Queering History | Dr. Peter Carlson | TNE Podcasts

[00:00:00]What's up friends? Welcome back to the podcast. Today I interviewed Dr. Peter Carlson. They are a professor. They study gender in the medieval period. So, of course, I had to ask questions about that. They're they've written a book on queer lectionaries. We'll get more into that as well. This is a great conversation hearing about about Peter's journey, what it's like to study, what they study, how gender and sex do change throughout history, and how we understand them, and everything in between. So, buckle up for this one. As always friends, happy Pride month to all of you. And thank you so much for listening to the show. Don't forget if you want to get more involved or find community. Check out TN Connect. It's our free resource, our free community space full of amazing people and resources to help you on your path forward. Finding a better way away from all the stuff that we see into a faith of life um of of uh life. No. What did I usually say? I'm blanking on this one.

[00:00:52]Oh, I had a little I had a little brain fart, friends. Uh uh I was going to say life and liberty pursuit of happiness.

[00:01:00]That's not right. Oh my goodness. In love, justice, and inclusivity. That's it. Okay, I'm done. Enjoy this conversation. Talk to you'all later. See you.

[00:01:22]Here we go. Well, Dr. Peter Carlson, thank you for making time. We had uh we we we had some demonic oppression in the beginning of this conversation with technology not working, but we rebuked those spirits in the name of the Lord, and here we are. Good to see you. Thanks for making time.

[00:01:52]Absolutely. It's my pleasure. I'm really delighted to be be here in conversation with you. Thank you.

[00:01:58]>> Absolutely. Give me a little bit about your journey and I know that that that you're an educator. You're a professor.

[00:02:03]Like give me some of your your your street cred so to speak and then tell me more about your journey kind of how you got here.

[00:02:09]>> Oh my gosh. Um it well my journey is long. Um I've gotten here over the course of 65 years.

[00:02:18]So I'm I'm turning 65 in July. Uh, I am a I'm a a man who amazingly survived the 1980s as a gay man. Um, so >> I I hold that to my credit. It is not because I was a good boy >> there.

[00:02:35]>> Um, but uh you know, here we are. So, um, I I've learned from uh the younger queer folk that I am now, uh, officially a member of the Elder Ques. So, um, I'm going to own it and I'm gonna I'm gonna work with that. Um, how I got here, I was actually raised in Wheaten, Illinois, uh, the Evangelical Vatican. Um, I did my first two years of college at St. Olaf College and then transferred back to Weaton which a lot of people say good heavens why you know would you as a sort of acknowledging yourself as queer person actually go to Wheaten College. Um and there were a couple of reasons. One is the primary one was that I wanted to work with Jim Young who was the director of the theater program there.

[00:03:28]>> Um and was doing amazing work. Um, but also Weaton was strangely safe. Right.

[00:03:36]>> Right.

[00:03:36]>> I knew Weaton. I grew up in the town. I literally knew everyone who worked at the uni at the college there. It was a college then. It's a university now. Um, and so it was it was familiar territory.

[00:03:49]Um what I hadn't planned on though was that because when I moved back I was living with my parents and um the the interesting thing about living with parents who have taught you that the truth may be really really hard but it's ultimately the thing that you need to work with.

[00:04:10]>> Yeah.

[00:04:10]>> Is that you then have to be honest with your parents. Um, I I I am so annoyed with my parents that they didn't give me more stuff to work with in therapy.

[00:04:22]>> They were really good parents.

[00:04:25]>> That's great.

[00:04:26]>> Bless their hearts. Um, but I felt like I needed to let them know who who their son was. And uh, so I came out my senior year at Weaten um, which was uh, somewhat drama-filled um, as you can imagine. um and then proceeded to sort of live my life. I I like to say that my resume during that period looked a little bit like a police blotter, you know, suspect last seen.

[00:04:57]So, um I I had a lot of jobs. I came out to California in uh 1989, so it was a long time back. and um worked in television for a number of years and I woke up one day and realized I didn't really like what I was doing. Um I I liked some of the people but I didn't like the culture and again this issue of my parents instilling in me the importance of honesty. One of the things that I did not like about the culture of television and and film and the industry as we call it out here um was the sort of casual lying >> that took place.

[00:05:45]I I am a firm believer that you should save your lies for the important things, >> you know.

[00:05:52]>> Sure.

[00:05:52]>> I mean, no, there are no Jews in the attic, >> right? I mean, um, I'm also a firm believer, I think it was Mark Twain, who said, "If you never lie, you never have to remember what you said."

[00:06:04]>> Which, right, is helpful, um, helpful advice. Yeah.

[00:06:08]>> But, >> but I realized it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing, right? And so, at the age of 39, I went back and I got my masters in my PhD in um, the incredibly lucrative field of religion. Um, >> you make a lot of money in the in in the scholarly world religion.

[00:06:27]>> Money in the frame. Yeah. Um, >> yeah. The money is not in the megaurch world. Don't don't go there. It's in the It's in the academic spaces for sure.

[00:06:34]>> It's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If if anything um because you don't spend your entire salary on books. Um, >> exactly. Who who would do such a thing?

[00:06:44]>> So, so strangely, I ended up actually getting a job, right? and and and that is saying something in the academic world today. Um and I started teaching at California Lutheran University as an adjunct and then I moved into a full-time annual contract and then eventually on to tenure track and am now um I I I don't know if they knew what they were getting into when they gave me tenure, but they did. Um, and so I was trained actually as a medievalist, medieval religion. Um, and so I spent a lot of my research time um, in England in libraries looking at medieval manuscripts and then trying to figure out sort of what was in the minds of people uh, religious.

[00:07:34]>> What's that time period?

[00:07:37]>> Uh, thinking I I am a late medievalist primarily. So think uh 1100 to 1500.

[00:07:45]>> So like right right before you know 1100 to right before the reformation pretty much >> right before the reformations. Yeah. The the we we classify the the reformations that 16th century 16th and 17th centuries as the early modern period.

[00:08:00]>> Um and so I'm late medieval. Um, and and I began looking at what constructions of gender look like in the medieval period and began doing more and more work in gender in queer studies in the medieval period and so on. Um, >> we got c can we pause there and talk about that for a few minutes because I I I I I am so curious to hear your thoughts about about what you know. I never met someone with that kind of skill set. So you study gender in in the late medieval time. Is that correct?

[00:08:34]1100 to 1500 g give or take.

[00:08:37]>> Yeah.

[00:08:37]>> Give or take. Yeah. So okay, let me ask you a question. I'm going to throw you some some some evangelical rhetoric for a minute and I I want to hear your thoughts as a scholar. You know, one of the things that we hear often uh in uh in in a with in you know, against gay marriage is you always hear, you know, the classic, listen, God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman for life. And that's what marriage has always been. And throughout history, that's what marriage has always been.

[00:09:06]It's been this covenantal lifelong commitment to each other. Tell me about marriages and gender in the late medieval centuries. I'm Is that why they're getting married? Are they having white? Are they Are the brides wearing white? Are they deeply in love? Is that what marriage is?

[00:09:21]>> The definition of marriage in the medieval period was a political or economic alliance.

[00:09:26]>> I don't know. Doesn't sound very biblical according to these these.

[00:09:30]>> Um uh and and and and so that's you know even even in the so-called lower classes, right? It's an economic alliance. You marry someone who can help with the business or help farm, right?

[00:09:45]or right you know so so it's not even a class thing right certainly we can look at at marriages like oh you know let's say embarrassingly Henry VIII um you know and and his his several marriages right but even there every single one of them is a political alliance it's you marry for politics marriage for love is a very very modern concept >> wait are you saying >> marriage for love is 18th century at the earliest >> you're saying that like there wasn't like happening and there you know there wasn't like you know just I'm so in love with you you know will you marry me and they say >> you know what Moses with Zapora was it was he drove away the sort of truck driver camel drivers at the well so that Zapora and her sisters could get some water.

[00:10:38]>> Yeah. And then they went home and their dad was like, "Why are you home so early?" And they were like, "Well, this guy drove away the camel driver so we were able to get our water faster." And he's like, "Wait a minute. I have all of you to marry off >> and someone was actually nice to you and you didn't invite him home for dinner.

[00:10:54]What the hell?" Right.

[00:10:57]>> So, so yeah, I mean, you know, we forget that that like truthfully, Hebrew Bible, biblical marriage is as many wives as a man can afford.

[00:11:10]>> Even in the Christian scriptures, no one ever talks about St. I swear one of these days I'm going to officiate at a wedding and I'm going to read the passage from St. Paul where he says that marriage is for people who can't keep their winky in their pants.

[00:11:24]It's not a ringing endorsement of the married state.

[00:11:27]>> Well, you know, I I asked because I I I really enjoy scholarship. You know, it helps me. I'm not a scholar. I'm not an academic. It's not my lane. And you know, you there's so much rhetoric out there that gets believed as fact. I mean, we hear this this all the time, right? And I really like having someone who studies different parts and, you know, I have a lot of biblical scholars on, but medieval that's new. I I I've had a Beth Ellison bar on. I think that that she also studies in that time frame, give or take, but she's more focused on on women, etc. Gender, though, can we hold in on that for a second? When you say gender, like what what are you talking about and what are you studying in that time period and what have you discovered in your studies?

[00:12:05]>> Well, one of the things that I study is is sort of the construction of manhood.

[00:12:11]What does it mean to be a man or the construction of womanhood? What does it mean to be a woman? How is that defined socially? And and this is this is one of the things about being um involved in gender studies, right, is that you realize gender is not primarily about your body parts, >> right? Um and and even biological sex is far more complex than than a simple binary, right? And this that, by the way, that that word binary, that's my little tagline that I want everyone to hang on to when we talk about queer theology.

[00:12:47]>> Okay?

[00:12:48]>> Because a deep distrust of binaries, right?

[00:12:50]>> Got it.

[00:12:51]>> So, gender, manhood, being a man looked very different, right, in the 13th century than it does today.

[00:13:03]>> Okay? Even today being a man looks very different in different cultures.

[00:13:10]>> Right?

[00:13:11]>> Okay.

[00:13:12]>> So, so you know we take we take the very basic thing. One of the things that I I like to talk about when I when I teach gender and religion is so when you go to a toy store, how do you know whether you're in the boys section or the girls section? And they all say pink and blue.

[00:13:34]>> Right. Exactly. Right. First thing I my my mind goes to pink Barbie dolls and then like blue Hot Wheels essentially, you know.

[00:13:40]>> Right. Right. Right. And so the very first thing I say then is do those colors mean female and male in other cultures, >> right?

[00:13:54]>> Central South American cultures, pink is a very masculine color.

[00:14:00]H, >> you know, go to Italy, go to the Mediterranean cultures and look at the men wearing bright colors, >> right?

[00:14:09]>> Yeah.

[00:14:10]>> So, so even today, right, culturally, constructions of masculinity differ, >> right?

[00:14:20]>> Patriarchal assumptions, which I promise you were alive and well in the medieval period.

[00:14:25]>> Really? I would never have guessed. got a long history.

[00:14:31]Um but but patriarchal assumptions, right, tend to first of all turn masculinity and femininity into monoliths, >> right? That there are certain things that are always manly, right? And certain things that are always womanly, right?

[00:14:52]>> Right. um and they don't allow for the wild ass diversity of gendered expression. Right? So, one of the things that I look at is I >> part of one of the projects I'm working on in a very sort of haphazard way. As soon as I finish the lectionary, I'm going to get back to it in more uh depth, but it's the life of a 13th century Earl. Um uh he lived across the span of the 1200s. And I'm looking at his life through a queer lens. Um and what in intrigued me about his life is first of all, he was the wealthiest peer in England. He loaned staggering sums of money to the crown and in fact when he died the crown owed him 10,000 marks which is just a stunning sum of money right um he was cousin to Edward I uh the grandson of king John incredibly powerful person but unbelievably little is left of his life Hm.

[00:16:07]>> I'm convinced it was erased.

[00:16:11]>> And one of the things that gives me a hint about why that might have happened is because he was a huge funer and founder of monastic institutions. Remember, everyone was Catholic, right? Right. We we don't have Martin Luther yet. Um Right. Right. um he funded and founded monastic institutions and toward the end of his life in 1283 he founded his own monastery.

[00:16:40]>> Okay, >> and started a brand new religious order.

[00:16:45]>> Okay, >> which was by the way against church law, >> okay?

[00:16:50]>> And then lived there for the rest of his life in this sort of tubbies playhouse, boys only thing. And then when he died um he had he had during his life gotten hold of the heart of Thomas Cantalupe who was the bishop of Heraford.

[00:17:13]Cantaloupe had died um on route from Rome back home. He had had to go to the talk to the pope to um get back in good graces with the church and he died on the way home. um tradition of noble people and that included bishops at the time um was that you would have your body boiled. This is this is the fun part of being in medieval studies. You would have your body boiled. Um the viscera would be that's all the soft bits, right? would be buried where you died and then the rest of you would be you were often buried in multiple places depending on you know your family's land holdings and stuff like that right so Thomas Kalupe >> wow >> Edmund the Earl got hold of town Thomas Kentalup's heart and had it interred at the church in his own monastery >> okay >> okay so clearly he he venerated Cantalupe. Thought he was a wonderful person, right? Um when Edmund the Earl died, he had his bones interred with his parents at Hail's Abbey, a very very famous abbey um where his parents were interred, but he had his heart interred in the same tomb as Thomas Cantalupe >> in his own church. Wow.

[00:18:47]Wow.

[00:18:48]>> This lovely story of male love, >> right?

[00:18:53]>> Um, what this tells me is, and one of the reasons I call this doing queer history, not gay history, is because gay didn't exist yet.

[00:19:04]>> Right.

[00:19:05]>> Right. Homosexual is a term that was invented in the 19th century. Thank you, Sigman Freud. Right. Um, you know, um, but queer is a great way of thinking about this relationship.

[00:19:22]Too often when we talk about people being gay in the past, the first question we ask is, did they have sex?

[00:19:29]>> Right?

[00:19:30]>> And ultimately, I don't think that's important because that was not necessarily at the center of their love for each other. M >> but they did love each other.

[00:19:43]>> You don't just casually have your own heart interred with the heart of another man.

[00:19:48]>> Right. Right. Yes.

[00:19:50]>> You know.

[00:19:50]>> Right.

[00:19:51]>> You you don't do that for funsies.

[00:19:53]>> Right.

[00:19:53]>> You know.

[00:19:54]>> Right.

[00:19:55]>> So So this is this is what got me interested in looking at these constructions of masculinity and femininity. What does it mean for two men to love each other in the 13th century? Right? Um, so those are the kinds of questions that I'm interested in asking and seeing what I can what I can discover.

[00:20:14]>> That is really interesting stuff. And I'm sure it has to be, you know, has to every time I I get glimpses of of the past. I I'm reminded about just how big and how much things change all the time, right? Like like people humanity is always in progress. We're we're always in motion, I should say. We're always changing what we think are, you know, all these different things that you're talking about, love and and romance and gender. And it's it's I know for a lot of us, you know, growing up in what I call as the basement of fundamentalism, where you're given these binaries that are set are they're they're given to you as as just complete static, neverchanging truths. I mean, the earth is round and Genesis 1 says male and female and that's it. like you know they're they're the same level of fact.

[00:21:02]And it is interesting because when you get above ground and start hearing from people who actually study this stuff and who are also Christian, you realize that like hm maybe maybe what I was taught wasn't actually truthful. It wasn't a real uh it wasn't an accurate telling of the nature of humanity over over the millennia.

[00:21:22]>> Or another way of thinking about this because I I have my students wrestle with the two creation stories in Genesis. Yeah.

[00:21:29]>> Um in in our religion 100 class and maybe they are totally truthful just not factual.

[00:21:39]>> Exactly. Exactly.

[00:21:41]>> Yes.

[00:21:41]>> So I I bring up the role of myth right >> myth as CS Lewis you know one of the patron saints of evangelicalism even though he probably would have been horrified to know that.

[00:21:52]>> Right. I agree.

[00:21:55]Um but as he says, myth is truer than fact, >> right? It's it's this powerful story. Myths are those stories that we tell that are deliberately not factual, but the truth that they tell is about what matters most deeply and most importantly to us, >> right? Myths are those stories that tell us who we are and why we why we act the way we act.

[00:22:27]>> Yes. Right.

[00:22:28]>> Yeah.

[00:22:28]>> You know, so so Genesis 1, who cares if the universe was created in seven days or not? That's not what it >> Not the question. Not the question.

[00:22:38]>> In fact, arguably Genesis 1 isn't about male and female. It's about bloody hell resting.

[00:22:49]the importance. I mean, and look at that throughout the Levitical code, right?

[00:22:53]The Jubilee year, the resting of the of the land on the Sabbath.

[00:22:57]>> Yeah.

[00:22:58]>> Right. Every seven years. It's about recognizing that we cannot continue. And this is a direct I'm pointing at you evangelical, you know, productivity genes.

[00:23:15]>> Yes. Yes. capitalism, I guess you could say, you know, go go. Yeah.

[00:23:20]>> We are not supposed to keep producing.

[00:23:23]>> Yeah. Yes.

[00:23:24]>> We're supposed to kick back and and sit in the bark lounger and and watch the game, right? You know, we're supposed it's the Elijah. We're back to Elijah, right? Which I was mentioning before we started, right? That that >> Elijah's literally running for his life, right?

[00:23:41]>> And God is like, "Dude, you need a nap and a snack.

[00:23:46]Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, I'm I'm in the middle of, uh, Christine Dum's new book, um, uh, Live, Laugh, Love, and I got an early copy of it, and it's it's so good.

[00:23:57]I mean, it's such a good book, and she talks what one thing I didn't realize to this extent was how much new thought and big business have shaped modern Christian notions in America, especially in evangelicalism. And again, like when you don't know that, you just assume that because you know, think think about think about the language that you always hear. We're Orthodox Christians. This is historic Christianity. But in reality, so much of it was built on like the early 20th, late 19th century ideas of new thought and of really capitalism and God wants you to be happy and you know, yada yada yada. And they kind of merged it with like evangelicalism and fundamentalism to kind of give you this very interesting product that does exactly what you said where you're always striving, right? You're always working. You're always giving more.

[00:24:46]You're always pursuing something. And we live in a culture this background of total depravity.

[00:24:53]>> Yes.

[00:24:53]>> We can never do enough.

[00:24:55]>> Exactly. And we live in a society that also tells us the same thing from a non-spiritual standpoint. Right. There's always something new to buy, always something new to earn, always another hour to work. The project is never really done. As a content creator, I struggle with that, right? There's always the machine will take every ounce of my creativity that I have to give it and then still ask for more, right? And you know, some things aren't escape.

[00:25:18]Some things are are inescapable. We can't I can't change those systems. I have to work within them as best as I can. But I am with you where the more you look into this stuff and compare notes like what are the what is the author of Genesis or authors of Genesis 1 and 2, what are they really getting at? You know, maybe chaos order, maybe rest, right? There's different themes happening.

[00:25:37]>> And when you discover that though, you realize that how you were taught these things, you're right. It's not that it wasn't true, but they were using almost like an empirical scientific method approach to is this factual as opposed to like maybe this is true in a whole different way that actually makes it more powerful to begin with.

[00:25:58]>> Well, and and and I always say if you think about Genesis 1, literally the cosmos that is being described there is the cosmos that everybody understood existed.

[00:26:07]>> Exactly.

[00:26:08]>> Right. Right.

[00:26:08]>> The connections between Genesis 1 and the um Babylonian creation myths.

[00:26:15]>> Yes.

[00:26:16]>> Are profound.

[00:26:17]>> Yes.

[00:26:18]>> Right. Um and and and this is so understandable because Genesis 1 was actually written after the exiles got back from Babylon.

[00:26:29]>> Yep.

[00:26:30]>> Yep.

[00:26:30]>> And you could just see them going, you know, this actually makes a lot of sense. I mean, duh. We know there's only one God. H, right, right.

[00:26:39]>> So, they're taking this story and they're making it they're using it, but they're making it make sense for them in their what is quite frankly a bizarre monotheistic tendency.

[00:26:50]>> Yes. Yeah.

[00:26:51]>> They were weird to believe only in one god.

[00:26:54]>> I mean, I love I love imagining the Babylonians going, "Oh my god, you only have one god."

[00:26:59]>> Right. Right.

[00:27:00]>> Do you need more? We have a few.

[00:27:01]>> Right. No. Right. Yeah. And not to get too off topic, I I want to get to your book on on queer lectionaries. We're gonna get to that next, but it is interesting. One of the moments that I really had a like jaw-dropping wait, what was when I was taught by an actual scholar that there's actually like a different um uh divine counsel kind of motif going on of like God and gods and like you know the capital G god and lowercase god. And I'm like wait what?

[00:27:26]like I was never taught any of this, you know, like this divine counsel motif and God's angels and it blew my mind of like what's going on in these texts and frankly made me way more curious. I was like, wait, there's something way different happening here that I have got to interrogate because this is crazier than I ever imagined, you know? So yeah, just one of those things that I think was one of the beginning steps towards my deconstruction of fundamentalism and into the house of Christian thought, you know.

[00:27:57]>> Yeah.

[00:27:59]>> Well, you know, it's you you mentioned connecting to to the book, one of the things talking about this the the creation stories, right? One of the ways you can actually queer a story is actually to make it not about sex or gender. What? Tell me why.

[00:28:18]>> So you mentioned Genesis one. Well, male and female, right? What if Genesis one is actually about letting your body rest and not about gender?

[00:28:28]>> What if it's not about gender at all?

[00:28:30]What if the Adam and Eve story is actually a story about what we eat?

[00:28:37]>> We start as vegetarians in that story.

[00:28:40]>> Right? And it's after the separation from God >> that we start eating meat.

[00:28:47]>> Yes.

[00:28:47]>> Maybe eating meat I'm I'm like giving a theological handle to all the vegans out there.

[00:28:56]Maybe eating meat is actually the result of sin. Not as Augustine said, original sin.

[00:29:04]You know, it's funny because as a a young adult, I remember thinking like, wait, if we're supposed to get back to before the fall, then like wouldn't we be eating vegetation because there's no meat? Like you just you realize little things, but again, the system that you grew up in, at least I grew up in pushes that aside and then brings it back to sex, right? Talk to me about what does it mean to do queer history or queer theology? Like what are we actually what what is, >> you know, queer theory, I guess? Like how does this all how does this all work? Break it down for me. I'm so curious.

[00:29:34]>> Okay. Um, so first of all, theology, right? I mean, it it's theology is I am convinced that theology is essentially at its core asking the question, >> so where is God or where are the gods in all of this?

[00:29:49]>> That's the basic question of theology.

[00:29:51]Right? So, we've got that that essential theological question, right? People do different kinds of theology obviously, right? Um, I am not, for instance, an escatological theologian. I don't like the end times. I don't think about them because I was so traumatized by the postcard of the rapture um that I saw at at um the Cedar Lake Bible Conference where we spent our summers, which was a descendant of the camp meetings >> from the 19th century. Um uh in the Tory auditorium, and I saw this this rapture postcard that absolutely freaked the I scared the out of me. Um, >> so I don't deal with that.

[00:30:33]>> Sure.

[00:30:34]>> Too much too much suppressed trauma to be an escatological theologian. Um, but queer theology then is essentially taking queer theory and saying, what if we apply this to questions of theology, right? So what is queer theory? Right.

[00:30:53]>> Right. Queer theory is um it is an outgrowth that sounds like an abnormality that needs to be cut off. Um it is it is a it it resulted from postmodern theory. So uh my friends Dereda and Fuko >> um >> questioning um power knowledge, questioning uh the content of our knowledge. The way I like to sum it up is that there's a deep distrust of binaries.

[00:31:28]>> Yes.

[00:31:29]>> Right. That's why I mentioned the binaries earlier. Right.

[00:31:31]>> Right.

[00:31:31]>> Um and part of the reason for that is as Dared noted, right? We are we learn from infants through binaries.

[00:31:41]>> Right. one of my favorite books that I love to read to my nimlings, my my uh brothers and sisters, children. Um it's my non-gendered term for nephew or niece. Um >> love that.

[00:31:55]>> My I I would read the Sesame Street book of opposites.

[00:31:59]>> Yeah, >> it's a beautiful book. Zero mustel as the as the you know model, right? And it's, you know, this is how we learn, isn't it? Right? Big, little, you know, like uh start and finish. Uh start hilarious because he just had a banana, right, that he was about to eat for start and then the last thing you see it's just the last little bit of peel that's sticking in his mouth, right? It's adorable, right? But that's how we learn. We learn through binaries, >> right? The problem with binaries is that they don't describe reality, >> right?

[00:32:42]>> You know, and so as as Fuko would put it, and this is one of the things that we have a lot of fun with in my queer theology class, right? Fuko reminds us that binaries essentially depend on one thing being the thing, if you will. It's okay, I'm going back to Plato here, Plato's form, the ideal of something, right? So you have the thing, right? The problem is then you also have the thing that is not the thing.

[00:33:07]>> Right?

[00:33:08]>> So you've got the thing male >> then you have the thing that is not the thing female.

[00:33:17]>> And part of the job of the thing that is not the thing is to help define the thing.

[00:33:22]>> Right. Right.

[00:33:24]>> So the job of the female is to define maleness. Right.

[00:33:28]>> Right. This is why men are so anxious about appearing feminine, >> right? Because that would mean that they're not they're they're becoming too close to the thing that is not the thing.

[00:33:45]>> Right. Not them apparently. Yeah.

[00:33:47]>> Well, okay. There's the binary, right?

[00:33:49]We've got the thing. We've got the thing that is not the thing. But what do you do with the thing that is not the thing that is not the thing?

[00:33:58]Right? So classic example, right?

[00:34:02]Interex folk, >> right?

[00:34:04]>> What do you do with the thing that is not the thing that is not the thing? And as Derida reminds us, the problem with h being or experiencing the thing that is not the thing that is not the thing is that we don't have language for it.

[00:34:17]>> Right?

[00:34:18]>> And if something does not have language, it's not real.

[00:34:22]>> Right? H.

[00:34:24]>> So that's behind like for instance, I'm I'm I'm often asked, you know, why are there so many trans kids recently?

[00:34:36]>> It's like, well, because we've been planting more.

[00:34:41]>> Yeah. Right.

[00:34:42]>> I hope I hope the listeners know that's a joke.

[00:34:45]>> He's They're just kidding, friends. Just kidding.

[00:34:47]>> I'm kidding. But but it's because we have language, >> right?

[00:34:53]It's because people are realizing, oh my god, there's there's language for me to talk about my experience.

[00:35:00]>> Yes. Right. That makes sense.

[00:35:02]>> So, so now we take that distrust of binaries, right?

[00:35:08]>> And we attach questions of gender and sexuality and biological sex and embodiment in general, right? Mhm.

[00:35:20]>> And we get from postmodern to queer, right?

[00:35:25]>> So now we're asking questions about our bodies. What about our bodies is neither the thing nor the thing that is not the thing, >> right?

[00:35:35]How does that factor in? What does it mean if you have a male body, but you are not sexually attracted to a female body, >> right?

[00:35:46]You are not the thing.

[00:35:49]You are not the thing that is not the thing.

[00:35:53]>> Right.

[00:35:54]>> Right. You're in the wrong. You're in that sort of bizarre weird area that doesn't fit. Right. So, we're we're now questioning and and it has to do with all of our bodies, right? All of our embodiment, right? What I I call what I do inbodied theology, >> right?

[00:36:11]So we then take queer theory and we apply it to theological questions.

[00:36:19]>> And the way I describe that to my students in my queer theology class who have helped me think through so much of my own theology is that if embodiment matters, >> right? And if our multiplicities of embodiment matter, then that matters to God, >> right?

[00:36:49]>> And our bodies, these things that the creation stories in Genesis tell us are marvelous and wonderful, right? then are in fact holy texts that we can hear the divine speaking if we learn to listen to our bodies.

[00:37:11]>> And we learn not to shame them.

[00:37:13]>> It's a very difficult lesson for evangelicals.

[00:37:17]>> Yes. And exeangelicals trying to leave evangelicalism, right? Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Um >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I my my tagline, and this is I'm I'm sure that that people who know me are so tired of hearing this, but but it it still tends to be the thing that completely boggles my mind, which is that literally Christianity has become so anti-body.

[00:37:43]>> Yeah.

[00:37:44]>> Right.

[00:37:44]>> Yeah. And that is so strange in a religion where literally the one thing you have to believe in order to be a Christian is that God thought bodies were cool enough to want one.

[00:37:59]>> Right. Right.

[00:38:01]>> The incarnation literally means in fleshment. Right. But the incarnation is the core of Christian belief.

[00:38:08]>> Right. Right. And yet one of the bodies ick. Ew.

[00:38:13]>> I think it just shows like how how how um I'm not sure what the right word is, but what an aberration maybe of like Christian thought we're kind of in in America, right? In the sense of like what you just said. It's a great point because so much of my experience was when do you do do you know where you're going to go when you die? Do you know where you're where you're going to go when you die?

[00:38:34]Like are you do you are you sure beyond a shadow of a doubt you know where you're going to go? There's there's I'm not sure if you know who Francis Chan was. Uh my audience knows who Francis Chan is. He has an infamous example where he has a huge rope. It's like 100 feet long and at the very tip of it is like this much of it is colored red. And he's like this is your life on earth and the rest of this is eternity. Right. And he's drawing a point of like what's more important is not now. It's somewhere over there. But you're right in the sense of >> in the Christian tradition, God takes on human form now in our moment. So obviously God thought it was that important where the the creator of all things, right? The the the the the one in in whom we have in uh you know in whom we we move and have our being that God decided to take on >> a human body to dwell among us. Yeah, we we undervalue or we shame the body for being what the body is created to be, especially when it comes to sex, gender norms, etc. >> Absolutely. Well, and and I mean, you think about it, the nyine creed, for heaven's sakes, we literally say, and by the way, when I say the nyine creed in church, I it's like first of all, I don't dare say it alone because it's the kind of thing that you can only say with the support of a community because there is some wild that we say in that thing.

[00:39:52]Like I believe in the resurrection of the body.

[00:39:57]>> Yeah.

[00:39:58]>> Again, I'm not an escatological theologian. I don't know what that looks like, but I know it tells me that our bodies matter.

[00:40:05]>> Right. Right. I don't know what it looks like either. How do cremated bodies resurrect? I don't know. I I don't know what that means. I don't know.

[00:40:13]>> I get to choose which body I get. Right.

[00:40:15]Do I get like my 28-year-old body when I have a 28 28 inch waist? Right. Um maybe my 65 year old brain. Yes. Which hopefully gained a little bit of wisdom over the time, right? You know, I don't know.

[00:40:29]>> Wow. Well, you know, talk to me.

[00:40:31]>> But bodies matter. That's what I That's the truth that I hear in that phrase.

[00:40:36]>> No, for sure.

[00:40:38]>> Yes. And those bodies are conduits of the divine in the image of God created God them.

[00:40:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so if we if we if we stop listening to our bodies or if we shame our bodies, >> we are shaming the very gift that God gave us.

[00:40:56]>> Right. That makes sense.

[00:40:57]>> Talk to me about your upcoming book. Um, you know, what is it about? What is it?

[00:41:02]Who's it written for? Give me all the details. You know, I'm just it's I'm so curious.

[00:41:08]>> Um, it's written for people who won't be offended by bad words.

[00:41:15]Um, I mean, you know, I'm wearing my t-shirt.

[00:41:18]>> Yeah, for those of you who who can't see, it says, "I love Jesus, but I cuss a little." That's what your shirt says.

[00:41:23]>> Um, yeah, my sister said that should say a lot.

[00:41:27]>> Um, >> I'm from New Jersey. I understand. I admit it. But, but I also think that there's a lot in the world that needs cussing at.

[00:41:34]>> Um, >> I agree.

[00:41:36]>> They Yeah. I'm also thinking of getting a new t-shirt that says, "I love Jesus, so I cuss a little." um >> you know might might be more to the point. Um the book uh Queer Lectionary, this is year B that's coming out um in it. Release date is July 7th. Um soon >> um >> and this is year B. It's it is year A came out last year. Year C is coming out next year. Um and for those who aren't familiar with the years of the lectionary, um the revised common lectionary is the assigned readings for every Sunday and festival day of the church year. So the lectionary starts in Advent. That's the beginning of of the church year of the lectionary and it goes up through um Christ uh the reign of Christ Sunday which is just before advent.

[00:42:34]>> Um and there are assigned readings and a number of different denominations make use of the revised common lectionary including the Episcopal Church which is is uh the branch of Christianity that I belong to. Um, I always say I'm a devout Episcopilian but a shitty Christian. Um, because well, because Jesus said a lot of things that I really don't want to do, >> you know, I mean, >> I'm with you.

[00:42:59]>> I'm sorry, but as a gay man, like, oh, love your enemies and do I've seen too many people in abusive relationships being told to forgive.

[00:43:09]>> Yeah.

[00:43:10]>> Right. And and and ultimately perpetuate the abuse. I you know so I'm sorry Jesus maybe maybe next week >> is that is that good you know sell everything I have give the money to the poor you know can I do that in my will is that >> right right >> you know so so I'm I'm a bad Christian I acknowledge it but I also acknowledge that these are things that I think are important and that I need at least to be wrestling with >> you know >> um so so anyway the lectionary um >> for every Sunday and every festival day there are two readings from the Hebrew scriptures um one from uh the law and the prophets and one from the psalms and then there's a reading from the um epistles in the Christian scriptures and a reading from the gospels in the so there are four I mean this was something when I became an episcipellian my very evangelical grandmother was concerned because she didn't think that it was there wasn't enough Bible >> yeah I sent like four lessons, you know, every Sunday, right? Yeah. From the Bible. So, yeah. Um, we get a lot of Bible. We We maybe just don't realize it. Um, >> and so >> this then ties back to my being a medievalist. In the medieval period, the church had sermon collections >> for two reasons. One, a lot of the priests were not educated enough to be able to expound in any kind of meaningful way >> on the scriptures for the day. The other is that the church wanted to make sure that what was being preached was orthodox, right? Was not heresy. Um and and so sermon collections were something that I deal with on a fairly regular basis, right, as as a naval um manuscript studier, right? And so this idea of a sermon collection was coming to me um following the revised common lectionary.

[00:45:25]And what happened and in in in the year in the preface to year A I say this all began as an online experiment but then so did my marriage.

[00:45:36]>> It's um you know which is sort of the the ultimate 21st way of 21st century way of doing things. Um, I was going to church and as you can imagine, I would always go to congregations and attend congregations where um that were at least queer tolerating if not queer celebrating and there is a difference, right? Um, but I realized that even from the queer priests who were preaching, I was never hearing sermons that were unapologetically from a queer perspective.

[00:46:15]>> And I thought, these are I'm I don't see myself being represented, right?

[00:46:19]>> Yeah.

[00:46:21]>> A big thing that that that has been hitting the culture lately is heated rivalry. I don't know if you've heard of it.

[00:46:28]>> I've heard of it. I've heard it.

[00:46:29]>> The thing that is so enchanting is Wow. It's a romance and it's telling my story.

[00:46:38]>> Right.

[00:46:39]>> Right.

[00:46:39]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:46:40]>> I'm seeing something that reflects my dreams and hopes and passions. Right.

[00:46:46]>> Um and so I wasn't seeing any sermons that were doing this. So sort of arrogantly, I started just writing my own and just posting them on social media. Um and and people began to respond to them.

[00:47:00]>> Yeah, it's beautiful.

[00:47:01]>> And and some people began to say, "Have you thought about having these published?" And I was like, "No, because I am totally depraved."

[00:47:11]>> The Calvin the Calvinist roots go deep.

[00:47:14]>> I I as a as a former Calvinist, I get it. Hey, really quick before we keep going. I >> apologize for all of the all of the challenges that we've faced technologically.

[00:47:22]>> No problem.

[00:47:23]>> Um >> Yeah. So, so the basically the upshot was that I thought, okay, finally enough people have convinced me this might be worth looking. So, I I talked to the publisher. It's Church Publishing, which is the publishing branch of the Episcopal Church.

[00:47:36]>> Oh, that's great.

[00:47:37]>> And they were very very interested and they said, "Yeah, you know, work this up, right? Let's let's start working on this."

[00:47:45]>> And then co, >> of course, >> so many of our lives have that as like >> Yes. And then CO. Yes. Okay. Enough said. We all were there, right?

[00:47:55]>> And what it gave me an opportunity to do was to realize that um the world does not need one more white sisish.

[00:48:11]My gender presentation changes from day to day. Um I'm sorry I didn't wear my pearls. Um sishish maleish person speaking for queerom.

[00:48:21]>> Yeah.

[00:48:23]And I realized that it needed to, if it was truly going to be a queer lectionary, it needed the multiplicity of voices.

[00:48:30]>> Makes sense.

[00:48:31]>> And the multiplicity of inbodied experiences.

[00:48:34]>> Yeah.

[00:48:34]>> Right.

[00:48:34]>> Yep.

[00:48:35]>> And so I got back in touch with the publisher and said, "This is changing."

[00:48:39]And they were even more excited.

[00:48:41]>> And they were like, "Make it happen."

[00:48:42]And so I started putting the word out, right? And in year A, we had 15 different contributors. Um different sexualities, different genders, different races, different abilities and disabilities, right? Um we have uh disabled contributors, what what um uh Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the temporarily able-bodied.

[00:49:05]>> Yes.

[00:49:06]>> You know, and so on.

[00:49:08]>> Year B, I'm excited because we've even doubled that number.

[00:49:11]>> Wow.

[00:49:11]>> Um we've we have 30 contributors. Um, >> wow.

[00:49:15]>> From all over the world.

[00:49:17]>> Wow.

[00:49:18]>> You know, writing sermons based on the entire They're not allowed to leave any of the scripture lessons out.

[00:49:25]>> Right.

[00:49:26]>> We have to tackle with it.

[00:49:28]>> Core theology is too often accused of being unbiblical.

[00:49:31]>> Right. Yep.

[00:49:32]>> And I'm like, I literally read the Bible for my job.

[00:49:34]>> Right. Right. Right. Yes.

[00:49:36]>> So, so that's that's sort of the the genesis of this book and and it's been a really exciting project to work on. I'm I'm so looking forward to year C and and getting even more people involved.

[00:49:51]>> Yeah. No, I mean that is beautiful. I I love that and I love that you have a a chorus of voices kind of contributing to this and wrestling with the text. I think it's wonderful. So, um you know, Peter, I appreciate you making time and coming on the show. Uh it sounds like you do have a have a public platform.

[00:50:06]Where can folks follow you if they want to learn more about you and what you do?

[00:50:11]I'm really horrible at at public platforms. I'm on Instagram um as um religion doc.

[00:50:20]>> Um >> uh and I'm on Facebook, but I'm really very very bad about like being I'm I'm working on Okay, I'm embarrassed. I'm working on putting together a a website because >> Good. Good. You got to start somewhere.

[00:50:35]>> You really need to have a website.

[00:50:36]>> You do. You do. You do. Well, I'll make I'll make sure that we include the social media links in the show notes for sure. And I think we have to come back on when the book comes out and maybe have a part two at some point in the in the future. I really I think there's more to discuss regarding even just like like like what you focus on with your studies. There's so many more questions I have, but we are out of time. So, I appreciate you making time and we'll keep in touch. Thank you so so much.

[00:50:58]>> I appreciate you. Thank you for the work you're doing. It's so important.

[00:51:02]>> Absolutely. Thank you.