"Subversive" How? 2 of 3 posts

"When you say that your Visions are Subversive, what does that mean?"

There are three ways that I consider my visions to be Subversive. This is the second.

As an Evangelical, theologically speaking (see the first of these three posts for why that's important to note), my subversion is also directed at a practice that distracts from and even destroys the three-part dialogue of scripture, prayer, and community.

Puritanical fundamentalism relies less on comprehensive reading/study of scripture than on "prooftexting" - i.e., choosing a sentence, clause, or even phrase that appears to support one’s position, whether Biblical or not. The resulting disinformation can be overcome usually by reading the context – often as little as a few sentences before and after the quoted fragment.

I hope to be subversive by encouraging us and reminding us to look beneath (sub-) these snippets (often less than full verses) that are lifted from within the Bible to support positions that are utterly unbiblical.

For example, “The Bible says…” often precedes a very narrow prescription of sexuality as appropriate ONLY in cisgendered heteronormative monogamy. But that opinion is tenable only if we ignore so much else in the Bible. Note that the underlying message and explicit statements in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures offer a very different perspective.

We’ll examine that next time. For now, though, please remember that as much as we need to subvert the narrow prescriptions of puritanical fundamentalism, there are beliefs within the Queer Community that rely on similarly short, pithy aphorisms to support positions that represent something far from what we could accomplish in other ways. We’ll need to subvert some of those, too.

As always, I welcome questions and comments.

As for the images attached: Our friend Mina Salome wrapped herself in twenty-four feet of drapery. And yet it turns out to be sufficiently sheer and only temporary, that it leaves her ultimately to stand with it puddled at her feet.

May those of us who swaddle ourselves in bits and pieces of our beliefs recognize how nakedly vulnerable we are to Truth.