Queering the Prophet Conference, Stellenbosch, 16-18 March 2022

Die volgende advertensie het op ongeveer 11 Februarie 2022 verskyn. Vir meer kommentaar hierop, kyk in die “Kyk ook” raampie hierbo. Die volgende dosente was onder andere hierby betrokke:

• Alphonso Groenewald
• Ashwin Thyssen
• Charlene van der Walt
• Julie Claassens
• Louis van der Riet

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Queering the Prophet

Conference hosted by the

Gender Unit, Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology,

Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

16-18 MARCH 2022

ROOM 1002

FACULTY OF THEOLOGY, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY

ONLINE OPTION: Click here to join the meeting

PROGRAMME

WEDNESDAY 16 MARCH 2022

13:00 – 13:30 Registration and arrival tea and coffee

13:30- 13:35 Welcome and Arrangements

Juliana Claassens

13:35 – 13:45 Word of Welcome by the Dean, Faculty of Theology

Reggie Nel

13:45 – 15:45 Session 1 (Chair Juliana Claassens)

Under a Desert Plant: Queer Heterotopias in Jonah

Steed Davidson, McCormick Theological Seminary

Vishnu would have saved the Poor Fishie: A Transtextual Reading

Jione Havea, Trinity Methodist Theological College (Aotearoa New Zealand)/ Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre of Charles Sturt University (Sydney, Australia)

These are the Days of Raw Despondence: Finding a Queer Kindred in the Book of Jonah.

Charlene van der Walt, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal

15:45 – 16:15 Refreshments

16:15 – 17:45 Session 2 (Chair Alphonso Groenewald)

Prophecy and Consent: The Case of Jonah

Rhiannon Graybill, Rhodes College

“When the World No Longer Appears the Right Way Up:” Queering Time, Space, and the Prophetic Body in Jonah 2

Juliana Claassens, Stellenbosch University

18:00 Conference Dinner

THURSDAY 17 MARCH 2022

08:30 – 10:30 Session 3 (Chair Ntozakhe Cezula)

Queering the Straight Jonah – A Reception-Exegetical Exploration

Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Örebro School of Theology

Queering The Prophet: Jonah as an Implicated Subject.

Gerrie Snyman, UNISA

‘Inqueering’ Jonah as Anti-Prophet: Satirical Criticism of the Prophetic Office / Identity

Hendrik L Bosman, Stellenbosch University

10:30 – 11:00 Refreshments

11:00– 12:30 Session 4 (Chair Ashwin Thyssen)

Roundtable – Womanist Biblical Interpretation in South Africa

[Lerato Mokoena (UP), Sheurl Davis (NWU), Madré Arendse (SU)]

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30– 14:50 Session 5 (Chair Steed Davidson)

Isaiah: The Wounded Prophet

Alphonso Groenewald & Liza Esterhuizen, University of Pretoria

Faithful, Obedient and Queer: The Eunuch in Isaiah 56 through the Eyes of God

Ntozakhe Cezula, Stellenbosch University

14:50-15:00 Break

15:00– 16:20 Session 5 (Chair Dion Forster)

From Jonah to Galatians: The Prophetic Plural, Corporate Queerness, and Transformative Praxis

Gerald West, Charlene van der Walt, Sithembiso Zwane, Crystal Hall, Sizwe Sithole, and Tracey Sibisi, Ujamaa Centre, School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal

People’s Theology of Land: Disrupting the Dominant Story Line

Rineke Van Ginkel, Stellenbosch University

16:30 Wine and Chocolate Tasting

FRIDAY 18 MARCH 2022

09:00 – 10:30 Session 6 (Chair Lena Sofia Tiemeyer)

On the Public Intellectual as Queer Prophet: Considering the Activism of Zethu Matebeni and Charlene van der Walt

Ashwin Afrikanus Thyssen, Stellenbosch University

Becoming a Queer Prophet – Desmond Tutu, Embodiment and Speaking out for LGBTIQ+ Equality

Jacob Meiring, Stellenbosch University

10:30 – 11:00 Refreshments

11:00– 12:30 Session 7 (Chair Ashwin Thyssen)

Roundtable – Queering Truth in the Public(s)

[Thuli Mjwara (IAM); Louis van der Riet (IAM); Hanzline Davids, (UNISA)]; Megan Roberts (UWC)

12:30– 13:00 Closing Responses (Chair Juliana Claassens)

Steed David/ Lena Sofia Tiemeyer/ Charlene van der Walt/ Lerato Mokoena

ABSTRACTS

Under a Desert Plant: Queer Heterotopias in Jonah

Steed Davidson, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament/Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL

The book of Jonah is either the best example of anti-imperial critique in the Hebrew Bible or among the most cynical. Already foreseeing a future where the Assyrian Empire is let off the hook for its excesses, the book shows Jonah’s consistent search to find alternative spaces to imagine the potentiality of another world that exposes the possibility of a spared Assyrian Empire. Jonah’s final location under the plant in the dessert presents the site for his searing interrogation of divine justice that provides the space to explore queer articulations of that which passes for normal and ideal. Jonah as the most unusual prophet in the Hebrew Bible queers the content and nature of this prophetic book that bears his name. This paper builds upon the different sites of escape that Jonah employs as heterotopic sites where queer futurity is staged in response to the imperialist discourse that underlies prophetic literature. The heterotopia of a slender desert plant as a site of survival vividly demonstrates how queerness interrogates seemingly lofty theological proclamations that imagine idealist futures that are in effect unrealizable.

Vishnu Would Have Saved the Poor Fishie: A Transtextual Reading Jione Havea, Research Fellow, Trinity Methodist Theological College (Aotearoa New Zealand)/ Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre of Charles Sturt University (Sydney, Australia)

There are many ambiguities and gaps in the Jonah narrative, and those invite creative and queer readings. For instance, my native reading for the Earth Bible Commentary series suggested that the fish vomited Jonah out and then it died. But, to borrow from our 7yo daughter, “did the poor fishie have to die?” The biblical narrator is not bothered, as he was more interested in humans, in the city, and in destruction.

For the sake of the poor fishie, i propose another reading with another scriptural text and character — Vishnu, one of the supreme deities of Hinduism. Vishnu is venerated as Mukunda (the giver of moksha) and has ten Avatars, the first are creatures of the sea: Matsya (a fish who killed Damanaka and saved the vedas and humanity) and Kurma (a turtle that helped the Devas and Asuras find the nectar of immortality). In this transtextual reading, Vishnu would have wanted to save the poor fishie! The opportunity for this reading is the shift of the bush in the Quran, from providing relief to the angry Jonah looking over Nineveh (Jonah 4:6) to providing relief to an ill Jonah who needed care after being vomited onto shore (Surah 37:145-146). As the Quran provides space for the healing of Jonah, i imagine that the Vedas (through Vishnu) would be open to providing healing for the poor fishie.

These are the Days of Raw Despondence: Finding a Queer Kindred in the Book of Jonah.

Charlene van der Walt, Head of Gender and Religion/ Deputy Director Ujamaa Center, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal

The increasingly explored term Econo-heteropatriarchy aims to express the systemic affinities and life-denying realities that develop when patriarchy, heteronormativity, and socio-economic models informed by these ideologies combine. Those who embody and story life at the margins or counter the heteronormative ideal are often stigmatized, marginalized or at worst violently annihilated. In the South African context, those who express sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics in alternative ways to the strict heteronormative binary that insist that biological sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation aligns are known by the derogatory term Izitabane. Econo-heteropatriarchy that foundationally informs the exclusion and violence experienced by Izitabane bodies are underpinned and bolstered by static notions of African culture, religion, and traditions. Central to African religious and faith engagements of Izitabane bodies is the interpretation of sacred scriptures and more specifically to this contribution the reading of the Bible. In line with the counter normative impulses of Queer Theory, this contribution aims to queerly take back the Biblical text that has often been appropriated as a weapon to justify the exclusion and violence directed towards the bodies of African Izitabane. The biblical narrative is used as a reflective surface to enable an auto- ethnographical stabanizing encounter with the queer kindred in the book of Jonah. The contribution leans in to the disruptive and transgressive nature of queer by offering a mashup of style and genre to reflect on themes such as calling, conversation, coming-out, belonging, embodiment, repentance, forgiveness, and despondence. A number of auto-ethnographical snapshots are offered as intertextual narratives when engaging the book of Jonah in the context of the struggle for full Izitabane inclusions in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. The contribution aims to blur the lines between what is considered personal and political and offers a first attempt at an unruly reading of the book of Jonah.

“Prophecy and Consent: The Case of Jonah

Rhiannon Graybill, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College

What does prophecy teach us about consent? How can consent help us understand prophecy? What happens when a prophet says no, or says yes because cost of saying no is too much? This paper approaches these questions through a reading of Jonah, whose refusal to consent to prophecy is famous — and famously unsuccessful. The mutual entanglements of prophecy and consent also reveal the (sexual and sexualized) violence of the prophetic call story, the centrality of ambiguity and ambivalence, and the complex representations of harm. In response, I will offer a feminist and queer reading of consent in Jonah, with implications for biblical prophecy more broadly.

“When the World No Longer Appears the Right Way Up”: Queering Time, Space and the Prophetic Body in Jonah 2

Juliana Claassens, Professor of Old Testament/ Head of the Gender Unit, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

In conversation with Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology, this paper explores how categories of time, space and character are undone in Jonah 2, or one could say through a lens of queer hermeneutics, rendered “queer.” In this queer space of a big fish, the prophetic body is submerged in a space that serves as site of orientation, or rather, reorientation or transformation. In this space, in which lines between past, present, and future are blurred, the prophetic body is able to find the words to express how the bodies whom he represents have been shaped, or one should say scarred, by history. In the process, Jonah’s lament serves as a prophetic witness against ancient and contemporary manifestations of empire, drawing our attention to feminist bodies, postcolonial bodies and queer bodies whom all too often have been rendered out of place.

Queering the Straight Jonah – A Reception-Exegetical Exploration

Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Professor of Old Testament Exegesis, Örebro School of Theology

This paper will explore how interpreters have read the book of Jonah against its grain, either to make it conform to standard theological views or to destabilising those same views. In some cases, the Church has transformed its message for anti-Jewish purposes. In other cases, the Jewish community has subverted its overt message to cast doubts on Christian dogmas. Many influential interpretations of the book of Jonah would, in fact, fit Vittorio Bufacchi’s definition of “post-truth” remarkably well insofar as they testify to deliberate strategies to create and bolster interpretations have been very influential in shaping public opinion although they are most certainly not based on objective study of the book. A case in point is the New Testament readings of Jonah 2. An objective reading of the text portrays the fish as Jonah’s saviour and Jonah’s time inside it as devoted to prayer and thanksgiving. This textual truth is delegitimized, however, in favour of readings whereby the fish is hell and Jonah’s time inside it also is hell. Another case in point is a common rabbinic reading of Nineveh’s repentance in Jonah 3. An objective reading of the text portrays a people involved in earnest repentance. This textual truth is delegitimized, however, in favour of readings that emphasise the Ninevites’ insincerity and cruelty. These reading strategies ultimately result in the queering of the straight prophet: the conformist Jonah is given roles and viewpoints that he would never have dreamt of having.

Inqueering’ Jonah as Anti-Prophet: Satirical Criticism of the Prophetic Office / Identity

Hendrik L Bosman, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

The Book of Jonah can be interpreted as a satirical narrative about the prophetic office using Jonah son of Amittai (2 Kgs 14:25) who was called to be a prophet, to model an anti-prophet: to be disobedient when receiving his call from the Lord; to be urged by heathen sailors to pray to his god; to offer himself as a sacrifice to appease God; to be deeply discontented about the immediate and total conversion of Nineveh. Brief consideration will also be given to the possibility that the choice of Jonah as anti-prophet might allude to his name meaning “dove” who according to Hosea 7:11 is “easily deceived and senseless”. It will also be suggested that the insertion of the psalm-like prayer in chapter two was part of a post-exilic process to remodel the prophetic identity to resonate with the priestly hegemony of the Second Temple.

Queering the Prophet: Jonah as an Implicated Subject.

Gerrie Snyman, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, UNISA

The character of the prophet Jonah in the Hebrew Bible book with his name is portrayed in a movement from invulnerability (refusal to take up the call) to vulnerability (prone to injury–in his case drowning) followed up by invulnerability yet again in the anger towards divine regret. Jonah appears to be unable to show compassion or empathy, even if it is a difficult empathy. At issue here is Jonah’s stubbornness which will be contextualised within a social context of inequality driven by binaries of gender, sexuality and race. If one take up Michael Rothberg’s notion of an implicated subject (in the context of the Holocaust), would it be helpful to link Jonah’s anger and invulnerability to South African white masculinity’s homophobia and racism and sexism in terms of being implicated?

Roundtable – Womanist Biblical Interpretation in South Africa

[Lerato Mokoena (Lecturer in Old Testament, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria), Sheurl Davis (Junior Lecturer in Old Testament, North West University), Madré Arendse (MTH student in Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University)]

Recently the biblical scholarship has witnessed the rise and development of Womanist Biblical Interpretation. This rise has also impacted the South African theological academy. Quite tellingly, emerging and early career academics are playing important roles in the development of this focus and mode of interpretation. This roundtable, therefore, affords space to three emerging and early career theologians – occupying different positions in the academy – the opportunity to reflect on the how Womanist Biblical Interpretation influences the South African theological academy.

Isaiah – the Wounded Prophet

Alphonso Groenewald & Liza Esterhuizen, Professor of Old Testament and Research Associate, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria)

The concept of the wounded healer is an archetypal dynamic that was first coined by the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe the phenomenon that take place between the analyst and the analysed. According to Jung, the encounter should be seen as a dialectical process in which the “healer” as a person, participates just as much as the one being healed. This implies that the “healer” should be cognisant of his/her own wounds and the impact that this process of wounding has on his/her understanding of wounding, pain and suffering of the individual and the collective.

This paper will focus on the prophet Isaiah as the wounded prophet. In the Book of Isaiah the prophet Isaiah becomes the archetype of the so-called wounded prophet being wounded by the prophetic words that need to be spoken. Isaiah as a prophet, through his prophecy, becomes the embodiment of the shared collective trauma and suffering that he must endure. For example, we will focus on some of the prophet’s experiences surrounding his body, which can be described as peculiar, troubling, painful, or otherwise outside of the ordinary. Some of these encounters deal with the prophetic body (as a whole), or with parts of the prophetic body, e.g. his mouth and lips. We can refer to two examples to illustrate the above, namely Isa 6 and Isa 20.

In Isaiah 6 we read about the prophet’s commission in which he is called to announce the hardening of his audience. Nothing could have prepared Isaiah for the traumatic message he had to tell the people. He receives a frightening mission, namely that his preaching is intended to harden the hearts of the people and prevent their conversion. The message is puzzling: what is the point of the prophecy if it has actually caused the people to be under judgement? Is this message a just judgement for the sins of the people or do we encounter a God who remains incomprehensible and are we confronted with the dark side of God? The message is severe: God is the one who prevents comprehension. This message must have caused a lot of pain and woundedness to the prophet.

In chapter 20 we again encounter the “wounded” body of the prophet that suddenly appears – totally naked. He is undertaking prophecy by means of his naked body and exposed buttocks (and not speaking at all). Nakedness is humiliating and shocking; it is disruptive and disturbing. There is a great deal of woundedness in the prophet’s story, as Isaiah has to walk naked and barefoot for three years. This prophecy causes significant physical pain and woundedness. It seems that God’s message is directly dependant on Isaiah’s woundedness (bodily and psychologically).

In spite of the above, it seems that the book of Isaiah does not even acknowledge the suffering and woundedness the prophet’s message is inflicting upon him – let alone to give it a voice. His woundedness is thus voiceless yet it is embedded in the collective trauma unconsciousness; the text shows no empathy at all.

Faithful, Obedient and Queer: The Eunuch in Isaiah 56 Through the Eyes of God

Ntozakhe Cezula, Senior Lecturer in Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

It may not be unreasonable to describe the discourse on sexual orientation or gender identity that is not heterosexual in the Christian Church in Africa as very much complicated. The situation thus compels Christian biblical scholars to relentlessly explore the biblical material for new insights. Especially, it is advisable to explore beyond the traditional biblical texts that have been dominating in this discourse. My intuition is that the prophetic literature has something valuable to contribute to this discourse. This approach becomes even more convincing if we consider that “the lives of queer people are marked by violence and death”. Often, prophets faced violence and threats of death for their standpoints on contested social issues. For this reason, this paper directs its focus to the prophetic literature, particularly the Book of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah is popularly known as the book that attends to issues of justice, righteousness and power. I am fully convinced that the discourse on sexuality includes issues of justice, righteousness and power.

Informed by this understanding, I will consider the role of “queer interpretation in reframing what it means to be a prophet in these exceedingly queer times in which we are living”. This will be done by reading Isaiah 56:1-8, which I find to be queer interpretation by the prophet Isaiah on the status of eunuchs in the assembly of the Lord. I will therefore investigate the status quo regarding eunuchs during the time of Trito-Isaiah, which will direct me to Deuteronomy 23: 1-8. I will then investigate the socio-historical context of the time of Trito- Isaiah, which, hopefully, might lead us to the then prevailing discourses that may be helpful to make sense of Isaiah 56:1-8. With the help of Terje Stordalen’s theory of Canonisation, I hope to place the use of Scriptures by successive generations into perspective. While doing all this, the concepts of justice, righteousness and power will inform the investigation. From whatever transpires, I hope to deduce “what it means to be a prophet in these exceedingly queer times in which we are living”.

From Jonah to Galatians: The Prophetic Plural, Corporate Queerness, and Transformative Praxis

Gerald West, Charlene van der Walt, Sithembiso Zwane, Crystal Hall, Sizwe Sithole, and Tracey Sibisi, Ujamaa Centre, School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Local shackdwellers in Amawoti, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, commented that “Jesus is tricky, and God is undemocratic” when reading Matthew’s version of the ‘kin-dom of God’. What the book of Jonah makes clear is that the prophet, like others of this co-opted class, are undemocratic too. The prophetic ‘I’ matches the Godly ‘I’. This collaborative paper (in its conception, presentation, and publication) resists the prophetic ‘I’ (as well as the Godly ‘I’). Working with and re-reading biblical texts with organised formations of the marginalised, including queer people, summons a plural prophet, from below, from among the particular organised formation. This paper reflects on the Contextual Bible Study (CBS) praxis of the Ujamaa Centre in general, but focuses on a particular project, working with and re-reading biblical texts with organised formations of African queer communities. The project brought together participants from LGBTIQ+ networks and selected religious leaders identified by them from Southern and Eastern Africa. We will reflect on this three-year project, focussing on our collaborative queer re-reading of Galatians. Here we resisted the ‘I’ of Paul, trusting in the trickiness of Jesus (and the praxis of the Ujamaa Centre) to summon us as a prophetic plural, as we moved, slowly, from within an embodied queer ‘people’s theology’ to forms of hetero- patriarchal transformative ‘prophetic theology’.

On the Public Intellectual as Queer Prophet: Considering the Activism of Zethu Matebeni and Charlene van der Walt

Ashwin Afrikanus Thyssen, Junior Lecturer in Church Polity, Church History, Religion and Law, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University)

In coming to terms with what the public intellectual is, Corey Robin (2016) notes, “it’s not the style that makes the writing (and the intellectual) public. It’s not the audience. It’s the aspiration to create an audience.” Oftentimes in South African discourse the question is raised: would the real public intellectuals please stand? This is, no doubt, an important question. However, in this time, responding to this question must be done with needful hesitancy. More often than not, the names referenced in response to the question are of those who are white cis-gender straight men – who have been and continue to be at the very centre of power in the academy. The identity of the public intellectual, then, is always assumed to be white and masculine.

Therefore, in our time it may prove helpful, if not beneficial, to consider the pioneering work of two intellectuals – Zethu Matebeni and Charlene van der Walt. These two are intentionally chosen because of the unique position that inhabit within the South African academy. Zethu Mathebeni has recently been appointed the South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare. Similarly, yet quite different, Charlene van der Walt is Associate Professor, and the Head of Gender and Religion at the University of Kwa- Zulu Natal. Both Matebeni and van der Walt occupy the liminal space of participating in the academy, while being marginalised.

Still, it must be noted, what sets both Matebeni and van der Walt apart as public intellectuals is not their contribution to the public and academy. Rather, they have consistently contributed to various communities as activists; choosing to focus on justice for LGBTI+ people (sexual and gender minorities). They are, then, not just public intellectuals because of their media contribution (though that should not be disregarded), they are public intellectuals precisely because they are activists present in communities.

This paper attempts to analyse the work of Mathebeni and van der Walt in theological terms. It presents them as prophets, pointing the attention of their audiences to the forms of injustice that pervade South African society. Drawing on the discipline of public theology, the work of Matebeni and van der Walt are analysed for their unique and important contribution to the communities of LGBTI+ people. As such, this paper argues that they are not only prophets of our time; but, more importantly, in their vocation Matebeni and van der Walt are queering our very conception of the prophet. The role they play as public intellectuals is thus as queering prophets – inviting us to imagine a world that is life affirming.

“People’s Theology of Land: Disrupting The Dominant Story Line”

Rineke Van Ginkel, PhD student Stellenbosch University/ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

This paper reflects a search for truth and finding of truth in the stories of the landless in South Africa. It argues that this truth is essential to develop a richer, more complete, and credible theology of land.

The issue of land, more specifically of land dispossession, ownership and restitution, has affected and disrupted the lives of countless people in South Africa from as early as the so- called ‘Age of Discovery’ and its colonialism, and continues to do so until today. With violent land grabs – physically as well as spiritually, mentally and emotionally violent and violating – many people have been stripped of their identity, dignity, integrity, and respect. The issue of land is furthermore undeniably intertwined with issues as poverty and inequality. The political resolution of expropriation of land without compensation does in a sense acknowledge the complex notion of ownership, but doesn’t seem to address notions of identity and the returning of dignity.

In many cases of colonialism and oppression, the Christian faith and the bible have been used to justify landgrab and a superiority over others. Even today, many examples can still be found of harmful and oppressing biblical interpretation. This paper reflects on the voices of those reading and interpreting the bible from their specific (African) reality of trauma and suffering – a reading informed by cultural perspectives, contextuality and rootedness in socio-political realities. The focus of this reading lies on the story of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21), a story of landgrab and of trampling of people as well as of laws, values and dignity. Reflecting on a postcolonial interpretation of this biblical text, we’ll explore how the reading of the traumatized disrupts the dominant story line – both then and now, and how the voices of the traumatized may be prophetic voices in our times, echoing the prophets of biblical times. A specific focus will be on discovering, or rather uncovering, how ‘ordinary’ (African) readings, in this case the readings of the landless, may lead to an (African) ‘people’s theology’, and how this people’s theology could or should connect to and converse with mainstream ‘academic’, ‘normative’ theology, a theology that still is very much European centred

Becoming a Queer Prophet – Desmond Tutu, Embodiment and Speaking out for LGBTIQ+ Equality

Jacob Meiring, Research Fellow in Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

At the 2013 United Nations Free and Equal campaign, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu famously said that “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would rather go to the other place. I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about it”. On 7 October 2021 the Arch as he is fondly known, turned 90 years old. How did a boy growing up in Ventersdorp under the oppressive stranglehold of apartheid South Africa in the 1930s, become so outspoken against the alienation of gay and lesbian people in the household of God?

Desmond Tutu writes that like the prophet Jeremiah, God took him by the scruff of the neck. He admitted that he finds the prophet very attractive, since he complained that God cheated him, because God only made him speak words of doom and judgement and criticism against the people he loved very much. How did Desmond Tutu become a queer prophet? Justice Edwin Cameron, retired Constitutional Court Judge, recounts how Archbishop Tutu, as Primate of the Church of the Provence of South Africa, was asked at a critical point to endorse express mention of gay and lesbian equality in the new Constitution – which he did in a letter that was generous and emphatic. He ponders that without Tutu this history may not have been made.

From his own research on the body and theology within theological anthropology, and based on research in the archives of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, the author explores how the embodiment of Desmond Tutu, his views on ubuntu and diversity and his role as an advocate for justice, also as chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) could reasonably have contributed to his progression into a queer prophet.

Roundtable – Queering Truth in the Public(s)

[Nokuthula Mjwara (Process Coordinator, IAM); Louis van der Riet (Process Coordinator, IAM); Hanzline Davids (Researcher, Institute for Gender Studies in the College of Human Sciences, UNISA); Megan Robertson, Researcher (Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice)]

Public Theology is, at present, impacting the theological academy in rather telling ways. The focus on the three publics of academy, church and society greatly inspires the vision of Public Theology. In this time, the question may be raised: how could Public Theology’s conception of the publics be queered? This is particularly the case in a context where the lives LGBTI+ are rendered precarious. The roundtable creates the space for persons representing the three publics to reflect on the how the telling of truth may be queered.