Is It Right to Identify as a Queer Christian?
One of the workshops offered in Revoice was titled, “Redeeming Queer Culture: An Adventure.” This was being taught at a conservative Christian conference?
The description is even worse than the title: “For the sexual minority seeking to submit his or her life fully to Christ and to the historic Christian sexual ethic, queer culture presents a bit of a dilemma; rather than combing through and analyzing to find which parts are to be rejected, to be redeemed or to be received with joy (Acts 17:16-34), Christians have often discarded the virtues of queer culture along with the vices, which leaves culturally connected Christian sexual minorities torn between two cultures, two histories and two communities. So questions that have until now been largely unanswered remain: what does queer culture (and specifically, queer literature and theory) have to offer us who follow Christ? What queer treasure, honor and glory will be brought into the New Jerusalem at the end of time (Rev. 21:24-26)?”
Since “queer” speaks of something contrary to God’s order, something sinful and wrong, even something perverse, there are no virtues to be found in it and there will be no “queer treasure, honor and glory” that “will be brought into the New Jerusalem at the end of time.”
In fact, Revelation 21:27, the very next verse after the passage quoted on the Revoice website, reads, “No unclean thing shall ever enter it, nor shall anyone who commits abomination or falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
There will be plenty of people redeemed out of queer culture who will enter the heavenly city, but nothing “queer” will enter there, for sure. And there’s no way a follower of Jesus should identify as “queer.” That is who some of us once were.
Some would argue that those on the margins—including those in the “queer” community—learn to care for others who are marginalized. But this is not a virtue unique to queer culture. Rather, it it’s a virtue found in many communities, since within every culture and community, there are positive aspects to be found. Yet we don’t speak about the “adventure” of redeeming aspects of the KKK culture, or the Satanist culture, or the terrorist culture, or the drug culture, or the greedy business culture or the gambling culture.
