Queering the Ecclesia: Exploring “Institutional Culture” as a Path toward a Socially Just Church

Abstract

Ecclesiological research on queer sexuality in South Africa has often been restricted to studying heteronormative church policies and doctrines as well as their implementation. This has confined possibilities of transforming church into a specifically queer affirming and more generally socially just space, to a matter of policy change. Similarly, transformation in higher education research in South Africa previously adopted a “transformation by numbers” approach centred on policy change. However, urgent calls to decolonise higher education has highlighted the limits of this “inclusive” approach and shifted the field’s focus to an approach that interrogates the “institutional culture” of organisations to understand the ways in which such cultures might epistemologically and functionally preclude inclusion. Drawing on the case study of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), this paper proposes the extension and appropriation of the concept of “institutional culture” as it is used within higher education research for ecclesiological research, in order to expand queer possibilities of being a more socially just church.

Towards a Grieving Church: Theo-ethical considerations for homophobic violence in South Africa

“…The very premise of institutional policies is shaken by metaphysical fragility as exposed by what Caputo calls the 'flux'. 2 The very foundation upon which institutional culture allows the ecclesia to shape and transform it is found wanting in the face of the flux as noted in Robertson and Nadar (2021).…”

Reconstructing the history of doing Systematic Theology at UWC

“…26 Amongst many other contributions, the Department of Religion and Theology hosted a conference together with Inclusive and Affirming Ministries on "Revisiting Intimacy: The Challenge of Homosexual Relationships in Church and Society" in June 2006. See also the more recent contributions by MeganRobertson and Sarojini Nadar (2020, 2021) on "queering the church".…”