‘Love the sinner, not the sin?’ Sexual and gender diversity in faith communities

Abstract

While queer theology has foregrounded sexual and gender diversity in faith communities internationally, in South Africa, the emergence of a queer, African theology is necessary given that religion is often not a ‘safe space’ for sexual and gender minorities owing to theological violence. Advocacy for inclusion requires the development of theological capacity in queer communities so as to foster biblical, theological and interpretative resistance. There are a number of approaches available, including demythologising and reclaiming the Bible for queer communities, developing more redemptive interpretative options for queer inclusion and developing alternative discourses that challenge the heteropatriarchy of the Bible. Entry points for this work include Bible study; workshops and seminars for faith communities on sexual and gender diversity; the acceptance of a minimum pastoral threshold (or minimum levels of preparedness) for engaging with issues of sexual and gender diversity; and creating ecumenical spaces, cognizant of the local context, where such engagements can take place. This involves moving beyond a theology of compassion and essentialised notions of sexuality and gender so as to develop a queer, African, people’s theology that recognises the trauma experienced by sexual and gender minorities in faith communities.

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Author:
Finn Reygan1
Aliaon:
1Wits Centre for Diversity
Studies (WiCDS), University
of the Witwatersrand,
Braamfontein, South Africa
Corresponding author:
Finn Reygan,
nncgreygan@gmail.com
Dates:
Received: 03 May 2016
Accepted: 13 Aug. 2016
Published: 24 Oct. 2016
How to cite this arcle:
Reygan, F., 2016, ‘“Love the
sinner, not the sin?” Sexual
and gender diversity in faith
communies’, HTS Teologiese
Studies/Theological Studies
72(1), a3471. hp://dx.doi.
org/10.4102/hts.v72i1.3471
Copyright:
© 2016. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work
is licensed under the
Creave Commons
Aribuon License.
Introducon
A number of recent events – such as ‘Homophobia and the churches in Africa: A dialogue’
organised by the The Other Foundation in Pietermartizburg, South Africa, in 2016 – point to the
growing interest in and the need for interventions across Southern Africa to engage religious
leaders and faith communities on issues of sexual and gender diversity. This in turn reflects a
growing interest in issues of power, privilege and difference across sectors as explored in the
critical diversity studies’ literature (Steyn 2015) in South Africa. In 2015, the civil society
organisation, Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action has also hosted a series of successful dialogues
with religious leaders and faith communities in Gauteng on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
and intersex (LGBTI) issues. Furthermore, in 2015, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in
the United Kingdom, Sonke Gender Justice and the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) in
South Africa convened a pan-African gathering of religious representatives to discuss faith, gender
and sexuality, and in April 2015, the toolkit emerging from this process was launched online. In
short, there is a growing interest on the part of LGBTI activists in engaging the religious sector on
LGBTI rights and inclusion. There is also a tentative but emergent desire in faith communities
to understand more about the lives of previously invisible and marginalised LGBTI populations.
These dialogues and convenings are important for a number of reasons: they indicate that LGBTI
advocacy is realising the importance of engaging the previously ignored religious sector; the
effects of homophobia, including religious homophobia, on the health and well-being of LGBTI
populations are increasingly being documented; and the engagement with church leaders and
faith communities by queer activists is apparently one way to challenge beliefs that sexual and
gender diversity are ‘unAfrican’, ‘unChristian’ and not part of culture. However, successful
dialogue with faith communities on these issues will have at least two key prerequisites: the
development of appropriate materials and processes so as to facilitate this sensitive dialogue to
take place, and an engagement with the contextual theology that has emerged in recent years
from sexual and gender minorities. As a result, this article asks: What theological approaches and
material are available in the southern Africa context to facilitate emerging dialogue between queer
activists and faith communities?
Queer theology
The focus of this article is on (queer) theological content only insofar as it serves the process of
engaging religious leaders and faith communities on issues of sexual and gender diversity.
While queer theology has foregrounded sexual and gender diversity in faith communities
internationally, in South Africa, the emergence of a queer, African theology is necessary given
that religion is often not a ‘safe space’ for sexual and gender minorities owing to theological
violence. Advocacy for inclusion requires the development of theological capacity in queer
communities so as to foster biblical, theological and interpretative resistance. There are a
number of approaches available, including demythologising and reclaiming the Bible for
queer communities, developing more redemptive interpretative options for queer inclusion
and developing alternative discourses that challenge the heteropatriarchy of the Bible. Entry
points for this work include Bible study; workshops and seminars for faith communities on
sexual and gender diversity; the acceptance of a minimum pastoral threshold (or minimum
levels of preparedness) for engaging with issues of sexual and gender diversity; and creating
ecumenical spaces, cognizant of the local context, where such engagements can take place.
This involves moving beyond a theology of compassion and essentialised notions of sexuality
and gender so as to develop a queer, African, people’s theology that recognises the trauma
experienced by sexual and gender minorities in faith communities.
‘Love the sinner, not the sin?’ Sexual and
gender diversity in faith communies
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Therefore, more nuanced queer, theological reflections can be
found in the sources cited in the paper. This paper also takes
as a given that sexual and gender minorities have a right of
belonging and participation in their faith communities and
that their exclusion is an ongoing form of discrimination.
Another given is that there can be no dialogue around sexual
and gender diversity without LGBTI participation, just as
conversations about women in religion cannot happen
without women’s voices. Given the resources presented in
this paper, the focus is on Christianity, but this Christonormative
approach does not detract from the importance of dialogue
around sexual and gender diversity across religions and faith
traditions.
Queer theology – which in the context of this paper is
understood as an umbrella term for marginalised sexual and
gender identities – has emerged in recent years, following
on the heels of Latin American liberation theology, feminist
theology and African women’s theology (see Phiri & Nadar
2006). It is a contextual theology that speaks directly to the
lived experiences of sexual and gender minorities and, like
other theologies that work from the perspective of and
along with the marginalised and oppressed, queer theology
foregrounds the often traumatic experiences of LGBTI people
in and outside religion. This epistemological privileging of
the embodied experiences and knowledge of oppressed
people lies at the heart of queer theology and reflects the
emergence of a politics of liberation for sexual and gender
minorities around the globe in recent years. This global call
to arms for sexual and gender minority rights is manifest in
the United Nation’s recent ‘Love Not Hate Campaign’ and
in the institutionalisation of ‘gay rights’ in South Africa’s
Constitution.
Theoretically, queer theology is inflected by and grounded in
queer theory and queer sociology (see Butler 2011; Foucault
1977; Rubin 1992; Sedgwick 2015) in the West and provides
queer perspectives on religion and spirituality (cf. Cheng
2011, 2013). It offers a queer interpretation of Christian
theology and offers LGBTI individuals and communities a
‘safe space’ to engage with and talk about religion. Both
queer theory and its theological application are inherently
transgressive in their social constructionist challenge to
societal, binaried and essentialising norms. Queer theory
references gender variance and non-normative sexualities
and functions as a critique, questioning and resisting
dominant, hegemonic norms that, while presented as
transhistorical and natural, are socially and historically
contingent. Historically, initial scholarship on a budding gay
theology was developed by Clarke, Brown and Hochstein
(1992) followed by seminal work on a nascent queer theology
by Goss (1994) and were driven by the notion that non-
normative sexualities and genders have been present
throughout history and that they find expression in sacred
texts, including the Bible.
Queer theology is a theology for and by LGBTI people,
focused on their needs, that talks about the divine in a
purposefully transgressive manner in relation to societal
norms around gender and sexuality (see Cheng 2011). It is an
avowedly liberatory theology that attempts to unearth the
experiences, knowledge and beliefs of voices that have been
erased and marginalised. Reflecting its base in queer theory,
queer theology is part of the project to erase boundaries and
challenge the supposedly natural and binaried categories on
which society is constructed, such as male/female, black/
white and gay/straight. For example, the late Marcella
Althaus-Reid (2002, 2003), informed by Latin American
liberation theology, developed a biblical exegesis that
foregrounds the lived realities of women, the marginalised
and queer communities – a theology premised on the
centrality of lived experience and the body:
Only in the longing for a world of economic and sexual justice
together, and not subordinated to one another, can the encounter
with the divine take place. But this is an encounter to be found at
the crossroads of desire, when one dares to leave the ideological
order of the heterosexual pervasive normative. This is an
encounter with indecency, and with the indecency of God and
Christianity. (Althaus-Reid 2002:200)
The work of Althaus-Reid (2003) explored the realities of
queer subcultures, including the sanctity of secular gay
spaces such as gay bars, and in so doing engaged with the
possibilities of imbricated faith and desire. In his obituary for
Althaus-Reid, Jay Emerson Johnson (2014) elucidates the
transgressive and inclusive qualities of queer theology:
‘Queer theology’ has been bubbling up in some quarters for a
while now, but not quite as long as ‘queer theory’. Both spark
considerable controversy, and sometimes for similar reasons …
In religious circles, gay and lesbian people have been working
for decades to carve out a ‘place at the table’ in faith communities
that they so rightly deserve. The work can be slow and arduous,
which the word ‘queer’ – some strenuously insist – can derail …
It simply perpetuates [some argue] the assumption that we’re
different [but] … [t]hat’s exactly the point, as Marcella Althaus-
Reid would have chimed in had she been there. We are different.
And the only way to do Christian theology is from that place of
difference. The ‘we’ for Althaus-Reid didn’t mean only lesbian
and gay people, nor the ones so quickly added on later, like
bisexuals and transgender folks. ‘We’ are all those who don’t fit
the regulatory regimes of both state and church marked by
gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and economics. For her,
‘queer’ maps out a space of resistance to those regimes, not just
to oppose but creatively to construct, re-imagine, and envision a
different kind of world. (Johnson n.d.)
Religious homophobia gains much of the attention in the
literature and, for example, Lease, Horne and Noffsinger-
Frazier (see 2005) argue that discrimination is so widespread
in churches that LGBTI identities and religious practice are
often seen as mutually exclusive. The literature also points to
the detrimental impact of religion on the psychological well-
being of LGBTI people which is compounded by opposition
to openly gay religious officials, hostile teachings on
homosexuality and the general marginalisation of LGBTI
people in religion (see Gage Davidson 2000; Mahaffy 1996;
Rodriguez & Ouellette 2000). Other research points to the
ways in which alternative, nature-based traditions such as

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Wicca, paganism and shamanism may be more inclusive of
sexual and gender minorities (see Smith & Horne 2007).
However, it also appears that the sexual and gender
minorities are increasingly attracted to more affirming and
personal forms of spirituality (see Lease et al. 2005). There is
also substantial research by Yip (2005) on the pathways of
sexual and gender minorities in relation to religious
opprobrium as well as the strategies that sexual and gender
minorities develop to deal with rejection from faith
communities. In short, while the religious lives of LGBTI
people continue to be challenging in many ways, growing
trends in religious studies, theology and the social sciences
more generally have begun to engage in a more nuanced way
with these lived realities. This is occurring in tandem with
the emergence of denominations specifically for sexual and
gender minorities – such as the Metropolitan Community
Church (MCC) which has a presence in South Africa and
Inclusive and Affirming Ministries (IAM) – in the broader
context of a growing, global LGBTI rights movement with
attendant backlash.
The scholarship on African sexualities explores the ways in
which non-normative sexualities and genders have – and
continue to be – constructed, represented and lived in
communities across the continent, including in relation to
religion and faith communities (see among others: Epprecht
2004; Matebeni 2014; Msibi 2011; Nyanzi 2013; Tamale 2011).
In terms of faith communities, ‘Aliens in the household of
God: Homosexuality and Christian faith in South Africa’ by
Germond and De Gruchy (1997) was one of the first texts to
comprehensively engage with issues of sexual and gender
diversity in faith communities in South Africa and has been
fundamental in developing a queer, African theology. This
project has some notable allies, including Archbishop Tutu
who famously declared that he would not worship a
homophobic God (Mail & Guardian 2007). The growing
research also includes an analysis of the texts of queer
churches such as the MCC (see Potgieter & Reygan 2011), the
Ujamaa Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is leading
on deepening related scholarship, and an important case was
brought to the South African Constitutional Court by Rev
Ecclesia de Lange (Watson 2015) of the Methodist Church of
South Africa (MCSA). Therefore, while many religious
traditions in southern Africa continue to be characterised by
heteropatriarchy, LGBTI people are beginning to claim
religious space for themselves.
This growing body of knowledge and activism globally and
in South Africa is important because religion is often not a
‘safe space’ for many sexual and gender minorities owing to
theological violence. Therefore, the question at the start of
this paper remains relevant: What theological approaches
and material supports are available in the Southern Africa
context to facilitate emerging dialogue between queer
activists and faith communities? In response, it is apparent
that such spaces and advocacy for inclusion require the
development of the theological capacity of queer communities
in terms of biblical, theological and interpretative resistance.
In this regard, a number of resources have recently been
developed in the Southern African context that speak for the
need to create safe spaces and appropriate support materials
for engaging faith communities on issues of sexual and
gender diversity. One such resource was developed by the
IDS in the United Kingdom and by Sonke Gender Justice and
the WiCDS in South Africa, in partnership with faith
communities and religious leaders from across the continent.
Queer faith diversity toolkit
Increasing knowledge about the links between sexuality, gender
and faith is a vital step in tackling the social injustices that affect
millions of people globally, and faith leaders have a critical role
to play in influencing attitudes, culture and policy. (Mills 2016)
Religion plays a key role globally in relation to social norms
around gender and sexuality and a resource entitled ‘Faith,
Gender & Sexuality Toolkit’ developed by IDS, Sonke and
WiCDS aims to inform and provide support for faith
communities and religious leaders who wish to engage in an
affirming way on issues of sexual and gender diversity. The
toolkit challenges some of the common myths surrounding
sexual and gender diversity and provides alternative ways
for faith communities to think about sexual and gender
diversity, particularly in terms of advancing a human rights
agenda. The authors of the resource view both culture and
tradition as dynamic and open to re-interpretation and
reinvention and the toolkit contains six modules and faith-
based case studies on a range of issues including: gender-
based violence; sexual diversity; sexual and reproductive
health rights; and women, gender and power. The authors
also frame sexual and gender diversity issues in religion
around broader human rights issues and social inclusion:
… having a sexual orientation or gender identity that does not
conform to the majority norm can affect one’s ability to earn a
livelihood and gain employment, access education and
healthcare, form the family and personal relationships that you
desire, live free from violence and harassment, and seek justice
through the law. Sexual rights embrace human rights that are
already recognised in national laws, international human rights
documents and other consensus documents. Like heterosexual
people, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are entitled to the
same rights as those of other human beings. (http://www.ids.
ac.uk/news/new-interactive-resource-to-bridge-gap-between-
faith-gender-and-sexuality)
In terms of general sensitisation work with religious leaders
and faith communities around issues of sexual and gender
diversity, the authors of the toolkit suggest keeping the
following in mind (see Box 1).
The toolkit becomes particularly useful in engaging faith
communities on issues of sexual and gender diversity when
it presents examples of queer exegesis. This is seen in the
following exercises that firstly present a biblical passage often
used to exclude LGBTI people – such as Genesis and Sodom
and Gomorrah – followed by forms of queer, interpretative
theological resistance (see Figure 1).

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The novelty of this approach – of capacitating queer
communities to engage in theological discourse – is that it
involves using the ‘master’s voice’ (religious language and
knowledge of the Bible) to speak back to religious
homophobia. Another text that is widely cited to justify
homophobia is Genesis and this too is reinterpreted in the
toolkit (see Figure 2).
The toolkit was conceptualised through engagement with faith
community representatives from across the continent. This
stakeholder engagement (see Marks et al. 2015) highlighted
numerous challenges when attempting to foster dialogue on
sexual and gender diversity in faith communities. These
challenges included: a general lack of knowledge and
understanding about the issues; a paucity of materials on the
topic; concern about the implications of engaging faith
communities in such dialogue; pervasive heteronormativity;
the policing of non-normative sexualities and genders in faith
communities; and that patriarchy, cultural norms and violence
continue to be employed to subjugate women and sexual and
gender minorities. The envisaged outcomes of the use of this
toolkit are the development of queer, interpretative and
theological resistance on the part of queer communities
engaging in exegesis as a form of activism with faith
communities. The toolkit also attempts to close the knowledge
gap in faith communities about sexual and gender diversity
and about the ways in which faith communities can become
welcoming and affirming spaces.
Source: hp://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexuality-gender-faith/sexuality-and-gender-diversity-overview
BOX 1: Suggesons for working with faith communies on queer issues.
• Biblical writers did not share our contemporary understanding of gender and sexual diversity.
• Any same-sex behaviour that biblical writers may have witnessed was either outside the bonds of heterosexual marriage (and so also viewed as adulterous and a sin) or outside
the community of faith (and so associated with idolatry or ‘pagan’ faiths). It was therefore ‘double-sgmased’.
• Same-sex expression was condemned largely for crossing boundaries of gender: specically, men viewed as abandoning their acve role in intercourse to be passive with other
men (as in Levicus) and women perceived as abandoning their passive role to be acve with women (as in Romans where the word for ‘marriage’ literally means ‘under a man’).
• Homosexuality was frequently confused with pederasty, the pracce of men using boys for sexual pleasure. The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible has frequent references to
‘sodomites’; more recent translaons avoid this term because the word, when originally translated, referred to male pagan priests. Similarly, the word for pagan priestess was
incorrectly translated as ‘prostute’. Ironically, historians have much evidence that King James, who rst authorised the translaon of the Bible into English, was himself homosexual.
• Jesus never condemned homosexuality but challenged divorce, wealth, spiritual pride and exclusion.
(hp://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexuality-gender-faith/sexuality-and-gender-diversity/case-studies/1-approaching-bible)
Creaon: Genesis 1:27–28; 2:18, 21–25
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed
them and God said to them, ‘Be fruiul and mulply, and ll the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the sh of the sea
and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’. Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that
the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner’. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man,
and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with esh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the
man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘this at last is bone of my bones and esh of my
esh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken’. Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and
clings to his wife, and they become one esh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Interpretaon
There are two creaon stories, one in Genesis 1, and the other in Genesis 2. The rst story is about the creaon of the cosmos, the second about the rst human beings: their
curiosity, frailes and relaonship to earth. The second also explains humanity’s relaonship to God and each other – it is not just about marriage. Chrisan tradions hold that
there is much more in these two creaon stories than marriage and that the stories serve a twofold purpose. In the rst story, the purpose is ‘to be fruiul and mulply’ – in other
words, the purpose of marriage is procreaon. Roman Catholic tradion emphasises this, though in the laer half of the 20th century, canon law was changed to acknowledge
that marriage may exist between persons who cannot have children. In the second story, the more ancient of the two, the purpose of marriage is companionship – to nd a
suitable partner. This is the story that Jesus quotes to refute divorce: the two become one in marriage. Protestant tradion recognises both procreaon and companionship as
equal validaons of marriage. Today, same-gender couples are capable of having and rearing children. Same-gender couples have always been capable of companionship and
mutuality, which is the purpose of marriage that Jesus highlighted in Mahew 19:3–12.
(hp://www.ids.ac.uk/news/new-interacve-resource-to-bridge-gap-between-faith-gender-and-sexuality)
Source: hp://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexuality-gender-faith/sexuality-and-gender-diversity-overview
FIGURE 1: Genesis exercise.
Sodom and Gomorrah: Genesis 19:4–5
But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded
the house, and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know
them’.
Interpretaon
Taken together (in context), the 18th and 19th chapters of Genesis serve as contrasng stories about hospitality. Jews do not separate these stories. In Genesis 18, Abraham and
Sarah ‘entertain angels unawares’ when they invite three strangers to join them for food and drink, one of whom turns out to be God and the other two angels. Hospitality in the
wilderness was not merely a courtesy; it was a moral requirement to oer food, drink and shelter. By extending such hospitality, Abraham and Sarah learn that they would have
a son in their old age, and, aer the two angels depart for Sodom, God condes in Abraham the plan to destroy Sodom for its wickedness. Abraham bargains God down from 50
righteous men needed to prevent the disaster down to 10. When all the men of the city surround Lot’s house demanding to gang rape the two strangers, refusing Lot’s oer of
his own daughters to protect them, it is clear there are not 10 righteous men in the city, sealing its fate. As Lot’s reward, he is forewarned so he and his family may escape. (For
biblical interpretaons of Sodom’s sin, see also Ezk 16:49; Am 4:1, 11; Is 1:10–17; Mt 10:14–15.)
(hp://www.ids.ac.uk/news/new-interacve-resource-to-bridge-gap-between-faith-gender-and-sexuality)
Source: hp://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexuality-gender-faith/sexuality-and-gender-diversity-overview
FIGURE 2: Sodom and Gomorrah exercise.

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Conclusion
This article began with a question: What theological
approaches and material supports are available in the
southern Africa context to facilitate emerging dialogue
between queer activists and faith communities? In this
regard, it is apparent that non-normative sexualities and
genders have become a new site of struggle, both globally
and across the African continent. This new contestation
foregrounds the omnipresence of heteropatriarchy and the
effect this has on the lives and bodies of women and of sexual
and gender minorities in diverse cultural and social contexts.
In the religious sphere in Africa, the multiple ways in which
theology can be applied to issues of non-normative sexualities
and genders are yet to become fully apparent. What is clear is
that safe space is a necessary prerequisite for the work of
developing a queer, African theology because LGBTI people
continue to experience trauma in faith communities owing to
religious homophobia.
This article presents one particular approach to facilitating
dialogue between queer activists and faith communities,
which is the re-reading of ‘toxic’ texts so as to demythologise
and reclaim the Bible for queer communities. Toxic texts may
be understood as those religious texts that have been used
historically to vilify and alienate queer people. Inherent in
this process is the development of more redemptive
interpretative options for LGBTI inclusion as alternative
discourses that challenge the heteropatriarchy of the Bible.
There are also multiple methodologies and entry points for
this work, including Bible study; the development of ‘safe
spaces’; queer liturgy; queer prayers; workshops or seminars
for faith communities on sexual and gender diversity; the
acceptance of a minimum pastoral threshold for engaging
with issues of sexual and gender diversity; and creating
ecumenical spaces, cognisant of local context, where such
engagements can take place. Inherent in these approaches is
the necessity of moving beyond a theology of compassion
and essentialised notions of sexuality and gender so as to
develop a queer, African, people’s theology that recognises
the trauma experienced by sexual and gender minorities in
faith communities.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the organisations mentioned in
this article who are doing important work in the area: The
Other Foundation; the Institute of Development Studies
(IDS); Sonke Gender Justice; the Ujamaa Centre; Gay and
Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA); and the Wits Centre for
Diversity Studies (WiCDS).
Compeng interests
The author declares that he has no financial or personal
relationships which may have inappropriately influenced
him in writing this article.
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