Some Reflections in Memory of Dr. Marcella Althaus-Reid:
Out of the Closet Queer Theologian and Dear Friend
written by Rev. Dr. Bob Goss, February 2009
I was exposed to Dr. Marcella Althaus-Reid years ago in a 1994 article, “When God is a
Rich White Woman who does not Walk? The Hermeneutical Circle of Mariology and the
Construction of Femininity in Latin America,” in Theology & Sexuality. At the time, I
thought she was a creative theological voice, but that was a vast underrating of her
abilities and her very queer imagination.
Marcella was very familiar with my own theological work, so she had her editor at
Routledge send me her manuscript of her book Indecent Theology for an endorsement
quotation. I read the manuscript with a perverse glee, noting how I originally underrated
this creatively, queer and in her own words, “indecent Latina, bisexual theologian.”
Marcella maintains that all theology is sexual theology, and she explored how vanilla
Christian sexual theologies were oppressive. As an outsider, she creates an indecent
theology, a counter-patriarchal and heterosexist theology. And so I wrote an audacious
endorsement quote for the back cover of the book: “I believe that this may be the best
feminist theology (and I am not exaggerating) in the last decade.” And I meant the
quote, for Marcella adeptly brought class and economic analysis to feminist theology,
from a postcolonial perspective, into her indecent, albeit queer theology. It was a
pioneer development in feminist and queer theologies.
Kwo Pui Lan, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, contacted me in the spring of
2001 to participate on a panel to review Indecent Theology at the American Academy of
Religion. Pui Lan mentioned that the invitation originated from tMarcella’s suggestion. .
I was the only male panelist on the panel of the Feminist Theology Group, and my
paper, “Expanding Christ’s Wardrobe of Dresses,” became one of the essays on
Christology in Queering Christ. The essay built on her insight into the nomadic and
bisexual incarnation of Christ.
At the American Academy of Religion in November 2001, I had the opportunity to
interact with this feisty and bold Argentinean theologian, stylishly dressed in a black
skirt and blouse with polished leather boots. There was no mistaken that I met a
theologian embedded in the leather/fetish community as well. There was strong
scholarly kinship already, and our friendship instantaneous.
Marcella tried hard to get the manuscript Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual
Misconduct published in the UK, but publishers were too timid about the content. It was
about the same time when I was teaching in Thailand, that I received news that the
dean of Webster University was opposing the Religious Studies Department’s
recommendation for my tenure evaluation. I was turned down for tenure, for more than
transparent reasons. Marcella Althaus-Reid organized a group of theologians in the
United Kingdom to write the President of Webster University. She wrote to the President
asking him to overturn what she considered a violation of academic freedom but also a
human rights violation to silence my voice. Later she commented to me that the
President of Webster University did not her the courtesy by not even acknowledging
receipt of her letter.
In 2003, Marcella published The Queer God, a very seminal book in queer theology. I
read the book, and I sent her an email of congratulations, explaining that while I may
have previously wore the mantle of outrageous queer theology, she had superseded
me, and I gladly acceded that mantle to her until we could write a collaborative,
transgressive, and indecent theology. On her website, she writes, “The Queer God is a
call to 'disaffiliation' processes in theology. To be unfaithful to sexual ideological
constructions of God in order to liberate God- a Queer God who also needs to come out
of the closet of theologians of the status quo.” She wrote about God “found in the
complexity of unruly sexualities and relationships,” or she as coined the phrase—“god of
the dark allies.”.
As co-editor of the Second Testament section of The Queer Bible Commentary, I
invited Marcella to write the chapter on Mark’s Gospel. She wrote the chapter and
dedicated the chapter to “RG.” I was oblivious to “RG”--supposing that these were the
initials of an oppressed author in Latin America. She said, “No.” I wrote about the figure
of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel with you and the tenure battle at Webster in mind. Even the
other co-editors are unaware of Marcella’s dedication; it was struck out by the copyeditor.
Marcella and I met for the last time in February 2007 at Emory University at a closed
session of a Queer Theologians Summit—sponsored by Mark D. Jordan, the Human
Rights Campaign, and the Center of Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion from the
Pacific School of Religion. We sat together at this conference of twenty-four queer
theologians. We shared many side-bar conversations— some experiences I will share,
others I keep to myself as treasures of our communication.
At that conference, Marcella became an out advocate for MCC. She was more
advocate of MCC than the three participants from MCC In a private moment, she
shared with me how MCC Edinburgh brought her back to Christian communion. She
found communion so alienating and exclusive in many churches but found the MCC
open invitation at table and the blessing meaningful. Marcella had such hopes in MCC
worldwide as an alternative queer Christian community.
One particularly moving experience was her sharing with me that when she received the
manuscript of Queering Christ, she sent the manuscript electronically to a famous
Catholic Latin American liberation theologian. He loved the manuscript, and she tried to
secure a public endorsement quotation. But as a Catholic priest, he would have been
subject to sanctions from a vindictive Vatican. His book was the first Latin American
liberation theology book that I read as an undergraduate student and inspired me to
study liberation theology. And I smiled at the full circle of my theological life.
At the Boston University School of Theology Conference on Queering Ecclesiology in
April 2007, Marcella was unable to attend due to illness. We were to work on
collaborative queer systematic theology and had intended to meet to plan the volume
during the conference.
I want to quote the last two paragraphs from her paper at the conference--entitled:
“Hard Core Queer: The Church as Dis/Grace.”
I would like to finish with a story which has to some extent inspired this paper. I
was told that Rev. Nancy Wilson, the Metropolitan Community Church
moderator, once went to preach dressed in leather. She did it as an exemplary
way to remember who she was, but I suspect it also acted as a collective call to
the congregation to Queerly remember themselves. That act of Queer identity
remembering may have been intended to work as a discontinuation of ritualized
transgressions in the church: an acting up (or dressing up) done in order to
produce an awareness and therefore rupture with the heterosexual matrix of
Christianity and Queer theologies. Therefore, a moderator dressed in full leather
would function as a reminder, as a call to disjunction in the performance of
Grace. It is to say, in other words, that it is even undesirable to join a space of
decency in theology.
‘About my life, disenchanted, mysterious and somber, you will hear something
that may chill your soul.’ May we always remember that not only the Pope is a
Drag Queen dressing the performance of gender in theology: we do that too.
Born in a dialectic of secrecy and occupying a place of dis/grace, a queer God
may be calling for Queer theology to remain prophetic and transgressive,
episodic and of deviant, vague and non definitive. Queer theologies do
redemption in reverse: the beginning of a theology outside origins without firm
final destinations. As Queer theology cancels the sexual identity of totalitarian
forms of theology, we too should dress up in full leather (or carry bird masks) as
part of the prophetic task of the church.
Marcella Althaus-Reid leaves a queer theological legacy that will be missed in the
theological academy and in the church. Her indecent theological legacy will continue to
transgress boundaries of grace/disgrace in the work of her queer colleagues, students,
and queer MCC pastors.
Blessings on you, St. Marcella…pray for us at the indecent margins of unruly sexualities
and gender-bending.