When queer people see USF marching in the Pride parade; when we make religious support for LGBTQ people fully visible and explicit – it matters.
A former student, who took my course as a freshman, offered me a compliment I will long treasure. She said that more than any other course in her four years, “Queering Religion,” a class that fulfills the Theology and Religious Studies core requirement, instilled in her a lifelong appreciation for the gift of her Jesuit education. She cited various examples of seeing Cura Personalis, care for the whole person, in action. She described how her extracurricular commitments to the weekly Breaking Bread and the Binary University Ministry program – where we host lunch and combine social and spiritual with educational and service opportunities for people of all sexualities and gender expressions – enabled her to be “people for others” and to “walk with the marginalized.”
Every week, as well as at our fall and winter Spectrum Retreats, I am determined to help students experience the possibilities of an inclusive and affirming spirituality. Here, they can show up with their queer and questioning sexuality and gender expression, and discover prayer, ritual, and discernment as they celebrate being created in the image of the Divine. Too often my students have come to college predisposed to rejecting religion because it has caused them pain and trauma. By offering “Queering Religion,” we give students a way to turn from this desolation of rejection to the consolation of affirmation – to find God in all things.
In the fall of 2017, I began my teaching career at the university with the first iteration of “Queering Religion.” Students were greeted with these words at the beginning of the syllabus:
Welcome to Queering Religion where we will look for answers to the following “queerie:” How do queer people navigate religious contexts that have often attempted to negate them? In what ways can religion be queer? How do activists, theologians, clerics, and practitioners work to “queer” religion?
During the semester, we look for answers using a variety of theoretical tools, including readings from multiple genres and traditions, off-campus field trips, in-class rituals, poetry and videos. We also meet with guest experts from the San Francisco Bay Area – religious leaders, priests, ministers, rabbis, authors, nuns, teachers, activists, and social justice artists – who dedicate themselves to queering religion. Meeting and learning with these individuals is central to this course because lived experiences are core to understanding how and why professionals navigate the terrain of queering religion today.
Throughout the course, students encounter the diversity of religious beliefs and practices in queer communities, the ways in which people grapple with religious challenges to their identities, the formation of identity-focused religious organizations, and the ways in which queer perspectives on religion challenge accepted understandings of the relationship between sexuality, gender, and religion. They also visit a religious community that is actively and successfully, by all accounts, queering religion. To deepen their awareness about Jews, Judaisms, and Queer Jewish Social Justice, we visit Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, an international flagship synagogue founded by and for the LGBTQIA+ community welcoming everyone. In fact, many straight-identified people are members of this unique community. It is also where I developed my credential to teach this course, having served as the congregation’s senior spiritual leader from 2000-2015.
In the first class, I always begin by sharing my own story of coming out as a lesbian, in my family, where I am the ninth generation to become a rabbi. I’ve come to appreciate that being able to share this part of my identity openly and freely is a privilege I ought never take for granted. Some of my students challenge me and take issue with the idea that everyone can and should be publicly out. They argue that this value rests on the notion that one’s personal story and desires are the most important factor in one’s life, ignoring the non-individualist modes of life many non-Western, queer people live by. An emphasis on coming out assumes that frank and direct conversations about bodies and sexuality are always culturally appropriate when in fact, this assumption is culturally myopic. This is particularly true among my students of color, for whom coming out risks the loss of familial ties and financial support. Coming out is seen as a luxury for the white and the wealthy.
When prospective students and families see the rainbow flag, with the brown and black stripes added to make the point that we mean to include everyone – in the window of my University Ministry office; when queer people see USF marching in the Pride parade; when we make religious support for LGBTQ people fully visible and explicit — it matters. For some it’s life-changing and for others it’s life-saving. More than a few students have shared with me that their choice of where to attend college was based on knowing about the Rainbow Ministry we are providing our students.
I am grateful beyond words for the opportunity to work for the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the Jesuit University of San Francisco. Here and now, in this critical moment in history, I am reminded that by the grace of God, in whose image we are all created, I am contributing to the repair of the world.
Rabbi Camille Shira Angel teaches at the University of San Francisco in the Swig Program of Jewish Studies and Social Justice. Along with her popular courses, Queering Religion and Honoring Our LGBTQIA+ Religious Elders, she is the rabbi–in–residence for Jewish life and Multi-faith LGBTQIA+ spiritual life on campus. From 2000-2015 Angel served as the spiritual leader of San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. She received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2022, celebrating twenty-five years of service to the Jewish people. Angel has written widely on creative liturgy, Judaism and LGBTQ issues. Her work has been published in the Journal of Psychology and Judaism, CCAR Press, as well as academic journals and books, including Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, NYU Press.
For further reading:
https://www.usfca.edu/magazine/december-2020/feature/does-faith-have-a-future
Check out Lea Loeb’s recent piece in the J Weekly profiling my work: https://www.jweekly.com/2022/02/11/meet-the-rabbi-queering-religion-at-jesuit-catholic-usf/
