"Pull your heart to my heart": Touching the past to build queer selves, communities, and theologies for the present

Abstract

Rooted in my own experience as a queer cradle Anglican, this thesis seeks to address theological obstacles to contemporary queer Christian identity that alienate queer Christians from God and overlook the theological value of queer forms of knowledge. It investigates potential resources for the expression of queer Christian identities and queer relationships with God, through the possibility of forming affective relationships with past figures who can be identified as queer. Building on the work of queer historian Carolyn Dinshaw, the thesis finds such a resource in Margery Kempe of Lynn, a fourteenth-century Christian mystic who negotiated the margins of medieval domestic and religious life.