Queering Rites and Pastoral Care

Across the Global North, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, queer faith-based communities are reimagining rites, pastoral care, and ecclesiology within diverse and often challenging contexts. This course examines how these communities navigate deeply ingrained homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of exclusion while crafting affirming spiritual practices, rituals, and networks of care. Through an interdisciplinary lens, students will explore the ways in which queer faith communities engage in interreligious and multireligious dialogue, reframe traditional pastoral approaches, and integrate activism into their spiritual and communal life. Particular attention will be given to how these communities resist colonial religious paradigms and develop alternative, liberating expressions of faith.

The target audience is both MA and MASC students. This course fulfills the following Thresholds: 1. Life in Religious Community and Interfaith Engagement; 2. Prophetic Witness and Work; 3. Sacred Text and Interpretation; 6. Thea/ology in Culture and Context; 7. Educating for Wholeness and Liberation. The course also complies with the following MFCs: 1. Worship and Rites of Passage; 2. Pastoral Care and Presence; 3. Spiritual Development for Self and Others; 7. Leads the Faith into the Future.

Prerequisite: Course in Christianity: 4000 Christian Histories, TI-1000 Befriending the Bible, TIHT-1500 Intro to Christian Scriptures, SKIL on Christianity. For alternative courses, please contact the instructor.

[Max enrollment: 20. Auditors excluded.]