Queer Communion
Religion in Appalachia
The earnest, spirited essays of Queer Communion highlight the contradictions and unexpected blessings of squaring queerness with Christianity in Appalachia.
Herein, thirteen authors muse on family ties, shifting identity, and rejecting or embracing religion. Savannah Sipple regrets not coming out to her late grandmother and decides to leave her Kentucky hometown “to build a life for myself.” Mack Rogers wonders if the concept of a heavenly father can assuage disappointment with Christian hypocrisy and his pious father’s failures to support him. Emma Cieslik prizes her grandmother’s rosary and embraces folk magic, but distances herself from Catholicism.
Baptism is both metaphor and landmark event in these coming-of-age and coming-out stories. John Golden pairs an erotic interpretation of Jesus’s baptism with an account of their own reconciliation of queerness and faith after a rafting trip. Shoulders grew up in Tennessee with a preacher father; though he no longer attends church, he still finds Christian rituals meaningful, and he organized a river baptism for his thirtieth birthday.
Jarred Johnson’s “Role Play” contrasts the performative nature of worship services and masculinity with the playfulness of his drag act. Joe Tolbert, Jr.‘s intersectional experience inspired his ministry to gender-nonconforming people of color. He affirms the Bible’s image of the church as a body with diverse members: “What reflections of the divine do we miss when we sever parts of ourselves” and exclude queer people? he asks.
The tone varies between mournful and defiant. A few authors incorporate local dialect. From Raychel Kool’s opening abecedarian poem, “Home is,” to the lyricism of Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza’s closing piece, “Scraps,” a poetic sensibility reigns. The language of hymns threads throughout, retaining power even when the underlying doctrine does not.
The essays of Queer Communion explode easy binaries, shedding light on the crossovers between faith and sexuality.
Reviewed by
Rebecca Foster
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