Queering Holy Week: A Primer

For Holy Week, I will take up a new project titled, “Queering the Stations of the Cross(es).” In the last few months, beautiful artwork on LGBTQ Stations have emerged; as well as a specifically Trans-queering the Stations of the Cross. These are wonderful additions to the Christian imagination surrounding Holy Week and the Stations. For my project, I want to broadly define queer and find more ruptures in the text and tradition that include, but are not limited to LGBTQQIAAP+ theory/theology. For this reason, I am using David Halerpin’s definition of queer,

“by definition, whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers… ‘Queer’…demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative—a positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men” (p. 62).

In other words, queer destabilizes all sense of norms. It does this not for its own sake; rather, for a clearer (queerer) sense of the world we live in. Presently, essences categorize and suffocate the Earth (nature, animals, who gets to rule) and humanity (heteronormativity, racist perceptions). Just as one’s eye color differs from another, so do our tastes, sexualities, epistemologies, and much more. Queering disrupts the status quo and brings discomforts us. Isn’t this what religion attempts to do or at least certain movements of it?

The season of Lent, especially the Stations of the Cross, needs queering. Sacrificing meals or praying once a day comforts one’s spiritual life. Problematizing and queering the stations of the cross invites us to see our tradition with fresh eyes.

So won’t you please join me in “Queering the Stations of the Cross(es)”?