Theologies of Exclusion: Christian Universities and Discrimination against Sexual Minorities1

Abstract

In an era of rapidly evolving attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, why do some Christian colleges and universities continue to discriminate against lesbian, gay, and bisexual students? The most intuitive answer to this question might point to many religious traditions’ conservative teachings about same-sex relationships. Nevertheless, many schools associated with socially conservative religious traditions are actually inclusive of their sexual minority students. Building on recent insights from the literature on religion and the “culture wars,” and analyzing original data on student handbook bans on same-sex relationships and “homosexual behavior” across 682 Christian colleges and universities, I show that it is when schools are associated with individualist religious traditions that emphasize personal piety that conservative teachings on same-sex relationships are associated with discrimination against sexual minorities. The study holds implications both for research on the exclusion of sexual minorities in schools and for theoretical debates on the relationship between religion and social injustice.     

Veiled Submission: Gender,Power, and Identity Among Evangelical and Muslim Women in the United States

The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of studies that illuminate devout women's affiliation with conservative religious communities. Despite the increasingly multicultural character of contemporary social and religious life, few studies to date have compared the experiences of conservative religious women across faith traditions. Guided by insights from cultural theory, this study begins by comparing elite gender discourses within evangelical Protestantism and Islam. Elite evangelical gender debates hinge on biblical references to women's submission. Similarly, Muslims dispute the meaning of the veil to Islamic womanhood. After outlining the contours of these debates, we draw on in-depth interview data with evangelical and Muslim women to demonstrate how these two groups of respondents negotiate gender in light of their distinctive religious commitments. In the end, we reveal that the unique cultural repertoires within these two religious communities enable women to affirm traditional religious values while refashioning such convictions to fit their post-traditional lifestyles.     

Bandits,Militants, and Martyrs: Sub-state Violence as Claim to Authority in Late Antique North Africa

Fourth Century North Africa was a site of intense religious and political conflict. Emerging from a period of persecution and newly legitimized by the Roman state, the Christian Church immediately fractured into two competing camps. Now known as the Donatist schism, this fracture was the result of competing claims to religious authority between two camps of bishops, but the doctrinal debate at its core precipitated a specific form of violence: attacks on clergy and property perpetrated by roving groups of militant bandits. Known as circumcellions, these bands acquired a perverse reputation for religious zeal, a desire for martyrdom, and what their opponents described as the ‘madness’ and ‘insanity’ of their violence. Here I analyze sources produced by both Donatists and Catholics to trace patterns of circumcellion violence. I draw on borderland theory and research on non-state violence to argue that such acts were not mad, but rather the result of strategic efforts to consolidate religious and political power. In this, Donatism and the sectarian violence that accompanied it provide important insights into how banditry and peasant rebellions can serve as alternate sources of social and political power, avenues through which heterodox movements challenge the power state and religious hierarchies alike.     

Prisoners of conscience in the Plowshares and School of the Americas Watch movements: the politics of privilege,gender, and religious identity

ABSTRACT

The American peace movement has always been predominantly white and Christian, and this essay makes the privileged identities of nonviolent prisoners of conscience in the Plowshares and School of the Americas Watch movements its analytical starting place. From the axes of gender (female or male) and religious identity (laity or vowed religious), it examines how privilege and experience are understood and animated by movement participants, and how this impacts activist experience. Specifically, it investigates how some prisoners of conscience negotiate and employ their whiteness, education, class, and status as a strategic use of ‘privilege power,’ as well as how the ‘moment of action’ is a gendered experience of empowerment that is shaped by religious identity. The data illuminate the ways that privilege can be a site of intentional contestation and power, while un-examined areas of identity can shape experience in meaningful ways.     

Abused Women in Taiwan Who Seek Religious Support

ABSTRACT

This research explores the types of religious healing that abused women use and surveys their experiences with these practices in Taiwan. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of abused women, who had been recruited from 12 agencies. The findings show that participants sought religious healing for a variety of reasons, and that they had both positive experiences (e.g., useful religious support) and negative experiences (e.g., encountering deceptive jitongs and spending a large amount of money on services) regardingr the support provided by different religions. This study also found that women who believed in traditional Eastern religions had more negative experiences than women who believed in Western religions.     

Resurrected pigs,dyed foxes and beloved cows: Religious diversity and nostalgia for socialism in rural Poland

The aim of my paper is to discuss the phenomenon of nostalgia for socialism in rural Poland. More precisely, I discuss how experiences of rurality and diverse religious beliefs intertwine with nostalgia. Depicting the memories of socialism, shared with me by the inhabitants of a multi-religious rural commune in Southern Poland, I aim to demonstrate the ways in which day-to-day experiences of rural life as well as religious diversity contribute to shaping people's remembrances. In order to do so, I describe both the present situation and the historical experiences of the inhabitants of the commune. I introduce representatives of different Christian communities – Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Orthodox and Pentecostals – and, by presenting their life stories, I address the issue of how villagers' religious creeds interrelate with the memories and (re)evaluation of the socialist past. My aim here is twofold. Firstly I aim to deconstruct the nostalgia for socialism, showing its complexity and proving that this nostalgia means in fact longing for very concrete experiences of rural life. Secondly, I argue that the study of various religious beliefs and practices is very important for a fuller interpretation of nostalgic discourses and responses to postsocialist transformations.     

Family Relationships and Religious Identities of GLBQ Christians

ABSTRACT

Nonheterosexual individuals are half as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to report a religious identity. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer (GLBQ) emerging adults who maintain a religious identity and affiliation throughout their adolescent and young adult years challenge dominant narratives of sexuality and religion (Pew, 2012, 2013). This study contextualizes these demographic findings and considers their impact on family life and sexual identity. The authors present data from 11 qualitative interviews with GLBQ individuals between the ages of 20 and 25. Results are presented in a model describing how participants constructed a GLBQ Christian identity, and how they perceive the acceptance of their identities in both their families and church communities.     

La barrière et le plafond de vitrail. Analyser les carrières féminines dans les organisations religieuses

Research conducted mainly in the United States and France on how ordination works like a barrier to the feminization of religious staffs in various Christian and Jewish organizations has brought to light factors for distinguishing several cases: women either gain formal access to religious offices, or informally exercise religious duties, or are barred from religious offices. The second part of this article examines the level in these organizations where this barrier has been lifted, in particular the dissymmetries between men's and women's careers. Emphasis is laid on comparisons with other professions, since similar processes operate underneath the religious sphere's apparent differences, as reflected by the phrase “stained-glass ceiling”.     

“I Pray We Won’t Let This Moment Pass Us By”: Christian Concert Films and Numinous Experiences

This article analyzes the Christian concert film Live in Miami: Welcome to the Aftermath to investigate how mass media evoke numinous experiences. Using a framework that locates technological determinism within theories of religious encounters, the analysis explores how Christian concert films create numinous experiences through shot composition, editing, and content selection. The article argues that mass media technologies and aesthetics can create expectations of religious encounters and challenges the use of mass media to manufacture religious experiences.     

Integrating Religious and Sexual Identities: The Case of Religious Homosexual Men in Singapore

Abstract

The sexual and religious ecosystem in Singapore represents an intricate interplay of factors that religious homosexuals navigate to attain a well-adjusted personal identity. A qualitative research project was conducted to understand how Christian and Muslim homosexual men in Singapore integrate their religious and sexual identities. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine religious homosexuals to elicit responses on their dual-identity experience, and coping strategies. Narrative analysis revealed three themes (and a number of subthemes): (1) Intrapersonal factors (a personal journey, knowledge seeking, reinterpreting belief system, redemption by good deeds, and love prevails over sin), (2) Interpersonal factors (segregating social circles, involvement in the gay community, role models, and social support), and (3) Sociopolitical factors (state and societal tolerance of homosexuals, and homosexual events). Interestingly, the participants assigned positive attributes to being both religious and homosexual, and reported that embodying both identities was enriching than if they had possessed just one of the two identities. This suggests that integrating positive psychological frameworks (e.g., stress-related growth) to existing ones may provide a more holistic account of identity integration among religious homosexuals.     

"Give Me Peace,Give Me Peace,Give Me Peace": Using Film as a Tool for the Study of Comparative Religious Experience

The purpose of this article is to explore the value of film for illustrating two contrasting views of the religious experience. Using two of my favorite films (Pi and The Apostle), I outline the contemplative and the existential visions of the religious experience, and I proceed to show how I have used these films in my courses. Centering predominately on the Jewish and Christian traditions, figures mentioned throughout include Soren Kierkegaard, Meister Eckhart, and Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav.     

Cross‐cultural civility in global civil society: transnational cooperation in Chinese NGOs

Transnational networks and organizations are often hailed as embodiments and carriers of global civil society, yet these assessments remain incomplete due to a lack of empirical research on their internal dynamics. In this article, I investigate whether or not transnational NGOs embody the cooperation across multiple social, cultural and political cleavages central to definitions of global civil society by exploring how multiple memberships are negotiated in the context of their everyday tasks. Using organizational documents and interview data with staff of two Protestant Christian development NGOs in China, I analyse how actors within these transnational organizations successfully manage their multiple memberships in national polities, national cultures, religious communities and a world culture. While multiple memberships exhibit the potential both to enable and to constrain an NGO's organizational tasks, the key to making such ties enabling are staff who act as skilful cross‐cultural brokers. Thus, the type of social capital required to render multiple memberships beneficial and not harmful to the organizations also makes these organizations true indicators of a developing global civil society.     

Homosexuals,Heretics, and the Practice of Freedom Commentary on Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrini

Here I construe Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini's proposal to protect freedom of sexual expression among consenting adults within an agonistic theory of democracy. Jakobsen and Pellegrini argue contrary to the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures have intervened in political conflicts over sexual morality by “establishing” sectarian Christian mores, and they urge more robust protection of religious and sexual expression. I develop three themes in response: First, to display the democratic framework of their proposal, I briefly set out the constitutional analogy on which Jakobsen and Pellegrini depend; second, I explain Jakobsen and Pellegrini's rejection of the ethos of tolerance in light of the agonistic political theory of William E. Connolly; and third, I propose that Freud's theory of mourning and melancholia may point to affective resources for invigorating practices of freedom.     

Environmental conversions and muslim activists: constructing knowledge at the intersection of religion and politics

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the production of knowledge by Muslim environmental activists in the United States and Great Britain, applying Eyerman and Jamison’s theory of cognitive praxis to demonstrate how religious and political knowledge and practices are synthesised by the activists. The paper emerges from research conducted with Islamic environmental organizations in the United States and Great Britain in 2012–2013 and utilises data gathered from interviews conducted with Muslim environmental activists working in those organizations and from the publicly available newsletters, websites, and articles produced by the activists and organizations. I argue that through the integration of environmental and religious knowledge, Muslim environmentalists construct a ‘critical community’ within Islam that seeks to transform orthodox Islamic knowledge and practice. In the process, Muslim environmentalists demonstrate that religiously-grounded social movements may simultaneously pursue religious and political change.     

The good organization speaking well: a paradigm case for religious institutional crisis management

Arguing that too much organizational apologia research focuses on the mistakes of big, for-profit corporations, this study examines the discourse of a religious institution that faced allegations of wrongdoing and cover-up. Specifically, this essay analyzes the discourse that surrounded the disclosure by the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) that a number of students at Mamou Alliance Academy in Guinea, West Africa, had been abused over a period of time (1950–1971) while their parents served as missionaries. The authors argue that the C&MA is engaged in ethical crisis management and is paradigmatic of what George Cheney has called “the good organization speaking well.”¹     

“I Found God in The Glory Hole”: The Moral Career of a Gay Christian

This article examines processes wherein Gay Christian men transition from closeted religious people to openly Gay Christians. Based on 36 months of fieldwork in a southeastern lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Christian church and a synthesis of research into LGBT Christian experience over the past 25 years, we conceptualize these transformations as a moral career consisting of (1) essentializing religious belief and practice (2) emotionalizing early religious experience, (3) spiritualizing coming out of the closet and religion, and (4) sexualizing coming back to religious participation. In so doing, Gay Christian men interpreted the stages of their lives as an ongoing sexual–religious process wherein they became the spiritual and sexual beings they believed God always wanted them to be. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding (1) the moral career of a Gay Christian, (2) the usefulness of conceptualizing religious and sexual transitions as elements of a moral career, and (3) the reproduction of religious privilege.     

Warriors and Terrorists: Antagonism as Strategy in Christian Hardcore and Muslim “Taqwacore” Punk Rock

This article contributes to new scholarship in the sociological study of religion, which looks at how people define and communicate religion in secular spheres. I show how U.S. Christian Hardcore and Muslim “Taqwacore” (taqwa means “god consciousness” in Arabic) punks draw on the tools of a punk rock culture that is already encoded with its own set of symbols, rituals and styles to: 1) understand themselves as religious/punk and 2) express religion in punk rock environments. I find that both cases draw on a punk rock motif of antagonism—oppositional attitudes and violent rituals and symbols—to see themselves as religious/punk and express religion in punk in different ways. Christian punks use this motif to condemn other Christians for denouncing punk and create space for Protestant evangelical Christianity in punk. Taqwacores use this motif to criticize Islam for its conservatism as well as non-Muslims for stereotyping Muslims as religious fanatics. In the process, Taqwacores build a space for alienated brown youth who exist on the margins of mainstream American culture and traditional Islam.     

The Problem With Paul: Seeds of the Culture Wars and the Dilemma for Journalists

The Apostle Paul was a person of many contradictions. Amid his revolutionary exhortations that the genuine Christian must ignore external religious law and look within for spiritual direction, Paul also laid out explicit guidelines for accepted Christian belief that have been used to establish Christian orthodoxy, punish heretics, and lay the foundation for church authority. For journalists trying to negotiate their way through the hostilities of the Christian right, the liberal left, and the polarization of American cultural and political life, there is no better historical source than Paul to understand how Christianity can be interpreted so differently by people of divergent political, social, and moral views. Journalists cannot expect to understand the dissension among conservative and liberal Christians, as well as the broader divisions between Christians and non-Christians, without examining Paul as a major source of the double-mindedness that characterizes Christianity's outlook on the questions of modern life.     

‘Lucifer Is Behind Me’: The Diabolisation of Oksapmin Witchcraft as Negative Cosmological Integration

This paper examines the diabolisation of Oksapmin tamam (here glossed as ‘witchcraft’) as an example of negative cosmological integration. The article takes as its point of departure Robbins's model of cultural syncretism developed in a series of recent papers, wherein diabolisation occurs as people insert those aspects of their indigenous religion that do not contravene the Christian God's paramount creative power into the Christian cosmos as representatives of the Devil. Through my own discussion of the diabolisation of Oksapmin witchcraft, I build upon the model in three main ways. First, I draw attention to the role of the mission in providing and enforcing these negative moral terms of reference. Second, the article highlights that in cases of negative cosmological integration, whether within or outside the frame of Pentecostalist Christianity, syncretic melding and mixing may occur, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary. Finally, I point out that the subordination of indigenous religious realities within the Christian cosmos does not necessarily entail their restriction or reduction of expression, as Robbins shows for the Urapmin nature spirits known as motobil. Indeed, in the case of witchcraft, integration into the Christian cosmos and related complexes of deliverance may actually serve to intensify and amplify their expression.     

Christianity and child sexual abuse — the survivors' voice leading to change

The Children Act 1989 states that due consideration should be given ‘to the child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background'. Children who have been sexually abused and who grow up in families with strong Christian beliefs have additional concerns not readily identified by the child protection worker or therapist. Drawing upon 10 years' work experience, this paper aims to present the views and struggles of adult Christian women and men who have been sexually abused. Much of what is presented can be applied to other faith communities, since the difficulties lie sometimes with patriarchal communities, with male deities and with tenets of belief which can hinder the child from disclosing. Beliefs such as ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’, no sex before marriage and forgiveness of all had significant impact on survivors. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.