Conference Description:

 

What results from theologies and ideologies that do not take into account people's lived experiences?  Do we as a religious community continue forward without proper contextualization, without thinking through sacred text with the wholeness of community in mind?  Do we as a religious community shatter ourselves, opting instead for brokenness because of fissures produced by the contradictions between rhetoric and practice? 

 

Within many religious communities, discussions of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Two-Spirited (LGBTQ-TS) people leads to renunciation and disavowal of church members.  This disowning, rejection and disinheriting interpreted is an act of violence on the LGBTQ-TS, who believe these acts contribute towards physical violence against the LGBTQ-TS community.  What are the various forms that violence take?  How will we as the Black Religious Community respond to notions of violence?  More pointedly, how has condemnation of homosexuality within the Black Religious Community in Newark maltreated LGBTQ-TS people and suspended the forward movement, growth and development of the wider community?  To be silent is to be complicit and to be complicit is to be violent. 

 

Join the Newark Pride Alliance at its Creating Safe Spaces 2008 Conference, “Theologies that Kill, Theologies that Heal: Conversations on Human Sexuality and Spirituality,” as we discuss the topic of religion, spirituality and sexuality June 13, 2008. 

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Breakout Session A: "Where the Edges Gather" Radical Inclusivity in Black Churches

There are religious communities that affirm various expressions of human sexuality as beautiful, as acceptable and as part of God's design. Who is doing this work in the Black Christian context? What are the challenges to radical inclusivity? This dialogue will include references to Where the Edges Gather: Building a Community of Radical Inclusion by Rev. Dr. Yvette A. Flunder.

Breakout Session B: "Be quiet for now...he is thy brother" Violence Against LGBTQ-TS People and the Church's Response

The narrative of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 is one of violence. After her half-brother Amnon victimizes her, Tamar's brother Absalom tells her to remain quiet and to disregard her feelings because "[Amnon] is thy brother." How does the silencing of Tamar continually reproduce the initial violence enacted by Amnon? How does silencing as an act of oppression connect to LGBTQ-TS spiritual persons?

Breakout Session C: Alienated in an Alien Nation: Interesectionality and LGBTQ-TS Experience of Black Churches

Often, LGBTQ-TS people feel estranged from family, friends, and their own religious communities. When LGBT-TS people go to non-affirming communities for religious practice, there is often a feeling that the community is an “alien nation.” Hear LGBTQ-TS people speak from their context in what will be a safe space to question, to challenge and to work together to hear each other.

Breakout Session D: Con(text)ualizing Terror: What Does the Bible really say about Homosexuality?

Whether we read the bible literally or as inspiration…whether we consider ourselves novice biblical interpreters or astute hermeneutists…whether we understand the bible to be divinely-breathed or humanly-constructed, many of us have been confounded, or repulsed, by the seeming ambiguity of scripture as it relates to homosexuality and/or by the ways these scriptures have been interpreted. This informative session will address common modes of interpretation for scriptural texts like Leviticus 18:22 and I Corinthians 6 9-10, as well as provide alternative reading strategies that may facilitate the development of an LGBTQ-TS affirmative hermeneutic.

Breakout Session E: Double Transgression: A Conversation on Transgender Identity/Being and Spirituality

Homosexuality is often cast as a deviant, disgraceful, and despicable turn to rebellious existing and therefore understood to be an utterly transgressive, immoral act and way of life. But how does the church’s understanding of, or penetrating silence regarding, transgenderism, render transgender individuals as invisible members of our community who are seen as doubly transgressing the strictures of sanctity and heteronormative gendered ways of being? Join this very important conversation and learn about an oft-quieted topic, transgender identity and being, in spiritual communities.

Breakout Session F: “Am I thy keeper?” Pastoral Care and Counseling Approaches with LGBTQ-TS

Worship communities, like any other organized collectivity, should enhance not only its understanding of LGBTQ-TS senses of identity and being, but also should ensure that its spiritual leaders are prepared to provide appropriate counsel and support to its LGBTQ-TS members. Be part of this vital dialogue and learn about best practice approaches to pastoral care and counseling with the LGBTQ-TS individuals that we are called to serve and love.

The Center for Law and Justice, Rutgers Newark
123 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102 
Conference sessions will run from 9am-4:30pm.

This event is made possible, in part, by the Human Rights Campaign Faith Initiative.