Black Theology and Homosexuality Revisited: Black Queer Theologians Respond

Abstract

This book has heretofore focused on black liberation theologians speaking about homosexuals and black queer writers speaking about themselves and how they take hold of their religious or spiritual orientations. It might appear as though the preceding chapters commit the same kinds of hermeneutical divisions that I have been critiquing. This book so far might appear to suggest there are no black queer theologians or religious scholars who are, as Marlon Riggs put it, “letting the queen speak.” As I began writing this book, I realized that I had not taken Horace Griffin’s or Victor Anderson’s works into account. In hindsight, it was a grave mistake when this book was in dissertation form. I think that to not treat their responses would be an obvious attempt at setting black liberation theology up as a “straw man” in order to claim that it wholly ignores black queer voices. This chapter will focus on the ways in which African American gay male theologians and religious critics take hold of sexual difference in African American life.