The Queer Faith Tensions: A Poetic Inquiry into the Privacy of the 'Inner Worlds' of African Closeted Queer Clergy

Abstract

This article argues that poetic inquiry is a valuable method for unmasking the interior religious experiences of African closeted queer clergy. It demonstrates how poetic inquiry could function as analytic tool for the decolonisation, reclamation, reinsertion and reconstitution of the closeted queer cleric's belonging in African religio-cultural spaces in which their sexualities are been exorcised and alienated. It also makes visible the ongoing complexities of closeted queer clergy and the processes of interrogating their faith tensions through negotiating and subverting ecclesiastical and cultural alienations. Finally, it shows how closeted queer clergy interpret Christian faith as a tool for lived faith tensions between uncertainty and hope; fear and resistance; alienation and belonging; rejection and acceptance.

Keywords: African Christianity; Closeted queer clergy; Faith tensions; Poetic inquiry; Well-being.