ABSTRACT

This chapter suggests that the crisis over ecclesial authority and sexuality is largely due to an inadequate handling of what is authoritative in the Church, namely its scripture and tradition, the thick richness of which has been diluted to a thin soup incapable of nourishing anyone. It focuses on the failure of authority to engage sufficiently with the richness of the authoritative tradition of the Church in its reflection upon same-sex relationships. It is perfectly legitimate to argue that at the heart of the Christian tradition in the person of Jesus Christ we are presented with a figure that both enters into gender and then radically subverts it. Eugene Rogers, Jr., operating from within what we might call the queer tradition of the Church, offers the most convincing theological argument ever articulated for lesbian and gay marriage. It is manifest in two forms of existence in the Christian community, in covenanted sexual relationships and in monasticism.