Indecent Theology Quotes

“poor people are presented in the Theology of Liberation as decent, that is, asexual or monogamous heterosexual spouses united in the holy sacrament of marriage, people of faith and struggle who do not masturbate, have lustful thoughts at prayer times, cross-dress, or enjoy leather practices. However, if we keep falsifying human relationships in the name not only of God (a habit to which we have grown accustomed) we must remember that we do it also in our love for justice.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“In theology, and in revolutionary theology, it is discontinuity and not continuation which is most valuable and transformative, so the location of excluded areas in theology is crucial. For instance, poverty and sensuality as a whole has been marginalised from theology. Why does a theology from the poor need to be sexually neutral, a theology of economics which excludes their desires? And what do those desires tell us about Christ in Latin America? The gap between Liberation Theology and Postcolonial Theory is one of identity and consciousness, but the gap between a Feminist Liberation Theology and an Indecent Theology is one of sexual honesty.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“Should a woman keep her pants on in the streets or not? Shall she remove them, say, at the moment of going to church, for a more intimate reminder of her sexuality in relation to God? What difference does it make if that woman is a lemon vendor and sells you lemons in the streets without using underwear? Moreover, what difference would it make if she sits down to write theology without underwear? The Argentinian woman theologian and the lemon vendors may have some things in common and others not. In common, they have centuries of patriarchal oppression, in the Latin American mixture of clericalism, militarism and the authoritarianism of decency, that is, the sexual organisation of the public and private spaces of society. However,”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“If we were to follow that dictum from the Reformation, that we know nothing about God except for what we know of Jesus, then we need to confront a Jesus/God whose theological identity has become a unique mess of being the One who fucked Mary and is yet her son at the same time (interesting if not very edifying material). That Jesus who had a preference for men disciples, beloved disciples and a Lazarus who was so close to him that the Gospel presents Jesus in his infantile denial of his death. So Jesus may be a faggot, or a transvestite, so little we know of him except what other people saw in him; sexual appearances are so deceiving. Or Jesus as a man who desired both men and women and met those men and women's desires whoever they were.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“Her task may be to deconstruct a moral order which is based on a heterosexual construction of reality, which organises not only categories of approved social and divine interactions but of economic ones too. The”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“Liberation Theology needs to be understood as a continuing process of re-contextualisation, a permanent exercise of serious doubting in theology. By”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“A living metaphor for God, sexuality and the struggle in the streets of Buenos Aires comes from the images of lemons vendors. A materialist-based theology finds in them a starting point from which ideology, theology and sexuality can be rewritten from the margins of society, the church and systematic theologies. Our point of departure is the understanding that every theology implies a conscious or unconscious sexual and political praxis, based on reflections and actions developed from certain accepted codifications. These”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“The everyday lives of people always provide us with a starting point for a process of doing a contextual theology without exclusions, in this case without the exclusion of sexuality struggling in the midst of misery.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“Indecent Theology is a theology which problematises and undresses the mythical layers of multiple oppression in Latin America, a theology which, finding its point of departure at the crossroads of Liberation Theology and Queer Thinking, will reflect on economic and theological oppression with passion and imprudence. An”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“The heterosexual foundation of Liberation Theology can claim for toleration of the abnormal in its communities, but it us heterosexuality as a compulsory system in itself which is abnormal, not Queer, indecent people. Indecent people challenge precisely the unnaturality and abnormalities of the present sexual ideology, in all the consequences of this sexual and political theology.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics

“Heterosexuality is not a neutral science and the inner logic of the system works with its own artificially created ‘either/or’ concepts. It unifies the ambivalence of life into one official version. Per/versions (the different versions of a road) are silenced.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“The Virgin imaginary in Latin America is the permanent dichotomy of lust and love: this is why poor people are presented in the Theology of Liberation as decent, that is, asexual or monogamous heterosexual spouses united in the holy sacrament of marriage, people of faith and struggle who do not masturbate, have lustful thoughts at prayer times, cross-dress, or enjoy leather practices. However, if we keep falsifying human relationships in the name not only of God (a habit to which we have grown accustomed) we must remember that we do it also in our love for justice.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“Serious doubting as a theological method re-contextualises Liberation Theology by questioning those very hermeneutical principles which led liberationists to be indifferent to the reality of lemon vendors in the first place. Amongst”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“What has been excluded from Liberation Theology has been the result of a selective process of contexts of poverty and experiences of marginalisation in the continent. For”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“As part of this process, the location of areas of exclusion in theology is one of crucial importance; for instance, poverty and sensuality as a whole (and not as separate units) has been marginalised in theology. A theology from the poor needs also to be a sexual theology, a theology of economics and desires that have been excluded from our way of ‘doing theology’ as a second act. I”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology

“All theology is sexual theology. Indecent Theology is sexier than most. What can sexual stories from fetishism and sadomasochism tell us about our relationship with God, Jesus and Mary? Isn't it time the Christian heterosexuals came out of their closets too?”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology