The Courage to Be Queer

      Copyright © 2015 Jeff Hood. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf & Stock

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2191-7

      EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2192-4

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. 09/09/2015

      Scripture quotations are directly quoted or adapted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      “Prepare to have the dust shaken off of your religion. The Courage to Be Queer opens the tent of God’s love to everybody by defying stereotypes and challenging biblical interpreters to be vital and alive. This book is an act of courage that calls upon people of faith to embrace their own personal difference and then act in freedom for the wellbeing of others. Jeff Hood says everyone is truly queer: unique, individual, and precious beyond all accounting to the Queer God who makes all people new in the Spirit. As Jeff Hood engages the world, Jesus Christ, and the most familiar stories from the Bible, he shows us how to discover anew the face of God in new forms of humanity and divinity. He is in the vanguard of a new spirituality for a new age. This is a must-read book!”

      —Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, professor of Practical Theology, Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University

      “Reading Jeff Hood’s work deepened my commitment to liberation theology and has firmly shifted my ambivalence about the word ‘queer’ to a place of tremendous pride in being queer. The real power in these words flows from the fact that Hood lives out the queer life he writes about.”

      —Rev. Elder Jim Mitulski, queer liberation activist and pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church, United Church of Christ, and Disciples of Christ denominations

      ”In imagining that great creative power we typically call God as ‘the Queer,’ Jeff Hood offers a radical vision where binaries of identity and reality no longer confine us. Hood’s construction of this new liberation theology stands boldly in the tradition of other theologies that have expanded our understandings of who we are as individuals, as communities, and as spiritual beings, granting us a freedom to construct our lives and relationships in profoundly new ways. The Courage to Be Queer is a gift to all of us in our struggle to be fully human and fully free—fully queer!”

      —Rev. Kristin Stoneking, executive director, Fellowship of Reconciliation

      “I live in a dark place. Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood shared the Queer God with me. I can say without hesitation that the queer revelation of the God within has changed my life and I encourage you to read everything this man writes.”

      —Will Speer, Texas Death Row inmate, TDCJ-ID #999398

      “In his book, Rev. Dr. Hood brilliantly strings together smooth pearls of wisdom, fascinating baubles of theology, inherited jewels of Scripture, and the peculiar trinkets of his own experience in a full circle, creating a dazzling and complete queer theology for our time.”

      —Rev. Anna Humble, Interim Conference Minister, South Central Conference of the United Church of Christ

      “There comes a point when our experiences of life outgrows the God we thought we knew. This is a work attempting to describe the God who is, and if we are brave enough to sit with the words beyond whatever initial emotions they evoke, we will find that Dr. Hood is bringing us closer to knowing the God to whom we are fully known.”

      —Rev. Lucas Johnson, International Coordinator, International Fellowship of Reconciliation

      “I embrace Reverend Hood’s eloquent and learned queering of the religious text: It is so needed, especially for someone like me who is antagonistic toward religion because of its misuses historically and today.”

      —Terry Barrett, professor emeritus of Art Education, Ohio State University

      “The Queer is that which is not normative, the utterly unique. You would think that a law professor would have little use for the non-normative, especially when considered in the (for me) foreign context of “theology.” I rummage through structures and norms for a living. It is precisely the point, however, that a theology that routinely and instinctively kills the ‘Queer within’ is no theology at all. Jeff Hood’s exposition of theology is for everyone. Even someone as lost as me. For God is the ultimate Queer. Every page Jeff Hood has written is a step into the anti-conception and a step towards the non-normative power that is the reality most perfect for us to know of God. When I walk away from the normative, as Queer-protagonist, I am paradoxically walking towards the Queer-me that God has created. I am embracing the rubric of love by loving the Queer that is God, who is simultaneously embracing the Queer-me and helping me to see and embrace the Queer in others. The genius and pure light of this book is undeniable, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.”

      —Michael C. Duff, Centennial Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law

      “Buddhist and Christian literalisms often prevent us from perceiving the fundamental non-duality of the core teachings of both faith traditions: wisdom and compassion. Rev. Jeff Hood’s The Courage to Be Queer is a timely and necessary exploration of the ultimate wisdom of interdependence and the radical compassion of acceptance of all differences as complementary aspects of ultimate reality. Christians will benefit from this incisive and faithful exploration of their Scriptures, and people of other faiths will be reminded of the need to appreciate and embrace difference in ourselves, our traditions, and our communities.”

      —Ven. Tashi Nyima, Nying Je Ling, Abode of Great Compassion, New Jonang Buddhist Community

      “How quickly we forget that we are ‘a curious and peculiar people!’ But Dr. Jeff Hood reminds us that in our unique individual stories of encounters with Holiness and discoveries of self, we find our splendid divine queerness and the wonder and liberation of the Queer Within. Bravo!”

      —Rev. Glenna Shepherd, Pleasant Hill Community Church, United Church of Christ

      “Queer theologies emerge from a variety of unexpected personal and social contexts. The Courage to Be Queer is the bold work of Baptist activist Jeff Hood.”

      —Rev. Dr. Robert Shore-Goss, pastor and theologian, Metropolitan Community Church United Church of Christ in the Valley, North Hollywood

      “To be queer is to be authentically oneself—the self that God, the Ultimate Queer, longs for us to be. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, in his book, The Courage to Be Queer, has brought his own queries and queering to Scripture in order to free us all from the bonds of normativity. Mixing exegetical reflection and an earthy practical theology, Hood offers the church a broader vision of the Divine . . . inviting us to reclaim what is queerest and best about our story and to see how our lives, in all their uniqueness, comprise God’s story in this world.”

      —Rev. Ashlee Wiest-Laird, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

      “Through bold interpretation of Scripture and gentle vulnerability, Jeff Hood masterfully reminds us that normativity is the great sin of our time.”

      —Rev. Justin Hancock, author and disability