Hybrid Christ / Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People

Cover art for “Transfigurations” designed by Mila and Jayna Pavlin (petersontoscano.com)

“Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” a liberating five-week series by Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, concludes today with “the Hybrid Christ.”

[Update: A new book based on this series, “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ” by Patrick Cheng, was published in spring 2012.]

Every week Cheng will present one of five models that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people:

1) Erotic Christ (sin as exploitation; grace as mutuality)
2) Out Christ (sin as the closet; grace as coming out)
3) Liberator Christ (sin as apathy; grace as activism)
4) Transgressive Christ (sin as conformity; grace as deviance)
5) Hybrid Christ (sin as singularity; grace as hybridity)

Cheng, theology professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, adapted the series for the Jesus in Love Blog based on his essay in the new book “Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection (Second Edition),” edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.

Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today[1]

Model Five: The Hybrid Christ

By Patrick S. Cheng, Copyright © 2010

            The fifth and final christological model of sin and grace for LGBT people is the Hybrid Christ.  Hybridity is a concept from postcolonial theory that describes the mixture of two things that leads to the creation of a third “hybrid” thing. 

“Chinese Jesus Mural, Interrupted”
by objectivejay

For example, the experience of being a racial minority or an immigrant within the United States can be described in hybrid terms.  In the case of Asian Americans, we are neither purely “Asian” (because we live in the United States) nor are we purely “American” (because we are of Asian descent).  Rather, we are a third “hybrid” or “in-between” thing, which ultimately challenges the binary and hierarchical nature of the original two categories of “Asian” (outsider) and “American” (insider).

            For me, the Hybrid Christ arises out of the theological understanding that Jesus Christ is simultaneously divine and human in nature.  He is neither purely one nor the other.  In the words of the Athanasian Creed, Jesus Christ is simultaneously both “God and human,” and yet he is “not two, but one Christ.”  As such, he is the ultimate hybrid being.  This hybrid nature is reflected in the double consciousness that is experienced by many racial minorities in the United States such as Asian Americans, African Americans, Latino/as, Native Americans, and others.  In other words, hybridity challenges binary and either/or ways of seeing the world.

            Marcella Althaus-Reid, the late bisexual theologian from the University of Edinburgh, has written about the Hybrid Christ in her book Indecent Theology.  Specifically, this takes the form of the Bi/Christ, in which the bisexual Jesus challenges the “heterosexual patterns of thought” of hierarchical and binary categories.  Just as the bisexual person challenges the heterosexual binaries of “male/female” and “straight/gay,” the Bi/Christ challenges the either/or way of thinking with respect to theology (for example, by deconstructing “poor” and “rich” as mutually exclusive categories in liberation theology).  As such, the Bi/Christ can be understood as an example of the Hybrid Christ.[2]

            Thus, a theology of the Hybrid Christ recognizes that Jesus Christ exists simultaneously in both the human and divine worlds.  This can be seen most clearly in the post-resurrection narratives.  As a resurrected person with a human body, Jesus Christ is “in-both” worlds (that is, both human and divine), and yet he is also “in-between” both worlds (that is, neither purely human nor purely divine).  Although this can be a painful experience – metaphorically speaking, Jesus Christ has no place to lay down his head – his hybridity is what ultimately allows him to build a bridge between the human and divine.

Sin as Singularity

            If the Hybrid Christ is defined as the One who is simultaneously both human and divine, then sin -- as what opposes the Hybrid Christ -- is singularity, or the failure to recognize the reality of existing in multiple worlds.  For example, sin is failing to recognize the complex reality of multiple identities within a single person, which in turn silences the experiences of those individuals who exist at the intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other categories.  As postcolonial theorists have pointed out, this kind of singularity (for example, defining the “gay” community solely in terms of sexual orientation and not taking into account race) results in the creation of a number of “others” who are never fully part of the larger community and thus feel like perpetual outsiders (for example, LGBT people of color).

            Eric Wat, a Chinese-American gay man, has written about experiencing the sin of singularity in the form of being rejected by both the straight Asian American community as well as the white LGBT community.  Because of the one-dimensional nature of singularity, Wat’s racial identity as an Asian American is erased within the predominantly white LGBT world, whereas his sexual identity as a gay man is erased within predominantly straight Asian American world.  For Wat, LGBT Asian Americans are “nobody’s children,” and they are “forever left in the middle of the road, unacceptable to those at either side of the street.”[3]

Grace as Hybridity

“Jesus of the People”
by Janet McKenzie

By contrast, grace in the context of the Hybrid Christ can be understood as hybridity, or existing in the interstitial or “in-beyond” space between two or more intersecting worlds.  In an essay entitled “Disrupted / Disruptive Moments,” Black lesbian theologian Renée Hill has written about how her theological reflection has been shaped by her existence at the “intersections, in-between places, and borderlands” of her identities of race, gender, and sexual orientation.  Hill’s own experience of this hybridity as an “African American lesbian, Christian, theologian, and worker for justice” has convinced her of the need to create new “multireligious and multidialogical” processes for doing theologies and to embrace “questions, disruptions, and moments of ambiguity and uncertainty.”[4]

            Like Hill, LGBT Asian Americans have written about the grace of hybridity.  For example, Wat writes that, instead of being caught in the middle of the race / sexuality divide, “gay Asian men must find that third side of the street where we can grow, find our voices, learn about ourselves, and educate others about who we are, so that eventually we can join them at both sides of the street.”[5]  Ann Yuri Uyeda, a queer Asian American activist, wrote about her “overwhelming” experiences in being in a room of nearly 200 queer Asian American women for the first time: “[We were] Asian and Pacific Islander.  And queer.  All at once.  And all together.”[6]

In recent years, there have been a growing number of writings by and about LGBT Asians and Asian Americans of faith.  These include theologians who are members of the Emerging Queer API Religion Scholars (EQARS) group at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California[7] – as well as our allies such as Kwok Pui-lan and Tat-siong Benny Liew.[8]  Indeed, the proliferation of such texts can be attributed to the grace of hybridity.

Conclusion

            In this essay, I have argued that LGBT Christians must continue to wrestle deeply with the theological doctrines of sin and grace.  Because LGBT people have been hurt by the traditional legal model of sin and grace, I believe that these doctrines should be rethought in christological terms such as the Erotic Christ, the Out Christ, the Liberator Christ, the Transgressive Christ, and the Hybrid Christ.  It is my hope that a christological model of sin and grace will allow LGBT people of faith to enter into a more meaningful theological dialogue among ourselves as well as with the broader theological community as we enter into the third millennium of the Christian tradition.

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[1] Copyright © 2010 by Patrick S. Cheng.  All rights reserved.  The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This essay is adapted from his article, “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” in the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.  For more information about Patrick, please see his website at http://www.patrickcheng.net

[2] Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender, and Politics

(London: Routledge, 2000), 114-16.

[3] See Eric Wat, “Preserving the Paradox: Stories From a Gay-Loh,” in Russell Leong, Asian American Sexualities: Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience (New York: Routledge, 1996), 78.

[4] See Renée Leslie Hill, “Disrupted / Disruptive Movements: Black Theology and Black Power 1969 / 1999,” in Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power, ed. Dwight N. Hopkins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 138, 147-48.

[5] Wat, “Preserving the Paradox,” 80 (emphasis added).

[6] Ann Yuri Uyeda, “All at Once, All Together: One Asian American Lesbian’s Account of the 1989 Asian Pacific Lesbian Network Retreat,” in The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women, ed. Sharon Lim-Hing (Toronto, Canada: Sister Vision Press, 1994), 121.

[7] These scholars include Mike Campos, Joseph Goh, Elizabeth Leung, Miak Siew, Lai-shan Yip, Hugo Córdova Quero, and myself.  See http://www.clgs.org/emerging-scholars-0.

[8] See Kwok Pui-lan, Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 100-21; Tat-siong Benny Liew, “Queering Closets and Perverting Desires: Cross-Examining John’s Engendering and Transgendering Word Across Different Worlds,” in They Were All Together in One Place?: Toward Minority Biblical Criticism, ed. Randall C. Bailey, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Fernando F. Segovia (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 251-88.

Click here to see the whole series “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today.”

Editor’s note from Kittredge Cherry: Two of the images for this post show androgynous Christ figures who blend and transcend gender: the “Transfigurations” cover and “Jesus of the People.” Both have gender hybridity, while “Jesus of the People” also embodies hybrid racial and ethnic identities. The model was an African American woman, and Jesus is shown with an Asian yin-yang symbol and an eagle feather that refers to the Great Spirit in Native American cultures. Artist Janet McKenzie was attacked for blasphemy when Sister Wendy of PBS chose it to represent Christ in the 21st century. I decided to include the photo of the Chinese Jesus Mural because this post addresses Asian American experience in depth.

Transgressive Christ / Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People

The Crucifixion of Christ by Becki Jayne Harrelson

“Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” a liberating five-week series by Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, continues today with “the Transgressive Christ.”

[Update: A new book based on this series, “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ” by Patrick Cheng, was published in spring 2012.]

Every week Cheng will present one of five models that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people:

1) Erotic Christ (sin as exploitation; grace as mutuality)
2) Out Christ (sin as the closet; grace as coming out)
3) Liberator Christ (sin as apathy; grace as activism)
4) Transgressive Christ (sin as conformity; grace as deviance)
5) Hybrid Christ (sin as singularity; grace as hybridity)

Cheng, theology professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, adapted the series for the Jesus in Love Blog based on his essay in the new book “Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection (Second Edition),” edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.

Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today[1]

Model Four: The Transgressive Christ

By Patrick S. Cheng, Copyright © 2010

            The fourth christological model of sin and grace for LGBT people is the Transgressive Christ.  The Transgressive Christ arises out of the reality that Jesus Christ was crucified by the religious and political authorities of his day for refusing to conform to their standards of behavior.  Indeed, Jesus is constantly seen in the gospels as transgressing the commonly-accepted religious and legal boundaries of his day.  In a world obsessed by purity codes, he touches those who are unclean, including lepers, bleeding women, and the differently abled.  He eats and drinks with outcasts such as tax collectors and sinners.

            Jesus also challenges the religious authorities with respect to their teachings (such as healing on the Sabbath, and the grounds for divorce).  He rejects his biological family, and he is rejected by his hometown.  Many of his parables are about those who are on the margins of society, such as Samaritans.  As such, the Transgressive Christ can be understood as God’s solidarity with the suffering of LGBT people and others who refuse to conform to the rules of the principalities and powers of this world.

            Robert Shore-Goss, the gay theologian and Metropolitan Community Church minister, has written about the Transgressive Christ in his groundbreaking books on LGBT christology, Jesus Acted Up and Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up.[2]  In Jesus Acted Up, which was an angry theological response to the silence and inaction of both civil society and the Church with respect to the HIV/AIDS crisis, Shore-Goss argued that Jesus Christ is a model for “transgressive practice” with respect to advocating for sexual justice.

            Specifically, Shore-Goss compared Jesus’ actions in driving out the animal merchants and overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple to the ACT UP/New York protest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in which a protester crumbled up a consecrated host instead of eating it.  For Shore-Goss, both actions “violated sacred space, transgressed sacred ritual, and offended sensibilities.”  Yet, according to Shore-Goss, both acts exhibited a “profound reverence for the sacred based on God’s justice-doing.”[3]  Indeed, in Queering Christ, Shore-Goss argues that the idea of transgression can be seen as a metaphor – if not the metaphor – for  queer theologies today.[4]

Sin as Conformity

            If the Transgressive Christ is understood as the One who is tortured and executed for daring to break society’s rules, then sin – as that which opposes the Transgressive Christ – can be understood as mindless or blind conformity with the rules of the ruling majority.  The sin of conformity is something that occurs within all groups, including the LGBT community.  For example, it is easy for gay men to get caught up in the white, middle-class gay male “scene” in which superficial standards of beauty, body types, and material possessions are the only measure of a person’s worth.

            There is also the destructive behavior of “mainstream” lesbians and gay men who look the other way – or fail to speak up – with respect to the sufferings of other people on the margins (LGBT or otherwise), whether it be issues of racism, social and economic injustice, or hostility towards marginalized elements (such as transgender and bisexual people) within the LGBT community itself.  In fact, the sin of conformity can easily lead to mob violence against an innocent scapegoat or even the genocide of entire groups.  Sadly, just because a group has suffered from discrimination in the past does not mean that it is immune from the sin of conformity, particularly when it tries to distance itself from those who are deemed to be too different, just to “fit in.”

Grace as Deviance

            By contrast, grace in the context of the Transgressive Christ can be understood as deviance, or the willingness to transgress social, legal, and religious boundaries and norms. As in the case of coming out, one’s ability to challenge such boundaries and norms is not something that can be “willed” or “earned,” but is rather a gift of grace from God.  Although there is always the very real risk of crucifixion for challenging societal norms, there is also the promise of resurrection on the other side in terms of being true to one’s own God-given sexual orientation and gender identity.

            The grace of deviance can be seen in various sub-communities within the LGBT community that normally are marginalized, such as the transgender community, the bisexual community, and the leather, fetish, and BDSM community.  These communities are gifts to the wider LGBT community.  For example, Kaui, a transgender woman of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, and Samoan descent, has described the Mahu (that is, trans people in Hawai’i) as a gift of grace to the world: “We’re actually angels.  We were sent down to earth to soak up all of man’s sins.  I was set up to earth to make people laugh and happy, to give them counseling that they need.”[5]

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[1] Copyright © 2010 by Patrick S. Cheng.  All rights reserved.  The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This essay is adapted from his article, “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” in the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.  For more information about Patrick, please see his website at http://www.patrickcheng.net.

[2] See Goss, Jesus Acted Up; Robert E. Goss, Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2002).

[3] Goss, Jesus Acted Up, 149-50.

[4] See Goss, Queering Christ, 223-38.

[5] “Kaui,” in Andrew Matzner, ‘O Au No Keia: Voices From Hawai’i’s Mahu and Transgender Communities (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2001), 112-13.

Come back next week for Part 5: the Hybrid Christ by Patrick S. Cheng.

Click here to see the whole series so far.

Editor’s note from Kittredge Cherry: The image for this post, “The Crucifixion of Christ” by Becki Jayne Harrelson, shows Jesus labeled a “faggot” and executed for daring to break society’s rules. “Look at the word ‘faggot’ on the cross. You could substitute the word ‘nigger,’ ‘Jew boy,’ ‘honkie,’ ‘redneck’ or ‘bitch’—it all means the same. Anytime anyone rises up in condemnation, hatred, or violence against another, Christ is crucified,” Harrelson explains in my book “Art That Dares.”

Liberator Christ / Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People

Jesus Rises (from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision) by F. Douglas Blanchard

“Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” a liberating five-week series by Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, continues today with “the Liberator Christ.”

[Update: A new book based on this series, “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ” by Patrick Cheng, was published in spring 2012.]

Every week Cheng will present one of five models that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people:

1) Erotic Christ (sin as exploitation; grace as mutuality)
2) Out Christ (sin as the closet; grace as coming out)
3) Liberator Christ (sin as apathy; grace as activism)
4) Transgressive Christ (sin as conformity; grace as deviance)
5) Hybrid Christ (sin as singularity; grace as hybridity)

Cheng, theology professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, adapted the series for the Jesus in Love Blog based on his essay in the new book “Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection (Second Edition),” edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.

Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today[1]

Model Three: The Liberator Christ

By Patrick S. Cheng, Copyright © 2010

            The third christological model of sin and grace for LGBT people is the Liberator Christ.  This model is rooted in the liberation theologies of Latin American and Black theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez and James Cone.  In other words, Jesus Christ is understood as the One who frees all those who are enslaved to systematic oppressions, including heterosexism and homophobia.

Indeed, Jesus Christ announces at the beginning of his ministry that his mission is to set the oppressed free.  By reading from the Book of Isaiah, Jesus proclaims that he has been anointed by God to “bring good news to the poor,” to “proclaim release to the captives,” and to “let the oppressed go free.”  The work of the Liberator Christ is reinforced by the parable of sheep and goats in Matthew 25, in which Jesus declares that whoever ministers to those who are hungry, thirsty, outsider, naked, sick, and/or imprisoned has actually ministered to him.

Like the Exodus event in which the ancient Israelites were set free from their bondage to their Egyptians slaveholders, the Christ event liberates LGBT people from the bondage of heterosexism and homophobia.  For example, Robert E. Shore-Goss, a gay former Jesuit priest and current Metropolitan Community Church minister, has written in his book Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto about the importance of deconstructing traditional christologies.  For Shore-Goss, LGBT people are called to move from the erotophobic and sex-negative “Christ the Oppressor” to the LGBT-empowering “Jesus the Liberator.”[2]

Other LGBT theologians, such as Gary David Comstock, also have written about the need to be liberated from traditional notions of a hierarchical Jesus that lords over us.  In his book Gay Theology Without Apology, Comstock argues that Jesus liberates us from seeing him as a “master.”  Rather, Jesus invites us to be his “friend.”  Jesus gives us a “nudge to get on without him,” and he urges us to take on the ethical responsibility of loving one another.[3]

Sin as Apathy

            If the Liberator Christ is understood as the One who frees those who are enslaved to systemic oppressions, then sin – defined as that which opposes the Liberator Christ – can be understood as apathy.  That is, sin with respect to the model of the Liberator Christ can be seen as the refusal to work towards the elimination of the systemic oppressions that affect all members of the LGBT community, including those LGBT people who are “least among us,” such as the socio-economically disadvantaged, recent immigrants, and undocumented workers.

Many LGBT people have come out of the closet and succeeded in their work and careers.  Indeed, they end up living a comfortable middle- to upper-class existence in urban gay enclaves such as San Francisco and New York.  However, like the goats in Jesus’ above parable, these individuals are often blinded by the sin of apathy and fail to address issues of economic injustice, racism, sexism, and ablelism, both inside and outside of the LGBT community.  Despite the fact that these individuals have benefitted greatly from the liberation work of past LGBT activists (e.g., our courageous transgender ancestors at the Stonewall Riots), many of these “A-Gays” do very little – if anything – towards the further liberation of all who suffer from systemic oppressions.

Grace as Activism

            By contrast, grace in the context of the Liberator Christ can be understood as activism, or the willingness to challenge the powers and principalities that result in systemic oppressions.  That is, grace can be understood as a willingness to challenge not only traditional LGBT issues, but also many other issues that result in social and economic injustices.

For example, the grace of activism can be seen in the grass-roots work of many LGBT communities of color that acknowledge the interconnected nature of systemic oppressions.  For example, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), the national coalition of queer Asian organizations, is committed not only to addressing traditional LGBT issues of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, but NQAPIA also addresses issues of racism and classism within the LGBT community as well as immigration reform.  The grace of activism is a gift from God that recognizes that we are all interconnected within the Body of Christ and that we cannot say to another that “I have no need of you.”

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[1] Copyright © 2010 by Patrick S. Cheng.  All rights reserved.  The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This essay is adapted from his article, “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” in the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.  For more information about Patrick, please see his website at http://www.patrickcheng.net. 

[2] See Robert Goss, Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 61-85.

[3] See Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1993), 91-103.

Come back next week for Part 4: the Transgressive Christ by Patrick S. Cheng.

Click here to see the whole series so far.

Editor’s notes from Kittredge Cherry: The Liberator Christ is Patrick Cheng’s newest model - so new that it does not appear in his published essay in “Sexuality and the Sacred.” He developed the model after submitting his manuscript for publication there. I am honored that he chose to introduce the Liberator Christ through the Jesus in Love Blog.

The image for this post, “Jesus Rises” shows Jesus setting prisoners free on Easter morning. It comes from “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” by F. Douglas Blanchard, which presents Jesus as a contemporary gay man. “Jesus Rises” and other selections from the Gay Passion series appear in my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.”

Out Christ / Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People

“Sermon on the Mount” (from Ecce Homo) by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

“Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” a liberating five-week series by Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, continues today with “the Out Christ.”

[Update: A new book based on this series, “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ” by Patrick Cheng, was published in spring 2012.]

Every week Cheng will present one of five models that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people:

1) Erotic Christ (sin as exploitation; grace as mutuality)
2) Out Christ (sin as the closet; grace as coming out)
3) Liberator Christ (sin as apathy; grace as activism)
4) Transgressive Christ (sin as conformity; grace as deviance)
5) Hybrid Christ (sin as singularity; grace as hybridity)

Cheng, theology professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, adapted the series for the Jesus in Love Blog based on his essay in the new book “Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection (Second Edition),” edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.

Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today[1]

Model Two: The Out Christ

By Patrick S. Cheng, Copyright © 2010

            The second christological model of sin and grace for LGBT people is the Out Christ.  The Out Christ arises out of the reality that God reveals Godself most fully in the person of Jesus Christ.  In other words, God “comes out of the closet” in the person of Jesus Christ; it is only through the incarnation, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we understand the true nature of God (for example, God’s solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed).  Indeed, the notion of the Out Christ as the revelation of God is supported by Jesus Christ’s description in the Fourth Gospel as the logos or Word of God.

            Chris Glaser, the gay theologian and Metropolitan Community Church minister, has written about the Out Christ in his book Coming Out as Sacrament.  In that book, Glaser describes Jesus Christ as nothing less than God’s very own coming out to humanity:  “The story of the New Testament is that God comes out of the closet of heaven and out of the religious system of time to reveal Godself in the person of Jesus the Christ.”[2]

            For Glaser, God reveals God’s solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed of the world in Jesus Christ.  For example, God comes out as an infant who is born in “a strange town and in a land and culture dominated by a foreign power, the Roman Empire.”  God also comes out in solidarity with the oppressed through the ministry of Jesus, who “defends women and eunuchs and those of mixed race (Samaritans) and responds to other races (the Roman centurion, the Syrophoenician woman).”  In the crucifixion, God comes out by extending “an inclusive paradise to a crucified criminal.”  And finally, in the resurrection, God comes out as one who “lives despite human violence, a true survivor of human abuse and victimization.”[3]

Sin as the Closet

            If the Out Christ is understood as the One through whom God most fully reveals Godself to humanity, then sin – as what opposes the Out Christ – can be understood as the closet, or the refusal to reveal oneself fully to one’s families, friends, co-workers,  and other loved ones.  Not only does the closet prevent a person from truly connecting with others, but it has a corrosive effect on the self-esteem and well-being to the extent that she is constantly forced to keep her life a secret to others.

            Many LGBT people have written about experiencing the sin of the closet.  For many LGBT people of color, coming out to families and friends can be a particularly difficult process as a result of condemnation from theologically-conservative churches, cultural expectations of traditional gender roles, and the anxieties of bringing shame to their families and ethnic communities.  Furthermore, LGBT people of color often experience an additional closet – the ethnic closet – in trying to hide or downplay their minority status within the predominantly white LGBT community.

Grace as Coming Out

            By contrast, grace in the context of the Out Christ can be understood as the courage to come out of the closet, or sharing one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity with others.  For LGBT people, the process of coming out can be understood as grace, or a unmerited gift, on the part of God.  There is no one correct pattern or single path to coming out.  Some people come out very early in life; others wait until much later.  For some people it is a slow and private process.  For others, it is a fast and public announcement.

            Regardless of how one ultimately comes out, the act of coming out reflects the very nature of a God who is also constantly coming out and revealing Godself to us in the Out Christ.  Coming out is a gift that is accompanied by other gifts such as self-love, the love for others, and the overcoming of shame and internalized homophobia.  The grace of coming out is not something that can be “willed” or “earned”; it can only happen as an act of grace from God.

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[1] Copyright © 2010 by Patrick S. Cheng.  All rights reserved.  The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This essay is adapted from his article, “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” in the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.  For more information about Patrick, please see his website at http://www.patrickcheng.net. 
[2] Chris Glaser, Coming Out As Sacrament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 85.

[3] Glaser, Coming Out As Sacrament, 82-84.

Come back next week for Part 3: the Liberator Christ by Patrick S. Cheng.

Click here to see the whole series so far.

Editor’s note from Kittredge Cherry: The photo for this post, “Sermon on the Mount,” was taken in a famous cruising park in Stockholm with LGBT people from local leather clubs as models. “It was fantastic to walk with ‘Jesus’ to the photo spot. People were looking and a little shocked,” recalls photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin in my book “Art That Dares.”

Erotic Christ / Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People

“Crucifix” by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

“Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” a liberating essay by Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng, is presented here as a five-week series starting now.

[Update: A new book based on this series, “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ” by Patrick Cheng, was published in spring 2012.]

Every week Cheng will present one of five models that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people:

1) Erotic Christ (sin as exploitation; grace as mutuality)
2) Out Christ (sin as the closet; grace as coming out)
3) Liberator Christ (sin as apathy; grace as activism)
4) Transgressive Christ (sin as conformity; grace as deviance)
5) Hybrid Christ (sin as singularity; grace as hybridity)

[Update: Cheng added two more models in his new book:]
6) Self-Loving Christ (sin as shame, grace as pride)
7) Interconnected Christ (sin as isolation, grace as interdependence)

Cheng is assistant professor of historical and systematic theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are honored that this brilliant, up-and-coming gay scholar chose to share his work at the Jesus in Love Blog.

Patrick S. Cheng

He adapted the following essay for the Jesus in Love Blog based on his article of the same title in the new book “Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection (Second Edition),” edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas. His book “Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology” will be published next spring by Seabury Books.

Cheng is an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), an LGBT-affirming Christian denomination that is open to all people. He is also a contributor to the religion section of the Huffington Post. He will deliver the John E. Boswell Lecture at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California in April 2011. Patrick lives in Cambridge with his husband of nearly two decades, Michael.

For more information about Patrick, please visit his website at www.patrickcheng.net.

Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today[1]

By Patrick S. Cheng, Copyright © 2010

Introduction

            Sin is a difficult issue for many, if not most, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT” or “queer”) people of faith.  It is the primary reason why LGBT people are denied full participation in the life of the Church, including the denial of sacraments and rites such as same-sex marriage and ordination, as well as the denial of many secular rights such as civil marriage and anti-discrimination laws.  Sin also torments LGBT people starting from a young age.  That is, we are taught very early on that same-sex acts are sinful, and we will be condemned to eternal punishment in hell if we fail to repent and abstain from such acts.

            As a result, many LGBT people are unable to understand what grace – that is, the unmerited gift of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ – is all about.  If a central part of our identity (if not the central part), which is the ability to experience embodied love and pleasure with another human being, is understood as intrinsically sinful and in need of repentance and abstinence, then why should we care about God’s grace?  In fact, what kind of sadistic God would create people one way and then insist that they change who they are in order to attain salvation?  It is not surprising, then, that many LGBT people have turned away from the Church and organized religion.

The Traditional Legal Model of Sin and Grace

            The Church traditionally has talked about sin and grace in legal terms.  For example, same-sex acts are understood as sinful because they violate biblical law, natural law, and/or other divine prohibitions against such acts.  Although there are only a handful of biblical passages that discuss same-sex acts (for example, Gen 19:5, Lev 18:22 and 20:13, Rom 1:24-25, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:10), they have been cited time and time again to “prove” the sinfulness of such acts.  Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church has relied upon natural law to argue that human sexuality must always be expressed in the context of procreation, and any delinking of sexual pleasure and procreation is a violation of God’s law.

            By contrast, grace under the traditional legal model is understood as God’s forgiveness of those who have engaged in same-sex acts (that is, justification) as well as God’s assistance in helping such people to abstain from such prohibited acts in the future (that is, sanctification).  In other words, to accept God’s grace is to refrain from having any non-procreative sex, including same-sex acts.

            There are a number of problems with this traditional legal model of sin and grace.  First, this model detracts from a central message of the New Testament, which is justification by grace alone.  By characterizing sin as the violation of God’s eternal laws, the focus inevitably shifts to who may or may not be violating such laws.  This in turn leads to an obsession with groups that are thought to be sinners (for example, LGBT people), as opposed to a focus on God’s unmerited grace, which is actually the only thing that can help any of us to overcome the bondage of original sin.

            Second, the traditional legal model results in an obsession with defining precisely what the rules for right and wrong behavior are.  Specifically, this takes the form of endless argumentation and prooftexting over what the Bible “actually” says about same-sex acts.  While I believe in the importance of biblical exegesis, I also think that a narrow focus on what God prohibits or allows in scripture takes away from the larger framework of original sin and the theological significance of Jesus Christ in salvation history.  That is, the Bible becomes simply a book of rules, as opposed to the revelation of God’s relationship with – and love for – humanity as the Word made flesh.

The Christological Model of Sin and Grace

            As an alternative to the traditional legal model, I propose a christological model of sin and grace.  Under such a model – which is suggested by the work of christocentric theologians such as Bonaventure and Karl Barth – Jesus Christ is the starting point for thinking about sin and grace.  That is, sin is defined as whatever is opposed to the grace of what God has done for humanity in Jesus Christ.  In other words, sin is defined in relational terms to Jesus Christ.  It cannot be reduced to a laundry list of commandments to obey.

            For example, one way of thinking about sin and grace from a christological perspective is to understand sin as pride and grace as condescension.  That is, to the extent that Jesus Christ is understood as the grace of God’s coming down from heaven for our salvation (that is, condescension), then sin is defined as humanity’s urge to raise itself up above God (that is, pride).  Liberation theologians have characterized this as the sin of economic and political subjugation of the marginalized.

            By contrast, another way of thinking about sin and grace from a christological model is to understand sin as sloth and grace as exaltation.  That is, to the extent that Jesus Christ is understood as the grace of God’s lifting up of humanity in the victory of the resurrection (that is, exaltation), then sin is humanity’s refusal to rise to the level of what God has called us to be (that is, sloth).  Feminist and womanist theologians have characterized this as the sin of hiding or the negation of the self.

            Building upon the christological model, I propose five christological models of sin and grace that arise out of the experiences of LGBT people: (1) the Erotic Christ; (2) the Out Christ; (3) the Liberator Christ; (4) the Transgressive Christ; and (5) the Hybrid Christ.  These five models use the experiences of LGBT people to illustrate how sin and grace manifest themselves within in a specific social context.  It is my hope that these models can lead to a more thoughtful discussion – as opposed to silence or avoidance – about what sin and grace mean to LGBT people today.

Model One: The Erotic Christ

            The first christological model of sin and grace for LGBT people is the Erotic Christ.  According to Audre Lorde, the Black feminist lesbian writer, the erotic is about relationality and desire for the other; it is the power that arises out of “sharing deeply” with another person.  The erotic is to “share our joy in the satisfying” of the other, rather than simply using other people as “objects of satisfaction.”[2]

Grace as mutuality
Detail from The Last Supper
by Becki Jayne Harrelson

The Erotic Christ arises out of the reality that Jesus Christ, as the Word made flesh, is the very embodiment of God’s deepest desires for us.  Jesus Christ came down from heaven not for God’s own self-gratification, but rather for us and for our salvation.  In the gospels, Jesus repeatedly shows his love and desire for all those who come into contact with him, including physical touch.  He uses touch as a way to cure people of disease and disabilities, as well as to bring them back to life.  He washes the feet of his disciples, and he even allows the Beloved Disciple to lie close to his breast at the last supper.

            Conversely, Jesus is touched physically by many of the people who come into contact with him.  He is touched by the bleeding woman who hoped that his powers could heal her.  He is bathed in expensive ointment by the woman at Bethany.  After his resurrection, Jesus allows Thomas to place his finger in the mark of the nails and also to place his hand in his side.  All of these physical interactions are manifestations of God’s love for us – and our reciprocal love for God – through the Erotic Christ.

Carter Heyward, the lesbian theologian and Episcopal priest, has written about the Erotic Christ in the context of the “radically mutual character” of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.  For Heyward, the significance of Jesus Christ lies not only in the ways in which he touched others (both physically and otherwise), but also in the ways in which he was “healed, liberated, and transformed” by those who he encountered.  This power in mutual relation is not something that exists solely within the trinitarian relationship between God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit.  Rather, this power is present in all of us who have ever “loved, held, yearned, lost.”[3]

Sin as Exploitation

            So what is sin and grace in light of the Erotic Christ?  If the Erotic Christ is understood as God’s deepest desire to be in relationship with us, then sin – defined as what opposes the Erotic Christ – can be understood as exploitation, or the complete lack of mutuality or concern for the needs and desires, sexual or otherwise, of another person.

Sin as exploitation
“Judas Kiss” by Robert Recker

            For many people, sin in the context of the Erotic Christ takes the form of sexual practices in which one’s partner is treated as merely an object of gratification or something less than a full person (for example, sex arising out of addiction).  These people, particularly those who struggle with sex addiction and/or low self-esteem, have engaged in anonymous, unsafe, and/or drug-fueled hook-ups in which self-gratification is the primary if not only concern.  The sex addict’s partner or partners are reduced to objects for stimulation and not seen as human beings in themselves.  This is the sin of exploitation at work – using one’s partner as an object for stimulation and not as a fellow human being.

Grace as Mutuality

            By contrast, grace in the context of the Erotic Christ is mutuality, or the deep awareness of being-in-relationship with the other.  As Lorde describes it, grace can take the form of something as simple as “sharing deeply any pursuit with another person” such as dancing.[4]  For Heyward, the grace of the Erotic Christ necessarily takes the form of “justice-love” and sharing in “the earth and the resources vital to our survival and happiness as people and creatures.”[5]  The grace of mutuality is understanding that we are all connected deeply to each other and creation.  It requires a commitment to changing how we see and interact with the world, whether socially, politically, or sexually.  The grace of mutuality is a gift that allows us to feel an authentic connection with others and with God.

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[1] Copyright © 2010 by Patrick S. Cheng.  All rights reserved.  The Rev. Dr. Patrick S. Cheng is the Assistant Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This essay is adapted from his article, “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today,” in the second edition of Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas.  For more information about Patrick, please see his website at http://www.patrickcheng.net.

[2] See Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” in Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, ed. Marvin M. Ellison and Kelly Brown Douglas, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), 75, 77.

[3] See Carter Heyward, Saving Jesus From Those Who Are Right: Rethinking What It Means to Be Christian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 74.  See also Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength: The Erotic As Power and the Love of God (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989).

[4] See Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic,” 75.

[5] See Heyward, Saving Jesus From Those Who Are Right, 71.

Come back next week for Part 2: the Out Christ by Patrick S. Cheng.

Editor’s note from Kittredge Cherry: The artwork for this post was chosen to contrast the erotic mutuality of Ohlson Wallin's Crucifix at the top (where Jesus and his beloved together BECOME the biracial cross) with the erotic exploitation of Recker’s Judas kiss (where the exploitive biracial kiss sends Jesus to the cross alone).

Click here to see the whole series so far.

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Related link:
Open Hands: Treasure in earthen Vessels: An Exploration of Sexual Ethics (Vol. 13 No. 4)