Black Queer Religion, Transcendence at the Margins: An Introduction

A black, religious, and queer intersection.

Writing by: Camille 

To be marginalized is to be held back by constraints and treated as insignificant. The superior relegates BIPOC communities, a systemic depletion of community that stems from historical systems of oppression, and that includes racism, colonialism, sexism, and white supremacy. These historical systems continue to perpetuate power dynamics that prioritize the needs and perspectives of the dominant while marginalizing and subjugating minority communities.

To be subjugated is to be vanquished, stripped of everything that brought you peace. Thoroughly defeated. So I turn to Hagar's story, a story that resonates with many African and African American women who have faced similar forms of exploitation and oppression. Hagar's experience as an enslaved human, forced to bear a child reflects the systemic injustices and dehumanization endured by enslaved women. 

Hagar, the Egyptian slave should not be dimmed down to Western thought about how highlighting race, gender, and class as a valuable insight is truly just a liberalization of God's word. Hagar's story is nuanced beyond Western interpretations as they highlight many narratives that correlate to 21st-century America. This story indicates the broader issues of oppression and liberation, and just like with Black women's experiences, it is important to consider her agency and autonomy within her societal context and any socio-economic influences that shaped her experiences.

Delores S. Williams, an American Presbyterian Theologian details the plight of Black women through a lens of theology, as a way to center the experiences of Black women to create a religious reflection that includes Black women's perspective. But how does she do that? Where is that evident? In her writing, Sisters in the Wilderness so speaks about beginning the construction of a Christian theology that encompasses the experiences of Black women. She goes on to state, "As I encountered Hagar again and again in African-American sources, I reread her story in the Hebrew Testament and Paul's reference to her in the Christian Testament. I slowly realized there were striking similarities between Hagar's story and the story of African-American women. Hagar's heritage was African as was black women's. Hagar was a slave. Black American women had emerged from a slave heritage and still lived in light of it. Hagar was brutalized by her slave owner, the Hebrew woman Sarah. The slave narratives of African-American women and some of the narratives of contemporary day workers tell of the brutal or cruel treatment black women have received from the wives of slave masters and from contemporary white female employers.(p 13)." I think it is reasonable to say that this type of psychological and emotional trauma resonates with the broader experiences of black women, enslaved women, throughout history. This story is not only told in this writing but in the evolution of music.

 After the spread of Christianity in the Western world and Constantine to Gregorian chant used in church services this indicates a shift from a monophony, which is what Gregorian Chant is, to polyphony and having vocal parts, and as we move on down the line to a rebirth, also known as the renaissance period of 1430s we get the more secularized music, and because of biblical translations causing an uproar because of mechanized printing services were invented it created this idea that individualism was over taking the world and people were becoming too much of their own person with their own ideas and ways to doing things. As we shift from simplistic tones of monophony to polyphony and harmony, there comes the peanut gallery, afraid of creative change, afraid of adding a little pizzazz. This same "fear" reigns true with the contributions of people of color, Europeans and descendants were afraid to spice up their lives because they deemed that to be a deviation from established norms can be observed in this reluctance to embrace the contributions of people of color in various cultural and artistic domains.

A perfect example of this reluctance can be Lil Nas X and his music video "Montero", who details the plight of Black people who identify within the LGBT+ community, viewing his music video through a religious lens of salvation, redemption, and self-expression could yield intriguing avenues of thought. Could this be the fear of secularized music that moved away from the church and instilled more individualism, could this be the depiction of people becoming too much of their own person with their own ideas and ways of doing things. Could this be a fear of adding a little pizzazz, a deviation from established norms? I think it could be all of the above and then some more. I also think that this is an amalgamation of sorts, if you take the harsh words spewed out about the LGBT+ community, take the harsh words that Lil Nas X faced when he came out, and take any other situation in his life that he understood to be an attack of his character and identity and you get this artistic expression of Lil Nas X going to hell just as conservatives and keyboard warriors said. But we can take this and think more about the cultural impact, and investigate the reception of his work within different contexts. How did his message resonate with different audiences, and what does this say about the universality of themes like salvation and redemption? How does his art reflect themes of salvation and redemption, not just in Montero but in other works? How does this reflect broader trends and discussions around identity in terms of race, sexuality, and self-acceptance? 

Salvation, redemption, and self-expression are very intriguing research pathways to understanding the broader impact of oppression, resilience, and divine intervention. This quest for liberation seen in Lil Nas X and Hagar shows how societal expectations and challenges and conservative and heteronormative cultures can be combatted, resisted, and challenged to make way for the transformative power of self-expression and self-empowerment. These stories echo a greater need for liberation and inclusivity in societies. 

So to end, I will restate the main theme: black queer religion, transcendence at the margins, a step forward into the spiritual and cultural resilience of marginalized communities at an intersection of race, sexuality, and gender identity. The purpose of this introduction is to highlight the importance of amplifying marginalized voices and embracing the full spectrum of the human experience within religious and spiritual discourse. 

To be explored more soon...

Works cited:

Lil Nas X. (2021). Montero [Album]. Columbia Records.

Williams, D. S. (1993). Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Orbis Books.