Cur Deus Homo[sexual]:
The Queer Incarnation
Patrick S. Cheng
What relevance does the doctrine of incarnation—that is, the belief that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ—have for queer people?1 For many queer theologians, the significance of the incarnation is centered upon flesh; that is, the Johannine notion of the Word becoming flesh, or “ho logos egeneto sarx“(Jn 1:14). In other words, the incarnation is significant because it is God’s affirmation of the fundamental goodness of human flesh, or sarx, and this is reflected in the writings of queer theologians about the fundamental goodness of queer sexualities and queer gender identities.
One place where queer theologians have fallen short, however, is writing about the experiences of the full range of queer people, and especially queer people of color. That is, although queer theologians have been quite successful in terms of arguing for the goodness of queerflesh, they have been much less successful in terms of addressing the significance of racializedflesh. That is, the significance of queer bodies of color are largely overlooked or ignored in most queer theological writings. To this end, this chapter reviews the works of a number of queer theologians of color and examines how such works might help to create a fuller understanding of queer incarnation.
The title of this chapter is a play on Anselm of Canterbury’s essay Cur Deus Homo, or “Why
God Became Human.” The purpose of this essay is to explore the queer incarnation, or “Why
God Became Homo[sexual].”
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