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Queer Theory & Gender Roles in Early Christianity



That Theology Teacher

Queer Theory reminds us that the history of sexuality is a complex one, which means that we cannot readily map modern constructions of homosexuality onto ancient sources. How we understand homosexuality today as an orientation, would not have been how sexuality was viewed in the early church. Therefore, it would be anachronistic to use the terms homosexual, gay or lesbian in today’s lesson. Instead, I will just use the label “same-sex partners”.

Our discussion today begins behind the scenes of the New Testament in the Roman Empire, where competition for honor was visible in every city in which members of the elite competed for civic power through sponsoring games and celebrations, financing public buildings, endowing food distributions, and so on. The public life in the Roman Empire was centered in the quest for honor.

Roman masculinity required a man to dominate those ranking below him. In the Roman world, gender was not constructed as a binary, male versus female. Instead, gender was mapped as a hierarchy, a continuum of spectrum, upon which “masculinity” rested firmly above “femininity” effectively privileging an idealized male body. In this scheme, the female body was perceived as a deviation from the more perfect human form: the male.
Though ideally male bodies rested atop the gender continuum, in practice all bodies contained within them male and female elements that could be enhanced or constrained through bodily practices. Dale Martin explains: “bodies could, and did, shift upward and downward on the continuum depending on how much maleness (strength, heat, dryness, compactness) or femaleness (weakness, cold, moisture, or porosity) their bodies contained at a particular time. Masculinity was achieved rather than a natural state. Nimble and refined sets of bodily gestures and voice modulations, in particular, were singled out as the appropriate method of achieving this gender performance…

Additional Sources Used:
“Same-Se* Desire in Early Christianity” by Carly Daniel-Hughes
“Engaging Romans: An Exegetical Analysis of Romans 1:26-27” by Michael Younes
“Queer Sects in Patristic Commentaries on Romans 1:26-27: Goddess Cults, Free Will, and Se*” by Jeremy Tonsley
“Romans: A Commentary” by Robert Jewett
“The Making of Male Same-Se* in the Graeco-Roman World and Its Implications for the Interpretation of Biblical Discourse” by Johannes Vorster
“Roman Homosexuality” by Craig A. Williams
“Making Se*: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud” by Thomas Laqueur
“Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality” by John Boswell
“Love Between Women” by Bernadette Brooten

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14 thoughts on “Queer Theory & Gender Roles in Early Christianity
  1. Although the western gender system is based on the greek and roman system, it was different back then: more important than the sex for the gender role, a active/ passive disrinction was essential for each persons gender role. People with a female sex had to be passive, but also slaves or young boys were considered to be part of the same gender role – sometimes boys were castrated to mark them as passive even more. The cult over the active, athletic masculine is still basis for our patriachal system and the lesser worth of the passive (including feminine men) is still the basis for homophobic and mysoginistic tendencies in our western culture. It also was very different in other cultures (for example native americans who mostly celebrated feminine men and masculine women in a 4 Gender system: feminine men, feminine woman, masculine men, masculine women -almost all natives in america had this system).

  2. No the Bible had always said sex is for a male with female! Your a liar and have a depraved and delusional mind! Everyone who isn't mentally ill or chalanged hears your hypocrisy for what it is! Your spreading lies and abomination to our youths! If I had my way you would be responsible but I'm not your judge and I sin also. We all sin and fall short! I don't lie about my sins and claim that it isn't Sin! You do ! That's the entire argument and problem! Your a liar!

  3. I don't know if you have read Romans 1 but it says you go to hell if your gay and that God gave you up to your depraved mind! So your a liar? Yes you are definitely a liar without remedy!

  4. While the reasons the Romans viewed men as superior to women are off the mark, it is generally true that men are superior, at least in contemporary North American culture.

    There is also much to be said for the biological design argument. However, the conclusion would point toward homosexual passion instead of heterosexual to be just another form of natural infertility rather than a moral defect.

  5. The views of religions has no place in any modern discussion. Religion is nothing more than mythology. It is dying out as it should. We are supposed to have evolved past the point of needing to believe in false gods, or the on game of religious leaders.

  6. Why am I not surprised that it was Augustine of Hippo that changed the tide? He had probably not even an inkling of how his writings would influence Christianity in the West. Some of his texts were a part of a marriage theology course I took at uni. The gender and sexuality part was super interesting and new to me in this context, I'll definitely recommend this video to other theology students 😁

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