RADICALLY INCLUSIVE
MODELS OF GOD
Patrick S. Cheng
One of my earliest encounters with the radically inclusive God occurred over a decade ago at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of New York. I was a guest at the annual MCC New York Lunar New Year communion service that celebrated queer people of Asian descent. The sanctuary was awash in red and gold, East and West. I was blown away by the integration of the Asian cultural symbols of my childhood with an unapologetically queer Christian liturgy.
For me, that Eucharistic celebration of the Lunar New Year at MCC New York was a kairosmoment1 in which the radically inclusive Trinitarian God—that is, the triune God of (1) sexuality, (2) race, and (3) spirituality—was made visible right before my eyes. For the first time in my life, my threefold (and heretofore fragmented) identities as a gay man, as an Asian American, and as a Christian all came together. I was whole, and I had come home.2
Each of the five chapters in Part I of Queering Christianitypresents a different model and vision of the radically inclusive God that can be found in MCC congregations around the world. It is ironic that most young people today see Christianity as the antithesis of radical inclusion. One recent survey showed that some of the first words that come to mind for millennials about Christianity are “antigay,” “judgmental,” and “hypocritical.”3
By contrast, MCC queer theologies today are recovering a lost tradition in Christianity that affirms the radically inclusive God, whether it is Origen’s notion of apokatastasisor universal restoration (in which all of creation—even Satan!—will be restored to God at the end of time)4 or
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