Spiritual Identity Reconstruction among Australian LGBTQA+ Christians from Evangelical Traditions
This article explores the spiritual journeys of LGBTQA+ people seeking to reconstruct their faith as minorities within, or excluded from, evangelical traditions. Twenty-four queer individuals with histories in evangelical settings took part in in-depth interviews. Twenty-two participants had restruc...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Equinox Publ.
2023
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In: |
Journal for the academic study of religion
Year: 2023, Volume: 36, Issue: 1, Pages: 58-75 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Australia
/ LGBT
/ Evangelical movement
/ Reconstruction
/ Religious identity
/ Idea of God
/ Spirituality
/ Queer theology
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RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AE Psychology of religion CB Christian life; spirituality FD Contextual theology KBS Australia; Oceania KDG Free church NBC Doctrine of God |
Further subjects: | B
Theology
B Queer B LGBTQA B Australia B Evangelicalism B Resilience |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | This article explores the spiritual journeys of LGBTQA+ people seeking to reconstruct their faith as minorities within, or excluded from, evangelical traditions. Twenty-four queer individuals with histories in evangelical settings took part in in-depth interviews. Twenty-two participants had restructured traditional Christian doctrines to integrate their religious and queer selves. In the process of reconstructing religious or spiritual identities, participants’ understanding of God took on a more enigmatic form, larger than the boundaries that traditional orthodoxy had placed on the nature of the divine. It was found that LGBTQA+ individuals began to ‘take God out of the box’, showed a willingness to approach ‘heresy’, and attempted (with varied success) to separate religion from spirituality. This reimagining of God from the margins is theorised as an expression of spiritual resilience and a lay-led form of queering theology that can benefit the broader church. |
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ISSN: | 2047-7058 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the academic study of religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/jasr.21044 |