Sacred Queer Stories

An invaluable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling, a key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies.Presenting the deeply moving personal life stories of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees in Nairobi, Kenya alongside an analysis of the process in which they creatively engaged with two Bible stories - Daniel in the Lions' Den (Old Testament) and Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery (New Testament) - Sacred Queer Stories explores how readings of biblical stories can reveal their experiences of struggle, their hopes for the future, and their faith in God and humanity. Arguing that the telling of life-stories of marginalised people, such as of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, affirms embodied existence and agency, is socially and politically empowering, and enables human solidarity, the authors also show how the Bible as an authoritative religious text and popular cultural archive in Africa is often used against LGBTQ+ people but can also be reclaimed as a site of meaning, healing, and empowerment. The result of a collaborative project between UK-based academics and a Nairobi-based organisation of Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees, the book provides a valuable insight into the narrative politics and theologies of LGBTQ+ life-storytelling. A key text for those in African Humanities, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, and Refugee Studies, among others, the book expresses an innovative methodology of inter-reading queer life-stories and biblical stories.

Sacred Queer Stories is a daring exposition of the relationship between LGBTQ+ experiences and religious stories that need to be further explored. Aside from recounting personal stories, the text has become an indispensable landmark for alternative interpretations of religious texts in Africa that position such texts as friendly and corrective rather than horrific and repelling, [A] remarkable example of academic research that centers the decolonization and democratization of a field of knowledge and its creators.

ADRIAAN VAN KLINKEN is Professor of Religion and African Studies, University of Leeds and Director of the Leeds University Centre for African Studies and of the Centre for Religion and Public Life. His books include Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism and Arts of Resistance in Africa (Penn State University Press, 2019), Religions in Contemporary Africa: An Introduction (co-authored with Laura Grillo and Hassan Ndzovu; Routledge, 2019) and Transforming Masculinities in African Christianity: Gender Controversies in Times of AIDS (Ashgate, 2013) (Routledge, 2019). He is Co-Chair, African Religions Group, American Academy of Religion, Executive editor of Religion and Gender and a member of the editorial boards of Religion; Reading Religion; African Journal of Gender and Religion and Journal of Africana Religions. JOHANNA STIEBERT is Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Leeds and Deputy Head of School (School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science). She is the author of Rape Myths, the Bible, and #MeToo (Routledge, 2020), First-Degree Incest and the Hebrew Bible: Sex in the Family (Bloomsbury T&T Clark 2016) and co-editor of The Bible, Centres and Margins: Dialogues Between Postcolonial African and British Biblical Scholars (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018). She is on the editorial boards of Journal for Biblical Studies, Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies and Oguaa: Journal of Religion and Human Values. SEBYALA BRIAN is co-founder of The Nature Network, the first LGBTIQ refugee organization in Nairobi. Sebyala is Coordinator, with overall management of the organisation. FREDRICK HUDSON is co-founder of The Nature Network, the first LGBTIQ refugee organization in Nairobi. Frederick is responsibile for communications and media strategy. He is also a Research assistant on a project headed by the University of Leeds.