Education, queer theology, and spiritual development: disrupting heteronormativity for inclusion in Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith schools. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Henry, Seán
• Is Part Of: International journal of children's spirituality. Volume 23:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 16
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Heteronormativity -- inclusive faith schools -- youth identity -- spiritual development -- queer theology; Moral education -- Periodicals; Religious education -- Periodicals; Spirituality -- Periodicals; Children -- Religious life -- Periodicals; 155.25
• DOI: 10.1080/1364436X.2017.1410697
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1364-436X

Abstract

Abstract: Voices critiquing heteronormativity in faith schools often rely on an understanding of such schools as arbiters for heteronormative religious orthodoxies. Many proponents of Jewish, Muslim and Christian schools offer compelling responses to such claims by providing inclusive perspectives on faith schooling. By applying a queer reading of temporality to a critique of the latter body of work, this paper will argue that these perspectives, despite their commitments to inclusion, have affinities with logics of heteronormativity through their appeal to a language of hospitality that reproduces adherence to heteronormative binaries and identity frames as originary and normative. From here, the paper will suggest that queer theology's understanding of the transcendent in relation to immanence offers resources for reframing discussions around heteronormativity and faith schools in ways that speak to the inclusive commitments of those critiqued in this paper, while also eschewing reproductive determinism as a basis for understanding spiritual development.