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DISSERTATION

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EXTRACTS:

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

This dissertation will explore the contribution of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) to a theology of liberation for black people in the U.K. It will examine its religious mandate that enables a Christian witness to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer and intersex (lgbtqi) community of African-Caribbean descent. Secondly it will examine black and white essentialism and review theologies of sexuality, within a liberative framework. Finally it will assess the benefit of the Denomination to an ongoing theology of liberation for black lgbtqi Christians in Britain.

This will be enabled by an overview of the founding and subsequent development of MCC in the United States and its planting in the U.K. The latter will include its progression from an island based organisation, its expansion to the mainland as part of the European District and finally to a Region encompassing parts of Europe, the Middle East and the African Continent.

CONCLUSIONS

Tinney issued a challenge to MCC to analyse the cultural bias of Christianity, to develop a theology of sexuality for all sexual orientations and gender identities and to build a new community for the oppressed. He said ‘[I[t might not be accomplished here, but the choice is up to you’. Mercer, in his analysis of the ‘politics of enunciation’ states ‘certain kinds of performative utterances produce different meanings, not so much because of what is said but because of who is saying it’ (Mercer, 1994, p.204). Within this context, Tinney’s words are further personalized by the status of the ‘listener’ and the context of ‘lived experiences of identity and identification (ibid).

In describing the ‘intersections of several types of oppression’ for black men, Farajaje-Jones describes ’our experience of alterity, of Otherness, we are doubly or triply the ultimate Other, the Different One’ (Farajaje-Jones, 1993 p.141). He catalogues the multiple and sometimes overlapping types of oppression based on his biological sex, sexual identity and race within the white and black communities. His sense of ‘otherness’ resonates with the ‘outsider’ motif, prominent in many theological analyses by black women. This pertains to identity within MCC in Britain - one is an ‘outsider’ within a ‘queer community’.

Outsider Status

Firstly, in a ‘radical critique of sociology’ from a woman’s perspective, Smith posits an alternative approach to ‘sociology’s claim to constitute an objective knowledge independent of the sociologist’s situation’…her ‘reorganisation’ involves…’making her direct experience of the everyday world the primary ground of her knowledge…The only way of knowing a socially constructed world is knowing it from within. We can never stand outside it’ (Smith, 2002, p.67). With race and sexual orientation, pivotal to one’s self identity, the theologian cannot step out and observe. The ‘outsider’ paradigm is a valid tool of analysis, within the situation under scrutiny.

Outsider Within Status

Secondly, Hill-Collins, in her challenge of androcentrism, utilises the traditions of black women, working in white households to illustrate that ‘involvement’ does not include ’belonging’ and ‘insider’ status. In looking at the ‘outsider’ image of black women, she proposes the conservation of ‘the creative tension outsider within status by encouraging and institutionalising outsider within ways of seeing…this approach…is one where intellectuals learn to trust their own personal and cultural biographies as significant sources of knowledge. In contrast to approaches that require submerging these dimensions of self in the process of becoming an alleged unbiased, objective social scientist, outsiders within bring these ways of knowing back into the research process’ (Hill-Collins, 2002, p. 76). In MCC one is an ‘outsider within a white space’ in geographical terms, but supported and nurtured by a global outer black space of which one is an ‘inside’ member. This space also includes those who are ‘black’ with God and identify with the black experience.

Inside One’s Community of Faith

Thirdly, one has a responsibility to reflect past the immediate present and consider future readers; academic, theological and those to whom one is ultimately accountable – our community of faith. As a process of analysis, structuring thought and possible future actions, academic theology ‘as a form of prayer’ provides a unique and disciplined focus, but only as a means to an end that must involve that faith community. There is value in making the content meaningful and understandable to those, who hopefully will incorporate the work into the historical documentation of the denomination as a contribution to a developing text for black gender variant folk in Britain.

MCC as Foundational

Evans identifies ‘the liberation of persons oppressed by the distortions of religious expressions, understanding, and practice’ (Evans, 1992 p.93) as requiring a radical rethink in the twenty first century. This cannot be achieved if gender variant black Christians permit white Churches to set their agendas. The uniqueness of Metropolitan Community Church lies in the battles already fought and won and its respect for the self determinacy of people of African descent within its ranks. It provides a platform within a recognised structure that ordains committed Christians and provides empowerment for service to the gender variant community.

‘A Revolutionary Black and Gay Space’

And finally, having just returned from fifteen years in the Caribbean, I was asked at the workshop on White People Fighting Racism at the European District Conference, held in Blackpool in October 1997, what it was like to be an ethnic minority. I replied, spontaneously, that I had just returned from Jamaica and therefore did not have a sense of being a ’minority’ – and in fact globally, they were!

A highlight of the Conference’s location, was the opportunity to see RuPaul in action at the Flamingo Club. The ‘crossover’ appeal of this ‘6–foot –5 black gay drag queen’ in this ’post-gender society’ has been the subject of analysis within the context of homosexuality in the black community. In particular, the discussion of the cultural significance of his video, ‘Roots’ that featured an all black cast and celebrated the warmth and love, that RuPaul felt, emanating from her black family and community. Here reference is made to her ‘sexuality unmarked yet not hidden’…and the ‘revolutionary black and gay space’ within the video’s setting of a hair salon (Silberman, p.204). I have every reason to believe that a similar kind of theological space, enabling similar sexual freedoms, is achievable under the auspices of MCC, for black gv Christians, their family and friends in the U.K.

Lastly, if one identifies the anglo-catholic forms of worship in most MCCs here as representing the ‘foreignness of the present spirituality on offer’ (Nathan, 1999, p.50) it is incumbent on the few black gv members to energise more appropriate forms of worship in appropriate settings that cater to the social, political and spiritual needs of black people in the U.K. ‘Those who live their Christian lives within the framework of an organised church naturally expect to find the principles of God’s kingdom in the Church…From a black perspective, what is desirable is the existence, in the Church of an organisational structure and a theological anthropology that affirms blackness to the same degree as it does whiteness’ (Aldred, 1999, p.13-14). If we believe in ‘the universality of the Christian gospel of liberation’ (LaRue, 2000, p.119), then it is our responsibility to structure our own agenda.

It is our decision to liberate ourselves.

It is our choice.

© Rev Caroline Redfearn ©blackpeoplesministries.com 2009

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