In the Spring of 2015, I was asked to make a presentation to accompany a 20-minute lecture on Indecent Theology for Carleton College senior religion major Lindsey Myrick. The presentation was designed to be "indecent" in terms of how it used text in relation to other COMPS presenations.

1. And God
Becomes
ChaosIncoherency in Indecent Theology
Senior Integrative Project
Lindsey Myrick
“
”

2. Is incoherency
the only
legitimately
liberating
theological
methodology?
RESEARCH QUESTION

3. Although incoherency is
necessary for upsetting
internalized effects of
ideology, it cannot facilitate
the construction of a less
oppressive reality. Liberation
theology can and should be
coherent to some extent.
CLAIM

4. argued that liberation
theology has failed to
sufficiently address sexuality,
both the lived sexuality of
the poor and
heterosexuality’s relationship
to knowledge production
On theologian Marcella Althaus-Red

5. “For there are many longings
amongst the nomadic people
of God which go frustrated
or even unacknowledged: but
could the same be said about
God’s own heart?”

6. Decencypromotes binarism, imperialism, and
institutionalized stability
Indecency
subversion of this decency through
the inclusion of indecent topics and
ways of knowing

7. IS built upon constructed
realities (norms) that
undergird the act of
theologizing
coherency
- Monogamy is the natural and ideal state of
romantic relationships -

8. “Theology’s permanent search
for coherency is only an
expression of hegemonizing
objectives.”

9. “From the sexual experiences
of Queer people who
experience love in casual and
in friendship relationships, we
may learn that God is a God
of moments and that moments
can be different but the
momentary is divine.”
On INCOHERENCY

10. “The monopolistic production
of God and Jesus has been
done with such authority and
for such a long time, that it’s
interpellative strength is
difficult to confront.”
The process by which individuals are
persuaded by ideology to occupy a
subject position that has been
prepared for them

11. “The very structure of
[marginalized communities]
thought has been conditioned
by the concrete, existential
situation by which they were
shaped. Their ideal is to be men;
but for them, to be men is to be
oppressors. This is their model
of humanity.”
Paolo Freire

12. “Sexual ideologization tends to
be pervasive...within Lesbian and
Gay Theologies. How? By
assuming a fixed sexual identity
in non-heterosexual people.
Why? Because a heterosexual
ideology, as a central discourse
of authority, extends its
perspective of sexuality and
relationships to non-
heterosexual identity.”
PART HOMO, PART HETERO

13. Historical dimensions of a given reality that may
have been normalized and therefore made invisible
Limit Situations
Limit act
Actions that negate and overcome those limit
situations, refusing to accept the inevitability of the
state of affairs

14. “And God becomes Chaos: the
smell of our bodies when
making love, our fluid and
excretions, the hardening of
muscles and the erectness of
nipples.”
On resistance versus transformation

15. “God the white upper-class
woman who has made of us
passive supporters of a
patriarchal system.”
On loving relationships

16. “Norms materialize human
subjectivity…the repetition or
reiteration of normatively
requires practices makes on
into a ‘person’ which is why
those who refuse such
practices can also be denied
‘personhood.’”
Janet Jakobsen

17. Norms
normativity

18. Network
of Norms

19. THANK
YOU
Religion faculty
Religion majors
My friends
My family
“
”

20. “We were in a barn with all the lights out and a
nice warm heater; it was lovely. So, she was settling
in for the night, and I went to the stall and I just
sat in the corner. I let her come to me, and that’s one
of the things I am very adamant about: I never use a
halter or any kind of restraint. So, she chooses to
come with me, and I leave her food and she puts her
head on my chest and we snuggle and I whisper sweet
nothings in her ear and rub her cheeks — what she
likes. By this stage, she knows I’ll rub her thighs. She
really loves the area between the back of her legs
touched. So, she turned around and she actually
backed into me while I’m sitting down. I slip my hands
up a little further up and play with her genitals.”