female”) as social constructions and not essentialist, or fixed, concepts.

It should be noted that radical love is not about abolishing all rules or justifying an antinomian existence, sexual or otherwise. Radical love is ultimately about love, which, as St. Paul teaches us, is patient and kind, and not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. As such, radical love is premised upon safe, sane, and consensual behavior. Thus, nonconsensual behavior—such as rape or sexual exploitation—is by definition excluded from radical love.

Jesus Christ can be understood by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as the embodiment of radical love. Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry also reinforces the notion of Jesus as the embodiment of radical love and boundary-crossing.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus constantly dissolved the religious and social boundaries of his time. He ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners. He touched “unclean” people such as lepers and bleeding women. He spoke with special outcasts such as Samaritans. In other words, Jesus Christ dissolved the “holy” boundaries of clean and unclean, holy and profane, and saint and sinner.

Jesus Christ is the embodiment of radical love because—in addition to crossing divine and social boundaries—Jesus also crosses sexual boundaries. This is, Jesus’ life and ministry can be viewed as dissolving the rigid line between “heterosexual” and “homosexual.”

In terms of bisexuality, Nancy Wilson raises the interesting possibility that Jesus Christ was sexually attracted to both women and men. She discusses Jesus’ household in Bethany—that is, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—and speculates that Jesus could have been attracted to both sexes. According to Wilson, “the most obvious way to see Jesus as a sexual being is to see him as bisexual in orientation, if not also in his actions.”

Finally, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of radical love because Jesus crosses gender boundaries. As Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, “there is no longer male and female” in Christ Jesus. To that end, a number of theologians have written about the transgender Christ, or Jesus Christ who dissolves the boundaries between “female” and “male.” As in the case with bisexuality, transgender discourse challenges binary and hierarchical thinking about gender.

As a gay theologian, seminary professor, and ordained minister, I have been continuously amazed at the ways in which the radical love of the queer community has helped us to overcome the seemingly insurmountable religious, legal, political, societal, cultural, and other obstacles that present us from fully loving one another and being who God has created us to be. As Paul writes beautifully in the eighth chapter of his Letter to the Romans:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord” (8:38-39).

Excerpted from Patrick S. Cheng, Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (New York: Seabury Books, 2011).

*The Reverend Patrick S. Cheng, Ph.D., is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.