All theology is sexual, said Marcella Althaus-Reid. Theologian-men are afraid of sexuality, afraid of the body. In the words of Rubem Alves: the body cries out! Then all run in fear, dreading what the body can do to theology.
The body tears the veil between us and the Divine. In the body we are the Divine, we penetrate and we are penetrated by God’s sensuality, we become one flesh, we grab God’s butt-cheeks and we enjoy the mystical pleasure of christhood.
Can the body speak? The subaltern body? The body that is sexuality? The body that comes with pleasure? Does that body have the right to do theology? Or is theology this dry thing, without the lubrication of affect, love, and pleasure?
We go round and round and end up in the same errors! A Christianity called progressive putting bodies and desires in closets. I am really sorry, Marcella, if your work seems to have been in vain. Rubem Alves, I also apologize to you, for they have eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear!
The body cries for liberty! Yet they insist that bodies and the plurality of sexuality do not have the right to “influence theology”. The body dies for liberty! Yet they insist in reducing the body to a biological experience, denying the multiplicity of experiences and possibilities of the body, discourses that testify the deaths of trans -men and -women, — “god made a man and a woman”, that theology is “very clear when stating there are only two genders” — discourses that deny a whole life to anyone who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, non-binary, trans, or intersex. The body lives liberty! The body will no longer be shackled by non-libertarian theological categories. Our body transgresses, rebels and theologizes without panties, without underwear or bras. Our bodies do theology naked before the queer Divine, honoring corporeality and sexuality!
The body is sexual, it is sensual, it desires! Bodies that are oppressed by a capitalist system also desire! To exclude sexuality, my dear, is far from having the title of progressive. “Revolutionizing” while denying the body is yet another way to perpetuate a theology of violence. To say who can and who cannot do theology is a colonizing, excluding, conservative attitude. All bodies can and should mess with this dry, un-lubricated theology, which kills, excludes, and abuses marginalized bodies.
Deus não rejeita a obra de suas mãos
God does not reject their handwork
É inutil o batismo para o corpo
It is useless to baptize the body
O esforço da doutrina para ungir-nos,
Doctrine’s effort to anoint us,
Não coma, não beba, mantenha os quadris imóveis,
Do not eat, do not drink, do not move your hips,
Porque estes não são pecados do corpo.
Because these are not sins for the body.
A alma, sim, a ela batizai, crismai.
The soul, indeed, baptize her, chrism her.
Escrevei para ela a imitação de Cristo.
Write her the imitation of Christ.
O corpo não tem desvãos,
The body has no lack,
Só inocência e beleza,
Only innocence and beauty,
Tanta que Deus imita
Such that God will imitate it
E quer casar com sua igreja
wanting to marry his church
E declara que os peitos da sua amada
declaring the breasts of his lover
São como filhotes gêmeos de gazela.
the twin pups of a gazelle.
É inútil o batismo para o corpo.
It is useless to baptize the body.
O que tem suas leis as cumprirá.
The one with laws will fulfill them.
Os olhos verão a Deus
The eyes will see God.
(Adélia Prado)
The Author: Angelica Tostes is a Latin-American Feminist theologian with a master’s degree in Religious Studies (UMESP). She is part of the Ecumenical Youth Network (REJU) and collaborates with the Collective for Libertarian Spirituality, in Brazil. She writes on her blog Angeliquisses (Theology, Art and Poetry), dedicating herself to the themes of feminist theology, body, and interfaith dialogue. //Original Post in Portuguese
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