🌈 What is Queer Theology?

A celebration of LGBTQ+ lives, faith, and radical love.
Exploring the divine beyond binaries, boundaries, and the status quo.

Queer theology is a bold, creative, and liberating approach to faith that centers LGBTQ+ experiences and challenges what’s considered “normal” in religion. It’s not just about inclusion—it’s about transformation, celebration, and holy disruption.

What is Queer Theology?

Queer theology is where the rainbow meets the sacred. It’s a field that brings together queer theory and theology, asking: What if God is bigger, queerer, and more loving than we ever imagined? It’s about reading the Bible and doing theology in ways that affirm LGBTQ+ lives, love, and bodies.

“Queer theology is not about apologetics for the inclusion of sexual and gender minorities in Christianity.”
— Linn Marie Tonstad, Queer Theology

What is Queer Theory?

Queer theory is an academic movement that questions and resists the idea that there’s only one “right” way to be. It’s about breaking open boxes around gender, sexuality, and identity—embracing fluidity, difference, and resistance to the norm.

“Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.”
— David Halperin, Saint Foucault

To “Queer” Theology

To “queer” theology is to turn it upside down and inside out. It’s not just about making space for LGBTQ+ people—it’s about challenging the very foundations of what’s considered “normal” or “holy.” It’s playful, subversive, and deeply spiritual.

“‘Queer’ is used to describe an action that ‘turns upside down, inside out’ that which is seen as normative… To ‘queer’ something is to engage with a methodology that challenges and disrupts the status quo.”
— Patrick Cheng, Radical Love

Queer Theology in Practice

In practice, queer theology is as diverse as the LGBTQ+ community itself. It can be playful, radical, and even shocking—like the court jester or the wild joy of Mardi Gras. It’s about finding God in drag, in protest, in love, and in every body.

“The Queer theologian can be seen as putting her hands under the skirt of God.”
— Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God

Learn More & Go Deeper

Want to study queer theology? Check out Queer Theology at Pilgrim Theological College for courses and resources.

References & Further Reading

Tonstad, Linn Marie. Queer Theology. Cascade Books, 2018.
Cheng, Patrick. Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology. Seabury Books, 2011.
Halperin, David. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction, New York University Press, 1996.
Butler, Judith. “Against Proper Objects,” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6.2+3 (1994).
Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Vance, Carole. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life, Harvard University Press, 1999.
Althaus-Reid, Marcella. The Queer God, Routledge, 2003.
Schneider, Laurel C. “Homosexuality, Queer Theory, and Christian Theology,” Men and Masculinities in Christianity and Judaism: A Critical Reader, ed. Krondorfer, Björn. SCM Press, 2009.