Called and Queer: Lived Religion and LGBTQ Methodist Clergy in South Africa (2024)

This book is the first in-depth study of the lived experiences of queer Christian clergy in an African context. Using a queer lived religion framing, it draws on ethnographic research to analyse how six LGBTQ clergy understand and practice their vocation in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA). Seemingly marginalised in a denomination which maintains that marriage is only between one man and one woman, this book explores why LGBTQ clergy are motivated to live out their calling in the Church and how they make sense of their positions within it. In doing so, it looks beyond an analysis of a Church based on its official and doctrinal institutional positions on queer people and sexualities and, instead, uncovers the taken-for-granted ways that gender and sex are inscribed in 'the way we do things around here'. This book is relevant to students and researchers in gender and sexuality studies, African religious studies, and sociology of religion.