54: Queer Theology with Linn Tonstad

Hosts: Brandon Nappi and Hannah Black 

Guest: Linn Tonstad 

Production: Goodchild Media 

Music: Wayfaring Stranger, Theodicy Jazz Collective 

Art: E. Landino 

Instagram: @theleadersway.podcast  berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast

Linn Tonnstad Transcript

H:           Hey, Brandon. 

B:            Hey, Hannah. 

H:           How are you? 

B:            I’m fantastic. We’re at Yale Broadcast Studios. We are launching into another Leader’s Way podcast episode. So I’m happy. 

H:           That’s great. I’m excited because Linn Tonstad is our guest. And because Linn Tonstad is the most fashionable theologian I know, I accessorized on camera for the first time … 

B:            You did. On camera for the first time, you are representing. 

H:           Just wearing a hat. But, you know, that’s how much, it’s– this is me being extra. One extra accessory.

B:            It’s  strong. It’s strong. And, you know, I know sometimes you’ve said that, you know, you didn’t go to Yale. And you wonder if you really can wear the blue. 

H:           That’s true. Am I a Yalie? Does Handsome Dan really love me? These are the questions that keep me up at night. 

B:            Yeah. Well, I think to anyone seeing you in the hat, I think you can call yourself a Yalie. No. Linn Tonstad came in full regalia, creative regalia.

H:           She’s given interviews about, like, the fashion of a theologian before. It’s just amazing. 

B:            I believe it. And I was feeling a little plain today, which is fine.  Plain is a different that I think we can embrace. 

H:           Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

B:            It’s also, you know, end of the semester. End of the semester. Are you grading papers?

H:           Not yet. The exams are on Friday, and then I will be grading papers. 

B:            So I am grading, some papers right now Oh. In in our Preaching for Creation class. 

H:           Are they homilies, or are they papers?

B:            They’re not. Professor Carolyn Sharp, shout out to the wonderful Carolyn Sharp, has assigned a piece of spiritual creation-based memoir as the closing assignment. So folks are reflecting on their relationship with God through nature, and they’ve been really moving reflections. And so it’s it’s like candy. 

H:           That’s really great. 

B:            Yeah. Not like Swedish Fish, though. Not that kind of candy.

H:           Stay tuned. I love when assignments are fun to read like that or really get at the sort of growth and development that people are undertaking during their degree programs. So fun to read. 

B:            Well, I made a rather radical comment to my students as, as class was coming to an end. I said, please print out the assignment and, like, stick it in your bookshelf or put it where somewhere in twenty years, you’ll stumble upon it. Because I don’t know … how many Google Docs have we created in the the last ten years? Right? There you … 

H:           There’s a Google Doc graveyard. There’s a … right? And Where memoirs are not raw mem-ed.

B:            There’s a … right? We’re just gonna lose track of all these things. Wow. I thought, is she gonna do it? And she did. I’m so happy and entertained that you did. 

H:           I’m glad. 

B:            So, students who are listening, print something out that you’re proud of, tuck it away so you can find it. 

H:           Sweet. Well, let me introduce our listeners to the one and only Linn Marie Tonstad. Linn Tonstad is Professor of Theology, Religion, and Sexuality at Yale Divinity School, our colleague. Professor Tonstad is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of Christian theology with feminist and queer theory. Her first book, God and Difference, the Trinity Sexuality and the Transformation of Finitude, was published in 2016. And her second book, Beyond Apologetics was published in 2018. It was also recently translated into French. Ooo la la. She joined the YDS faculty in 2012, and she teaches things like Christian theology, queer theory, philosophy of religion, and theological method. She’s a superstar. She’s a powerhouse. 

B:            Superstar. 

H:           She’s the kind of person we would have zooming in to Cambridge to give a paper. I mean, the one, the only, the renowned, drum roll, Linn Tonstad.

B:            Hi. I’m Brandon Nappi. 

H:           Hi. I’m Hannah Black, and we’re your hosts on the Leaders Way podcast. 

B:            A Yale podcast empowering leaders, cultivating spirituality, and exploring theology.

H:           This podcast is brought to you by Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal Seminary at Yale. 

H:           Welcome to the Leader’s Way podcast, Professor Linn Tonstad. This is a treat. I’ve heard Professor Tonstad give papers, like, when I was in Cambridge, she would Zoom in and give papers and at conferences and things like that. But it’s rare that we’ve been actually in the same room together even though we’re colleagues.

Linn:       Although we have we have theoretically tried on some occasions. So this is actually the culmination of quite long process. 

H:           That’s true. But this is a triumph … A big moment for collegiality. 

L:            It’s exciting. I’m delighted we’re finally doing this! 

H:           Yeah. Exactly. So a lot of our listeners probably already know what queer theology is, and many of them probably don’t. So I was wondering if you could kind of give us an intro. Like, what what does that even mean? How can queer and theology go together? 

L:            Yeah. And, you know, I I probably have a pretty particular take on this as well because I see part of my work as providing an alternative understanding of queer theology to a lot of what people think it means if they if they think it has a reference. So, you know, most typically, it’s taken to be the kind of theology that’s concerned with the inclusion of LGBTQIA+, etcetera, and classic embarrassed etcetera, you know, people into the church and with the kind of making of theologies that allow for that. 

               I have a different, I think, understanding, for a few different reasons, of that. But I’m very interested in queer theology as one of the ways that one might think about what in human sociality, which includes but is not restricted to political and other kinds of questions– economic questions– what in human sociality could be different? And what would we do to make it different, right, which is quite a, quite a real fundamental structure and challenge. And, you know, the kinds of queer thinking; I work in particular with a less sociological and more humanities/theoretically- oriented side of kind of the queer theory that has been part of what has fed this thing called queer theology. And so I’m very, very interested in visions of transformed sociality that do not see negativity and antagonism as bugs, but rather as features. 

               I also think a lot about the way that, you know, queer theology comes out of a history of people creating socialities despite or in some ways within and in relation to the experience of objection, the experience of finding what one likes or oneself despised in various ways, rejected, condemned, pilloried, mocked, etcetera, etcetera. And so for me, queer theology is, among other things, a way to think very hard about these questions. It does for me, and this is a place where people disagree, it does for me, benefit from retaining a certain focus on questions of sexuality and to a significant extent gender. 

               But it’s not so much about what it includes or doesn’t because all ways of thinking sociality can be made to have a relation to all others. It’s about, asking these more challenging questions as I understand them and about how the kind of restriction of permitted relationships, has, you know, social functions that might also be theologically undesirable as well as politically problematic. So that’s one way of talking about it. Right? Like, it’s about it’s about how difficult it is to live with other people.

H:           The –well put. 

L:            But you could also talk about it in terms of the kind of, you know, thinking seriously about God’s transformative work in the world. You can think, of it in terms of, one of several ways of challenging the kind of making overly central of certain investments in gendered and sexual structures that has arguably been typical of Christianity in the twentieth century, where you sort of take these matters and make it as if the gospel stands or falls on having the right views here, which is a tragic restriction of Christianity. 

H:           Well, and then what happens is when you do have that very kind of entry level question of what arguments do we have for and against inclusion of queer folks in the church, there’s this scaffolding that’s not actually necessarily central to Christianity, but that is obviously gonna fall apart if we do include people we haven’t included in the past as an institutional church–but then that scaffolding was not supposed to be the main thing. It just became too precious or something like that.

L:            Yeah. I think that’s right. I think the only place that I’d also wanna say is that in the relevant senses that matter, queer and trans people have always been 

H:           Yeah. True. True—right.

L:            Right? Now there are so many ways to hear that statement the wrong way as if I’m claiming that these are trans-historical realities or realities that are naming something across cultural difference and other ways of organizing human difference. And I’m not intending to say any of those things. It’s just, to the extent that we’re talking about this thing; I do think it’s important to note that the idea of a Christianity without this is of for various reasons A bit of a fiction. 

H:           And I think the way I just framed that, exemplifies that reality. 

L:            Yeah I think in your second word you’re saying that. 

H:           Saying, like, “Well, we haven’t included these people in the past.” Well, they’ve been there. Yeah. It’s just we’re telling ourselves that there’s been a history of exclusion, at least to some extent.

L:            Well, and also that, inclusion or exclusion is the significant question. But, of course, the question of inclusion always invites the question … Inclusion into what? 

B:            Well and you used, you used two words that I’d love to hear you say a few more words about, and it includes one of my favorite words, which is also a word I scratch my head about a lot, and that’s transformed. When you talk about a transformed sociality, I’d love to hear you say what you mean, maybe by those words apart, and then what happens when you put them together?

L:            Yeah. Well, the main thing that I think about in that regard is, What would it look like to have a little less violence? Because no matter how we might differ, and I think we really do in various ways about what we think the best ways of living together might be and so on, to what extent we could be dramatically different than we are, or to what extent we could just be a little different than we are, or to what extent we think certain kinds of change are meaningful or just sort of superficial, you know, all of that stuff. I do think that without wanting to make any universal claims whatsoever, very many people do have a sense that we could be a little less violent

               And yet we struggle amazingly to be a little less violent. And right now, when we’re in a period globally of a kind of different self-conscious living in history than has been the case for a while for certain segments of the relatively less-dramatically precariously situated, you know, parts of parts of the especially Euro American populations, meaning this geographically rather than, ethnically. We’re sort of … we’re experiencing this seeming intractability. You know, the only thing you learn from history is you never learn anything from history, and you’re like, but how come you don’t see it? You don’t see what’s happening. You don’t see what’s coming. And then you undergo this shift and you’re like, Because you can’t know in advance which form it’s gonna take this time. And in fact, some of the attempts to describe the four-minute dance may end up affecting its arrival. And yet at the same time, when it happens, you’re like, oh, this is that thing. Right?

               And so again, what are the kinds of, let’s say, resilient social structures that might allow for … you know, again, what are the practices through which we could try to respond differently in relation both to the trajectories leading up to the kind of heightened geopolitical tensions that we’re currently facing, and might help us act better inside them. 

H:           Okay. I have a question for you. And it’s selfish in the sense that I think about this a lot, and I just really wanna hear your take. Do you think that our theology of suffering is linked to the way we understand violence as Christians? And do you think, in your estimation, like, a better theology of suffering would lead to less tolerance of violence? 

L:            No. No. I don’t think so. 

H:           Tell me more.

L:            But I think there’s a connection that you’re seeing that I might not be. 

H:           The way I’m kind of seeing this mapping out is there’s feminist theory and queer theory and maybe sociological elements, and then there’s theology. And A plus B is spitting out C, which is this vision of a better world. So that may or may not be right. But if that’s what we’re doing, what’s the theology that’s involved in the project? Is it about the trinity? Is it about, suffering or human nature? Or am I totally getting this wrong? 

L:            No. I mean, for me, let’s see. What is the theology? You know, there are probably some motifs that I think are more generative than others. So, you know, the desire for the different and the significance of that; the ways that different parts of teh Bible and Christian thought have quite a range of a range of approaches to questions that might be organized under matters of finitude, for example, or human limitation, human embodiment, the consequences of human embodiment, the real kind of questions that embodiment generates. Like some other scholars in this area, I’ve also thought a bit about … How does the way that these traditions think about food have something to do with the ways that these traditions think about embodiment, including sexuality and relationality. And what’s … I mean, what’s the theology? The theology is about, you know, does God want the creature to live? And does the God want the creature to live with other creatures? And if so, in a finite and fallen world, or however you wanna play that, Right? What what does that actually mean? That seems to me to be quite an essential theological question. Right? And one that, like many theological questions, you know, all our ideas of how things work ought to be tested in our paying very careful attention to what’s going on around us. And, that’s maybe the part that I think we don’t talk enough about. And that’s the kind of thing that lets students come into my classroom talking about the differences between theory and practice, which I find just absolutely heartbreaking. And an incredibly limiting way of constructing a problematic.

               When, you know, you wanna know if something makes a difference, one, try to look for it. Two, try to practice it. See what happens. Don’t imagine that concepts walk around the world by themselves or that back what it is to think. Right? Thinking, as I never tire of repeating, is a bodied practice in every sense. And yeah. So, you know, one we do with other people and in conflict with other people. 

B:            You noted the question before, what are the practices that get us to this place where we are hurting each other just a little less. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I wonder how you think about that. Obviously, scholarship and teaching is probably a big part of your practice. But as you sit with students, how do you enumerate those practices? Because often these questions sort of stay in the abstract. Right? But I presume unless we’re actually thinking and doing simultaneously, we don’t get to the place of a little less violence. 

L:            Well, I have a couple of answers, I think, that are of different kinds. One would be to be raised Seventh day Adventist, as I was, is to be raised with a belief that you are the one who will be persecuted. Which heavily affected my sense of how I ought to think about questions of persecution, even if I now believe differently around that, you know, that question in certain ways. I still think there’s something there where if that’s the direction from which you’re seeing things, you might have a somewhat different attitude than if you understand yourself as a majoritarian participant or practitioner. 

               Another would be if I was describing in the abstract one of the practices, like, a category of practices that I truly believe in. It’s something like practices that are rewarding and bring you great joy, but that you cannot have without something, and maybe in particular people, that you do not feel that same way about being part of them. Right? So that you experientially have a tie between, this is something that really matters to me, that’s important to me, that’s fun, meaningful, however you wanna play that, and I can’t have the thing I want without the thing I hate. I think there are ways in which that’s also part of the key one of the key elements of why certain queer socialities became such generative sites of thinking for so many people. 

H:           How did you come into this work? You’re growing up in Norway and then, like, fast forward, boom, Yale Divinity School Professor Linn Tonstad with the famous books. Like, what happened that you even encountered the queer theory to pair with theology and do this really generative work? 

B:            Can I add a layer of question here too? For those who might not be as familiar as a Seventh day Adventist, can you give us a little thumbnail sketch of what that world might have been like in Norway, at least for you? 

B:            One answer is absolutely I cannot, which is part of what it is to be from a world like that. But one brief way of saying it, Adventism is very international. So I had parents with very different national backgrounds. My mother is from Baghdad and grew up there. My parents met just outside Beirut. My dad’s Norwegian, etcetera, etcetera. They did some of their schooling in the United States. So that was a feature. Right? Like, a very transnational understanding of who you were and very much a small minority in Norway, I think, when I was growing up. 

H: I mean there was a lot of encountering difference there already that you’re having to wrestle with. 

L:            It depends how solidly you build your institutions. 

H:           Very interesting. Which was part of what got me thinking about what it takes to maintain any different way of life because I …

H:           Like a more progressive 

L:            Yeah. I saw the work that went into making certain choices the default. Right? Producing, an encompassing spaces of life so that you could at least theoretically order them the way you thought was right. And however I might assess some of the details of that now, for me, it did feed a lot of the way I came to ask questions later on because I had sort of seen up close the kind of commitment it can take to do things even a little bit differently than people around you do. And I was very interested in that. How do you generate that commitment? How do you, how do you generate that desire? How do you how do you, in a certain sense of … seduce. Right? How do you entice people in? Right? 

               And then I also you know, one of the one another way to describe a Christian story, right, is that we will be different than we are without being different than we are. And we were different than we are without quite being different than we are. And isn’t that an interesting story? Right? 

H:           And we’re back to the mystery of transformation.

L:            And in a mystery … certain sense, it stays, you know, it’s completely different and yet stays the same. So that’s a very interesting …That’s a very interesting way of thinking about what it is to live as the kinds of animals that we are. And I’m interested in a wide range of questions around that. And I think what has made queerness and, you know, we’re  only recently in a place where we distinguish queer and trans as rigorously as we currently do. But, you know, these have been people who have created, not across the board, but in many cases who have created social worlds in which it was possible and maybe even standard, or expected to live differently. You know, I tell the story often these days because it’s forgotten by so many. You know, coming out did not used to mean coming out of the closet. Its reference is coming out into the life. Into a kind of life with other people. That’s how that phrase first circulated.

               And I … the ways in which I love that. And then you have this tragic situation that is also a key origin story for particularly queer theory, which is that people who had, you know, no idea in a certain sense that this is what was happening, you know, died for intimacy. Right? And were taken to be by many, you know, the suffering victim who must be eradicated. Or you cannot be embraced, you cannot be touched. And how thinking happens out of an experience like that, is also … seems very important to me because as the COVID-19 pandemic with its ongoing devastations of so much in ways that we mostly can’t talk about for a variety of reasons. The question of how close we can be with others, the question of how to live with a completely uncontrollable vulnerability that is built into not just our bodie’ susceptibility, but our bodies themselves. We are co-made by viruses. That was quite a challenging right? A lot of our practices have a lot of difficulty allowing for that.

               There’s questions here too of how we think about, you know, the relationship between things that are features that in some way can’t be changed even if they can be differently approached. What we can and can’t control, what we make political and not, where we draw those lines. And these for me are, again, closely connected to these other questions. What does it look like for us to live a little less violently together? 

H:           This reminds me a lot of the way Adrienne Maree Brown thinks about sci-fi and imagining the future. And the way you’re speaking of queer theology, it’s not about just taking down the proof texters and living to fight another day. It’s about casting a vision that’s not just a critique. It’s a fulsome vision for living together. Yeah. 

B:            I wonder what it’s like, to be a teacher and to be a professor and to be with students and to walk with them at varying levels of transformation. I presume some of your students are fully on board and maybe finally, they’re in an academic setting where someone sees them or theology that honors their full dignity. Others are on the fence, I suspect. Like, what may … They’re wrestling, and then maybe others, I don’t know, you tell me, who go in ready for a fight. They come from these more traditional backgrounds. So take us on a journey through the kinds of students you’re working with, and what’s it like to have a front row seat to their grappling and reckoning with, maybe something that’s new for them? 

L:            Well, I mean, they’re the makers of the field going forward. So that the part of it just I feel incredibly lucky to get to be someone who can give them access to an array of resources that they might not have easily found in that way elsewhere and say, Here are some things I think are interesting to think with. What do you do if you think with these and then move on to other things? Right? And so there’s that. 

               But, you know, most students do come into my class expecting something different than they get, of course. Right? And, you know, I the the kind of experience that generated my little queer theology book was, of course, the, Oh, professor, I do see why, you are critical of apologetic arguments, arguments that say it’s okay to be gay and Christian in effect. But, you know, since they’re the only thing that works, you know, and even though my argument is among other things that they don’t work or at least not in the way that one thinks they will. But also, right, they’re expecting a kind of affirmative approach in various ways. And I have that, but I place it very differently. I do not engage with the proof texts in that way because that concedes far too much. I am absolutely not willing to have this debate on that level. 

               For me, even agreeing to do that gives up more than I’m willing to do. 

H:           How would you characterize what that concedes? 

L:            It concedes the deciding rights to other people, among other things, which I just think is absolutely unacceptable. It concedes that the right way to debate around these questions, Christianly, is from the yes or no direction. It presumes an outsiderness to queer and trans Christians that is simply descriptively false among many other things. It also has what I would consider a challenging to defend relationship to biblical texts and, in various ways, possibly even more challenging relationship to different kinds of historical difference. And I just also think that most of the arguments, even ones that I think are on their own terms, on their own merits, relatively successful, are not mostly interesting. 

H:           Are students ever surprised at how much you love not only queer theology, but also the super dead crusty white men of theology? I think that surprised me about you. 

B:            Who were the favorite crusty man? 

H:           Schleiermacher. No?

L:            Yeah. I love that man. I love that man. You know, I visit his grave somewhat regularly, believe it or not. But that’s also …

B:            What do you love about Schliermacher? I’m sorry, it’s been a while. I think his Christmas Eve sermon is probably the last. 

L:            Stunning. It’s stunning.

B:            Stunning. And of course, when–I remember reading it, and my professor just ripped it to shreds. And I thought, well, okay, but this is really quite beautiful, actually. But tell me, like, tell me what you love.

L:            He’s often very badly read, so there’s that too. You know, there’s really almost generations of scholars who were trained to read him exclusively through a certain set of lenses, partly connected with Barth, of course, and who didn’t take seriously that Barth kept Schliermacher as close as he did for a reason. So there’s there … there’s that side. 

H:           But it is true. He’s often like, and if you wanna feel feelings, there’s Schleiermacher.

B:            But then here’s why you shouldn’t really feel feelings. They really don’t matter. 

L:            Well, but and Schleiermacher, you know, he’s also he is very much a thinker of sociality. Right? Very obviously. He’s a thinker of, inadequately in some ways, you know, history and development, but it’s important that they are central to his thinking as they are. He’s also somebody that I think you would take to parties, and I think that’s quite unusual in a theologian. 

H:           That would be a fun game, like a ranking game. Who would you pull up to a party with?

B:            Oh, I’ve writing it down for our next, episode of that. 

L:            Well, you know, the … yeah. The I just think many of us are not the best the most charming party guests. 

H:           Gregory of Nyssa would have been terrible at a party.

L:            Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe. Yeah.

H:           Unless he got really angry. 

L:            Well, you know, interesting. Maybe. Yeah. Unless he got really angry. Well, you know, I mean, I just I have a high tolerance in some ways. I think for the person in the corner at the party who’s like, remember a happy outcome as you watch someone die. That’s the best possible thing that comes from dating. Like, you know, I mean, I so I have a little bit of a … 

H:           Okay. Yeah. There’s a range of, you know, making you feel fun at a party? 

L:            But it’s true that I wouldn’t necessarily wanna be the one to bring him, if that’s …

H:           Okay. Schliermacher, good at a party?

L:            Yeah a Schlamacher also, I like the way that he thinks about being a part of something and being in the world, in several senses. So that’s … I do have … I have a higher tolerance than some, it’s true, for, and tolerance isn’t even the right word. You know, I’ve learned a lot from a variety of different things.

H:           A cherishing is what I am … 

L:            I am … I know because I have a track record now that there are at least some significant ways in which I’m not trying to produce students who think exactly like I do. 

B:            Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

L:            I am far more interested in being interested than I am in having what’s recognizable around me. That’s just a feature. Right? I’m just, I’m much more interested in being surprised. I’m interested in being interested by something rather than everybody kind of being on the same page about things. And, also because I think being on the same page about things is fake and, you know …

H:           Yeah. Boring and probably not real. 

L:            Well, I just you know, one of the first things we talked about in class is that difficult problems are difficult. And you think– if you think the solution to this difficult problem is something that’s very simple and if we just did this thing, then that would be … I am fairly certain it’s not a solution. 

H:           Right. Right. Can I ask you about features a little bit? We’re talking about the creatureliness of humanity and about finitude as an important thing to remember as we theologize. So why is a feature a feature and not a bug, when you talk about humanity and our life together?

L:            Well, you know, many many visions, many utopic visions or visions of transformation, envision harmonious existence as a good bit of the content of that. I think that’s quite challenging to envision, especially in terms of what I just … I think it’s very challenging to envision that on anything more than a relatively small-scale level. And that in relatively small-scale context, there are probably practices that allow for both a little bit of movement in and out and for a kind of transformation of certain kinds of antagonism or a submission of them to other kinds of practices or a kind of sideways movement of them or possibly an externalizing of them. Right? Instead of having antagonism internally, you go after the people the next, you know, whatever over. And, you know, so I think those dynamics are without being meaningfully described as universal, pretty widespread. I think it’s hard to live with other people. I do. And, I’m interested, then, in what these utopic transformative practices mean and look like if I accept antagonism as a feature inside that. 

B:            Mhmm. I wonder how, if at all, does the Trinity feature in any of your thinking or writing in the, in the sense of both difference and unity? Of course, it’s, you know, it’s come to us through the century through a very patriarchal lens, but I wonder if this unity and difference held together somehow features in any way or if you bump up against it and wanna provide a different model. Well, I did write a rather long and highly technical book on that question. My first book was and when I say rather long and highly technical, believe me, those are descriptives. Because, of course, Trinitarian discourse is the kind where even if you’re, you know, you have to prove your fluency to be accepted in as a player, and I’m fluent. And that still did not prevent some, like, Oh, but you put in these other things too. Therefore, I’m pretty sure you’re not really a fluent speaker. 

H:           Because … I mean, if I if I may, I think because you became fluent in Trinitarian technicality-speak and then said, this language has some problems or this language could be improved. 

L:            Yeah. And I tried to show where so, you know, the queer theologian Marcela Althaus Reid talks about God’s exchange rate mechanism, but she also talks about the kind of exchange rates or exchanges in theology where, you know, theology becomes a kind of marketplace and so on. And from there and a few other sources, I took this idea of how theologians kinda make one thing into another through a series of kind of either substitutions or analogies or, you know, language, of course, lives by images. Right? The technical definitional aspects still have to be made vivid in relation and sometimes in distinction from quite specific images. They carry images with them.

               And so I’m also looking at how these moves kind of ramify across a theological field. And, you know, I think … so that’s one thing about what that book is about. But what I’d say in relation to the kind of point that you’re making is that, what difference unity can tolerate is the question that’s not answered there. Yeah. And that’s the real question of that. Right? And that, you know, the these ideas become so abstract at that point that that in a way, what are we … what are we saying? And that, you know, I believe that in trying to use the trinity in analogous ways, a lot of theologians in the second half of the twentieth century ended up importing some problems that they thought pertain to human coexistence and sort of showing how God pre-solves those problems in God’s own being. And I still have, for God language, I am not wanting to do that.

H:           Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it’s categorically the wrong move to try to backtrack into the trinity what we want social answers to be?

L:            Mostly, yeah. I call it corrective projectionism. I’m there’s this weird Lutheran side to me. Right? So I have a very, like, pro me. Right? Like, what does God do for us, rather than, you know, how can I see myself in God or something like that? Yeah. And, you know, that’s … I take image of God language and especially its significance to the history of the tradition rather than to biblical languages quite seriously. But I also think there’s so much else. Right? And that it’s, you know, I … as I understand it, and I know many people see this very differently. But as I understand it, the interest in God is, does God change things for us in any way? Not does God share my struggles, even if the changing might include within it, as I think it does, a certain kind of sharing of struggles. But for me, I think that sharing is just not particularly meaningful without the changing. 

B:            Yeah. As long as we’re talking about changing, I can remember, my very first class at YDS, was queer theology with Lettie Russell. And it was incredibly destabilizing having come from a very traditional Roman Catholic background. And it took me the better part of the semester to go, Oh, I think I understand what you’re trying to offer to me, and I think there’s actually a lot of joy and hope here that I was not able to see. But the process of learning for me and encountering queer theology was destabilizing to say the least. Angry. Like, what have I been given? You’re critiquing me. You’re critiquing everything I .. but, right? And I’m really thankful for that experience. And I wonder what … how do you work with the destabilization that you see in your students in the classroom. Because it’s necessary. It’s part of learning, growing, and the transformation we’re talking about. And there’s more at stake there when that happens versus, I don’t know, a standard history class where I’m just kinda learning maybe some facts of history.

L:            So … Oh, yeah. I mean, these are real. These tend to be without, you know, these things can happen in many kinds of classrooms, but this is a particular kind of classroom that tends to bring in a rather more, concentrated, right, like, selection of folks who have some of those desires and fears, I suppose, too in some ways. And, you know, it’s an incredibly difficult course to teach. And I never know how it’s gonna be difficult before the semester starts. Each and every time I’ve done it since the first time in, I think, 2013, has been difficulties I didn’t anticipate. No matter what, I did not see that that was gonna be the place where the difficulty would emerge. So one thing is I’ve sort of given up on building in, right, like, defenses against all difficulties because I do not see them in a dance. You know? I just … I don’t … I did not know that that was gonna be the way that this …

               But, you know, I also try to be comfortable with that. Right? And to, I’m less you know, I’m also not actively trying to destabilize even though I understand that that will likely happen as it has for me in many cases, and that I have valued greatly what has happened when I’ve learned that I thought in ways that I no longer want to think or maybe even ways that were really wrong about something. You know, it’s painful in the moment, but it’s so freeing in the long run. And it is a way of, you know, staying with things that I think is really important. I’ll even talk with students who want to stay in school about how you have to find it desirable that other people know more than you do. Because choosing to stay in school means choosing to be around an increasingly select, you know, narrowed group of people who know more than you do about just about anything and in fact, everything, cumulatively. Right?

               And if you don’t like that, this might not be the right environment. Right? And then, of course, you know, the first time I read Marcel Althouse Reid, for example, who I still think of as the most important queer theologian for various reasons. I don’t know if I should use this word, but I thought it was … I thought it was kind of BS. Right? Like, I was like, this is not rigorously worked through enough. It’s not, you know, it’s too associative. It’s too sideways. And then I read her real hard for a long time and came to understand what she was doing quite differently than that. But I still remember what it felt like to have that reaction.

H:           That’s so so so interesting. 

B:            Can I ask this question? You used a word that has come up for me a lot. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, rigor. I know there’s a whole iceberg underneath that word. Both probably some beautiful aspects and maybe some some pieces you might wanna let go of. If you’ve noticed yourself let go of, you tell me. But this like, we often especially around here, “There’s no rigor.” And we use that to mean it doesn’t look a certain way. So say more say more.

L:             Yeah. I, I am very invested in rigor. That’s true. Very. I’m constantly trying to expand my understanding of what rigor means and what it looks like without giving up the idea of it. I think we make a huge mistake if we give up because, you know, another word for rigor is, it is a site where intentionality has been deposited. You’re doing things on purpose. You’re doing them in some sense for reasons, and reasons can mean a really wide array of things here. But you’re doing them on purpose in some sense. And, you know, I again, as a the kind of theological thinker that I tend to be, I don’t think we have a lot of transparency in ourselves. But I still think that doing things in some sense on purpose is part of the practices of engaging with each other. And I … you know, rigor is a way to talk about the highly refined doing of that. 

               Now, of course, has it been used mistakenly as a cudgel against me on occasion? Absolutely. Right? 

H:           And in things like the Trinitarian language games. If you break the rules.

L:            Mhmm. Absolutely. And, I just, I’m okay with having that fight. You know? I will fight for my understanding of rigor and have done so on more than one occasion. And in rigor that is being directed at me to also, I think, show its limitations. And that is also interesting. 

               But I do think we make a mistake when we seige rigor. I recognize many people feel differently about that or think differently about that, but I yeah. I want us to think real hard about things and to, on purpose, take certain risks and to make each other’s time in a certain sense worthwhile, which doesn’t mean seeking a particular kind of outcome, but it does mean putting in a certain kind of … a certain amount of vulnerability, risk-taking, and thoughtfulness. Yeah. You know, some of that is there whether or not we want it to be. Anyway, so you might as well try and do some of it on purpose. 

H:           Right. Right. 

B:            Alright. These last five questions have nothing to do with theology, but they do have to do with creatureliness. So I guess they have everything … 

H:           Thinking in your body, I guess? 

B:            Definitely. These are embodied questions. Your favorite snack? 

L:            So this one’s slightly awkward, because snack is the nickname I use for my partner. 

H:           So the question answers itself.

B:            I’m gonna prop and move onto my second question. The weirdest thing in your refrigerator. 

L:            I don’t think it’s weird, but it’s something maybe slightly less common to find would be amba. 

B:            Oh, what’s that? 

L:            Sort of sour mango sauce that’s affiliated with some, Middle Eastern, North African cooking styles. Cool. It’s really good, especially if you have yeah. Anyway. 

B:            The strangest job you’ve had before this one. 

B:            I had a lot of random jobs, for many, many years before I finished grad school. For a very long time I worked at a hospital, sort of doing data entry and also helping to, you know, run and manage studies. But the weirdest job, None of them were that weird, I guess. Like, delivering newspapers, you know, radio, medical transcription, supermart– working in a supermarket. Yeah. 

H:           I feel like this qualifies just because most of us aren’t imagining the titan of theology, you know, doing data entry. 

B:            Oh, I had the Newsies cap on.

H:           Yeah. Were you singing while you did all of these things? Was it a musical? 

L:            In a Norwegian winter, of course. Yes. On my bicycle? 

H:           There you go. I see. That’s an appropriate amount of whimsy. 

B:            This one will be interesting. This one gets … this one, I bet you will take theologically. Any bad habit you’re willing to share? 

L:            A tendency when I think I see, like, a solution or something to, like, just lay it out there immediately and be like, Let me help you. Which is very and it often is, kind of condescending. And, the timing can be very bad, and it can be hurtful to people. And also, a lot of the time, they’re way more clever than I am. And I kind of see myself in a mirror that I find very embarrassing. So that is the first but it’s one thing. 

H:           I feel like it’s coming from the place of being a helper, though. 

L:            Yeah. But, it’s very dangerous to think of oneself as a helper. 

H:           Yeah. I see that. 

B:            And finally, the smallest hill you’ll die on. For ex … I’m gonna give you mine.

H:           Okay. I was actually just wondering when I read –we’ve never asked each other. 

B:            Well, this one actually has some Northern European import. 

H:           Is it something about food? 

B:            Swedish fish are disgusting. I’ve said it. There it is. I’m not sure they’re  Swedish, and they’re not fish, and they’re barely edible. 

L:            If and to the extent that you really want that one, the deliciousness of salty licorice is in fact a hill that I as a Scandinavian would happily die of. 

B:            You heard it here first. 

L:            Absolutely.

B:            So I think we need to get some and have a taste testing. 

H:           Agreed. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. 

L:            Thanks so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.

H:           Well, that was just fabulous. 

B:            Expansive conversation. 

H:           And perfect for pride month. 

B:            Perfect for pride month. You could just see how much, intense passion and joy she has. You could imagine Linn being amazing in a classroom. 

H:           Yeah. Well, I found from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a collect written for Pride Sunday by the Reverend Kay Sylvester who’s at Saint Paul’s in Destin. So I think I’ll pray us out. 

B:            Pray us out.

H:           God of all creation, you have made us in your image, a rainbow of every color, culture, gender expression, language, orientation, and nation. Grant that when we look at one another, we may see you expressed in another language of love. Grant that we may honor your holy presence in every life. We pray because of Jesus who shows us the way. Amen. 

B:            Amen. 

H:           Thanks for listening to the Leaders Way podcast. You can learn more about this episode at berkleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast. Follow along with us on Instagram at theleadersway.podcast.

B:            And you can rate and review us on your podcast app and be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode. And if you liked this episode, please share it with a friend. 

H:           Until next time.

B:            Peace be with you.