LGBT Affirmation and Identity in Christian Teachings and Church Communities

Abstract

Church responses to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) identities are increasingly recognized as having a significant impact on the spiritual and psychosocial wellbeing of LGBT-identifying Christians (e.g. Beagan and Hattie, 2015a; 2015b; Reygan and Moane 2014; Taylor 2016). These responses vary considerably between different church communities and denominations, but it remains far more common for Christian teachings and theologies to problematize or de-legitimize LGBT identities than to affirm and accept them. In this chapter, I consider the church's role in this process of de-legitimization-which I consider to be a form of gendered violence-and the effect it may have on LGBT Christians' sense of authenticity. Understood within the wider political framework of liberalism, authenticity is recognized as a crucial feature of our humanity, which derives from the interactions we share with the "significant others" who constitute our social world. Our understandings of our own identity are likewise closely connected to the recognition we receive from the communities to which we belong. When a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) person feels that their authenticity is being de-legitimized, unrecognized, or misrecognized by the communities they inhabit, this can often influence their own sense of self-identity in harmful ways. The harm inflicted can be understood as a form of oppression, a violence that imprisons a person in a "distorted and reduced mode of being" (Taylor 1994, p. 23). Throughout this chapter, I therefore consider the implications for LGBT Christian authenticity when the church de-legitimizes LGBT identities through its political morality, teachings, and theologies.