Panel: QUEER(ING) LIVING SYSTEMS: AN INTERFAITH DIALOGUE



991.2 - A (QUEER) SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

AUTHORS:
Warren J. (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School ~ Rochester ~ United States of America)
Text:
This paper builds on a theory of theological performativity that attends to the ontological function of doctrines as the norms through which both religious contents and religious persons come into being. Rather than static essences, Christian contents such as God are understood like gender as historically contingent - and therefore ethically entangled - embodied constellations of meaning through which social life is possible. Critiquing Systematic Theology's complicity in heteronormative and racialized violence (drawing from Marcella Althaus-Reid and Hanna Reichel), the project argues that theology must be judged by its effects. Without abandoning systematic coherence or the creative power of God, this approach redefines systematic theology as a site of critical agency and communal formation. The project insists that because LGBTQIA+ persons already participate in the practices of embodiment through which Christianity is constituted, their lives must continue to be taken seriously as sources of/for theological reflection. Engaging queer theologians such as Patrick Cheng and Marcella Althaus-Reid, as well as the words of gender-nonconforming performance artist ALOK, the paper invites systematic theology out from the essentializing closet of heteronormativity by recognizing its already critical method and its role in ongoing ethical reflection. In doing so, the paper proposes a (queer) systematic theology that is not descriptive but constructive, cultivating diverse theologies of abundant life as part of a scientific (wissenschaftliche), ethically responsible, and relational discipline.