The Eugene Lang College Religious Studies program at The New School is hosting a conference on Queer Christianities, March 23—24, 2012.
Both queerness and Christianity challenge received notions of the good and the natural. While these terms are often depicted as mutually exclusive, queer Christians have been quietly constructing new identities, articulating new understandings of faith, and creating new religious communities. With speakers from across the country, the conference focuses on the history and lived experience, religious practices, and theology of three apparently incompatible modes of queer Christian life: celibacies, matrimonies, and promiscuities.
Friday, March 23
4:30—6:00 p.m. Queer Christianities: Panel of Undergraduate and
Alumnae/i Research
Karen
Bray (Eugene Lang College graduate 2005, Drew University), panel convener and respondent
7:00—8:30 p.m. Queer in the Church: Opening Up the Closet
First
Presbyterian Church of New York, 12 West 12th Street, Great Hall
Jon Walton (Senior Pastor, First
Presbyterian Church)
Winnie Varghese (Priest in
Charge, Church of St. Mark in the Bowery), respondent
Light
refreshments will follow discussion.
Saturday, March 24
10:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Center, 55 West 13th St, 2nd floor
Schedule as follows:
9:30—10:00 a.m. Registration and coffee
10:00—10:15 a.m. Welcome
Keynote Address
10:15—11:00 a.m.
Victor Anderson (Vanderbilt University): Sex was Good Until It Became Natural, and Then It Became Moral
Panel I: Celibacies
11:15 a.m—12:45 p.m.
David Hunter (University of Kentucky): On the Emergence of Celibacy as an Ideal Among the Earliest Christians
Anthony Petro (New York University): Contemporary Christians and Celibate Desire
Sister Carol Bernice (Community of the
Holy Spirit): How Queer is "Celibate"?
Kathleen
Talvacchia (New York University), moderator
12:45—1:30 p.m. Lunch (provided)
Panel II: Matrimonies
1:30—3:00 p.m.
William E. Smith III (Indiana University): Christian Monogamy, What’s That?
Heather White (New College of Florida): Gay Rites and Religious Rights: New York City's First Same-Sex Marriage Controversy
Teresa Delgado (Iona College):
Marriage Beyond Procreativity: Solidarity Between LGBTIQ Catholics and their Catholic Heterosexual Allies
Mark
Larrimore (Eugene Lang College), moderator
Coffee Break
Panel III: Promiscuities
3:30—5:30 p.m.
Michael Pettinger (Eugene Lang College): A Queer Theology of Sin
Elijah Nealy (Columbia University): Transgender Realities, Theologies, and Mutualities
Boon Lin Ngeo (Boston University): Blessed are Those Who are Horny: Rethinking Christian Sexual Ethics
Karen
Bray (Drew University), Moderator
Closing Observations
5:00—5:20 p.m.
Kathryn Lofton (Yale University)