Soulforce Podcast Channel

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:00

Teología Sin Vergüenza roughly translates as shameless theology in English, and it’s a digital media platform and space that originally was done in Spanish. It was a direct response to the total monopoly that the far right has on all religious programming, at that time both social media, TV, and radio on anything having to do with religion. We created it as a space for folks who live at the intersections of queer or trans feminist theology, people of faith and activists to come together to have real conversations with theologically trained folks about real life issues that are happening to us today. Whether it’s divorce, sex and pleasure, gender identity, abortion, this was a place where all of those taboo topics could be talked about with real people in real time who have knowledge of the Bible, theology, Christian tradition, and are ordained clergy for some folks.

00:00

So what makes it special? Well, one of the main things we’re doing is bridging the divide between silos of work like the academy or the church or activism. Another place that makes us really unique is that we talk to folks across the spectrum. From folks who are Pentecostal, evangelical, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, you name it, we’ve got it. Folks who currently identify within a Christian denomination and folks who are spiritual and religious outside of the institution. We try to talk about things that other places don’t allow you to speak up about. We try to heal some of the wounds of the global North and all of the toxic theology that we’ve been exporting through colonizing religion for centuries.

02:02

We work from a horizontal place in community. It’s a space where we welcome conversation and difference, knowing that we will find a place of common ground, that when we learn from each other and each other’s strategies and how each other lives, that we can find places to move forward together. We already take it for granted that the people that we’re talking to deserve to be heard and listened to. We have theological education. We have different places within this fight for liberation, whether it’s from being a professor in an institution, to being an activist on the ground, or an artivist, or a pastor. All of us come together into this space and each week we focus on one individual person, their lived experience as somebody from Latin America or in the diaspora. And we talk about what is alive and well for them in their work, in their hearts, in their spirits. We don’t come into it with a preconceived notion of what we need to talk about, what we need to get done. We focus on what’s alive, what corresponds with what’s happening in the world, and not in a way that folks have to defend their existence, but rather combines education theologically trained people with whatever’s going on in their particular world. Whether it’s in a foreign country, whether it’s in the US, we are having this conversation.

03:30

And this is the first season that we’re doing it in English, and that’s because we recognize that there are a lot of folks who are part of the Latin American diaspora who don’t have access to Spanish, either as their first language or because their families have spoken other languages. We’re trying to show with our actions what is happening in the world in real time. When we stop paying attention to borders as barriers, when we stop thinking that somebody who thinks differently than us or believes differently than us or has a more complex story to tell is somehow less worthy than those who feel like they have it all figured out and have a monotone narrative to tell.

04:12

We’re also intentionally biased. We’re trying to back up the work of human rights and the struggles for liberation all across the globe through this work. So we know that we’re coming to it with a particular lens and a particular experience as queer and trans people, as activists, as folks who have spent a lot of time and energy doing deep reflection about the critical issues of our time and have things to say about how we might approach those. We feel like through this interview style that’s very conversational, like coffee at the dining room table in the afternoon when someone comes to visit, that we have this way of understanding the whole person. Maybe not every detail of their story, but at least we’re coming to this point of seeing what they are inspired by. What keeps them up at night? What are the things that they’re working on to make this world a better place? This is a way that we’re trying to move through time together and bridge the gaps and the silos that we’ve been created to live into over and over and over again. We are rooted in experience and in practice and in praxis and we theorize about the real world and what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.

05:29

The point is we’re trying to get at decolonial faith. We’re trying to understand what it means to separate the political agenda of weaponized religion from actual faith. That is true to our traditions. Whether it is recovering Christianity, whether it is mixing it with other forms of spirituality or whether it’s setting it aside and having an intelligent conversation about what happened and how we got to this place. There are experts in certain fields, but we are all the experts of our own lives. So this space, that for the first time ever is in English, we hope expands the field of theological education on a real kind of conversational basis that helps folks understand that there is so much brilliance coming out of Latin America and the global South, and that many of us who have Latin American roots are still here in the US in diaspora, and we have a lot to contribute to the conversation.

06:36

TSV started out of a very specific conversation when I was meeting with feminists in Costa Rica, but I wanna tell you the story because it’s a repetition of a similar story that I could tell for many, many countries across the globe when I’m having these conversations. I was visiting a seminary in Costa Rica and after our daily conversations, I got invited out to dinner with a group of young Costa Rican feminists. And the similar thing happens over and over again where we sit through a really intense but wonderful conversation that starts with, “okay, but tell me about the rib.” And then it goes on from there to ask about Paul, the submission of women, the Bible and Christian theology in general. Underneath that conversation where I answer about appropriate translations, the weaponization of the text for the purposes of patriarchy, where I talk about how politics and religion actually totally go together, and that the Bible is actually a very political book that has a lot of opinions about how we should behave in a political world, it always ends at the same place:

07:56

“I didn’t know that I could be both feminist or queer and a Christian. This thing that you’re saying, are you the only one who believes it or are there others like you?” And then the hurt is always revealed of folks who have felt like they had to choose between the lifesaving work of human rights or their religion. And that’s the moment of truth for me because it says, and they always hear the same thing, “Where can I go for more? How can I learn more about this way of thinking about God, this way of reading the Bible? This kind of analysis?” And the truth is, particularly when we’re not speaking in English, there’s very little that’s super accessible for people just to be able to tap into for free, to learn more about this. And of course that’s intentional because that’s the way religion of power works. So Teología Sin Vergüenza started in direct response to that question, “how do we create more accessible content for human rights defenders, for L-G-B-T-Q-I, people for feminists, and for others who have a faith but it doesn’t quite square with the world around them and what they’re seeing, and what they need from God, the Bible, and theology in this moment?

09:15

So from there we took it to, “I know some friends who have their theological training and who are queer and or feminist. What if we just recorded conversations?” And then those people invited other people, and it organically grew. Now across every Spanish speaking country in Latin America and across many states in the US. Many episodes of beautiful conversations, and now for the first time in English. So if you’re somebody who is navigating gender, sexuality, faith, family, the current issues of the day, and you wanna be in community with others, we welcome you into the space of Teología Sin Vergüenza, a space for folks to come, to sit at the table, to talk over coffee, to share a little bit of chisme, a little bit of knowledge, and a lot of love for our people and for the future world that we wanna see for all of us.

09:16

Bienvenides!

Axis Mundi 00:07

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing, I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer, trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere we do our work, in the academy, in the church, in our homes and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy queer feminist Latina theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair, because you belong here. Now, let’s get down to pleasure. Welcome to this episode of TSV. Today, we’re going to hear from a really special guest, Reverend Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz, who was my co-conspirator in creating Teología Sin Vergüenza more than five years ago. Reverend Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and she has done everything from being a lawyer to a performing artist, educator and practical theologian. Right now, Lis works as Associate Professor of homiletics and worship and the Director of Community worship life at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt University, and has studied at Princeton, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Puerto Rico. Her research is in preaching, worship, performance studies and queer decolonial perspectives. This is a real treat.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 02:22

Hello!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:27

Hello! I feel like we should be like bienvenides a Teología Sin Vergüenza, teología cuir feminista que hace fluir la justicia.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 02:36

Yes.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:37

Okay, so we are going to just get into a conversation today, because you are the original sinvergüenza. And it feels really important to revisit this is our, we have eight seasons and 70 something episodes in Spanish of this podcast, and this is the first time we’re finally getting to English, and so I’m hoping that in our conversation we’ll just get we’ll be able to talk a little bit more about what is Teología Sin Vergüenza, what is this thing that folks who are listening for the first time getting into, what have we been up to? And we can’t possibly do that without starting with you, because you and I were the original sinvergüenzas that started this whole thing back in 2020, for the podcast. So let’s start how we used to start, which is, I am Reverend Sex, also known as Alba Onofrio. I am in Mexico City right now, and I am so excited to have you with us today. Tell me. Tell me you.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 03:42

Hi. I’m Lis Valle, sometimes known as Sofía Divinatrix, and I am in Chicago, Illinois, north of the United States. I’m so glad to be here with you.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 03:56

I know it’s so strange speaking in English also.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 03:59

It’s also very Yes, exactly. I have to be mindful not to switch.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 04:06

That’s okay. We’ll switch, and we’ll switch back, just like we did when we were in Spanish and somebody started speaking English. We’ll just rewind and redo. But, okay, so tell us a little bit about you and your connection to me and Teología Sin Vergüenza. And we what is sinvergüenza? Like, tell us anything you want to. And then we’ll jump into like, What is sinvergüenza and all that stuff. But you go, what do you want to take? What should we tell our audience?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 04:33

I think we start with, I identify myself as a sinvergüenza, sinvergüenza shameless and sinvergüenza, yes, I self-identify as a shameless person because my grandma used to call me when I was a little kid.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 04:52

What is it tell us for you? What does sinvergüenza mean, and when was it used in the context of your life?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 04:58

Yes, in Puerto Rico sinvergüenza as a single word, right as a single word “sinvergüenza” is a person who is is mischievous like, it doesn’t um, a person without manners, really. It’s when an adult says to a child, you are a sinvergüenza it’s that the child is misbehaving, is not having good manners, and it should behave. So I was always a misbehaved child. I guess, I, with my adult eyes, I think, with my adult interpretation, I think I always found out that they were rules because I broke them. That’s how I found out that there were rules. I just I was a free-spirited person. Some people might not believe that about myself, but once upon a time, I was and and then I found out that there were rules. And that’s how you know, adults would like, tell me, “No, there’s a rule against that” and then make my life miserable by letting me know that there was a rule against that. And then, um, yeah, shaped me into a not so free-spirited person, and teach me, you know, what a good Christian was, especially a good girl, Christian woman, Christian girl, Christian woman, eventually. And that totally messed up with my mojo. Yes, that’s a long story about my life, but that, yeah, sinvergüenza. And then, you know, two words would mean without shame, which I did carry a lot of shame for a long time, and sometimes it, you know, creeps back because, you know, trauma healing is a lifelong journey. Yeah. It’s not a single it’s not a linear process. It comes and goes. But here we are claiming that we are still a shameless person, a sinvergüenza, who do, who does sinvergüenzuras. Still misbehaving, especially to dismantle patriarchy in religious spaces, and to dismantle heterosexism and heteronormativity and all of that stuff that Teología Sin Vergüenza, since the beginning, has been against.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 07:15

Yes, it’s so true. And sinvergüenza, in a lot of contexts, is a highly gendered and sexualized term. Like, it very much reminds me of this, like you, your shirt, your skirt’s too short, and your mouth is too loud and you have a little bit too many opinions. And so if

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 07:35

Your legs are too spread apart, your legs. You have to sit like a lady!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 07:43

Yes, the closest thing I have in English growing up in the South was like, “have you no shame?”. Like, “young lady have you no shame?” Like, that was we don’t have that beautiful sinvergüenza word that really captures all that. But the closest we have was that phrase, which was just like, if you didn’t have shame, it was telling you that you better go find that shame because you’ve misplaced it. Because you’re supposed to have shame about whatever the thing is that you’re doing at this moment.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 08:10

But isn’t that so accurate? Right? Because what they do is to place shame on you, and through shame, they control your social behavior, and it’s real shame. It’s real shame that you can’t it’s so hurtful. Yeah, it damages the soul.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 08:27

Yes, amen. And I think that’s why we picked that name, because it was like, the wrong people have this wrong it’s the wrong people who are carrying the shame, and we shouldn’t be shamed, or feel shame or guilt around our sexuality or our faith or our activism or pushing back and not being compliant with systems of oppression. The people who should be feeling shame are the people who are perpetuating these systems of harm, and yet we’re the ones called like being called out because we’re not holding the right social norms that are expected of us. So I think that was part, I don’t know what you remember five long years ago in the middle of pandemic lockdown, but that felt like one of the things that are kind of themes of both of our lives. That we kind of connected with going to school together in Nashville and having that moment of learning about each other and really different contexts where we come from and like how we grew up, but yet so much the same in terms of the shame that we’ve experienced around gender and sexuality in confronting these systems and having to heal and come out of the closet again and again and again from that shame and guilt that was put on us to try to try to control our social behavior.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 09:45

Yes, I remember too, that there were three things that were important. So, yeah, when we started, well, we started planning before the pandemic hit. Yes. But then when the pandemic hit, I remember that we kind of rushed things to get it out, because it’s like people are indoors, so, this is, this is the time to do it. And then we had a lot of time, a lot of a hard time inviting people to record because, of course, people were more worried about other things. We were in the middle of a pandemic. People were worried about life and death things, which these things are we we can get that soon. So then that’s why we went live. We started, instead of going pre-recorded, we started going live because that made more sense for people than pre-recording. But three things that we were looking for that that you did some research, and you were like, “Lis, Lis, I’m having a hard time finding people that can, people find weird, that we, very comfortably connect activism and theology and queerness.” Yes! In Latin America. Maybe the United States, that’s not so odd, but you were around the world doing this, the work that you do in Latin America, and people were like, wait, but you’re an activist and Christian, wait, but you are queer and Christian, but you are the three in one? Like, how is that? And that was part of what kind of moved us into creating this space to have conversations and also to introduce one another to our friends who are those three things, the three in one kind of thing?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 11:28

Yes, I was because, well, I mean, it’s been an intentional monopoly by the far right, in addition to exporting resources and like Sunday school lessons and sermon seeds, has been to control and completely monopolize Spanish language media channels. And that was where we were, like, you know, there’s books, there’s tons of brilliant, beautiful academic work being done, but like, accessible in like conversation style, listen talk, you know, really easily accessible for everyday people, even in rural places, even for people who can’t afford fancy books. And so we’re like, let’s just start talking to our friends ’cause I know some people, you know some people. And you were like, the Spirit told me, we need to do Facebook live.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 12:15

Yes, I remember that! I was like, it was from the spirit!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:19

You were like, the Spirit told me. And I was like, Lis, I’ve never even been on Facebook Live. I’ve never seen one. You’re like, well, open it up. Let’s get started. So here we are, five years later. How was how were those seasons for you? We took a little break last year because we did the international queer feminist theology encounter here in Mexico City with folks from like 13 countries celebrating the first three years of Teología Sin Vergüenza. But as you reflect back on so many, I mean, more than 70 episodes. We went to Cuba. We went to Costa Rica. We have done things online all over the place. What, what stands out? Or what do you think is like one of the lasting takeaways from that content, for folks who maybe didn’t get to hear it the first time in Spanish?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 13:08

For me, it was life-giving to be part of the the first, I don’t know how many seasons I was part of, and then the comebacks every now and then. Thank you for inviting me to be part of the of the Cuba season. Cuba, as they say in English, they say Cuba. It’s been life-giving. People who know me have have seen, like, when you are in those episodes, you are alive! And it’s like, and it’s true, it’s too bad that I my job consumed me, and I turned my, my time and energy into paying the bills. But these,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 13:39

As many of us have had to do!

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 13:41

Yeah, but, but this, this job is, is very life giving to me, and I hope it was for the many people that went through the show, that came as guests, I mean, and it was for me very life-giving that eventually we started having, like we started to know, by name, the regular listeners. Because especially the beginning when it was live, you know, we could see the comments that they were making at the same time that we Were speaking. And it was conversation with with the guests, right? So we would see who was making what comments. So we started like, learning by by name, knowing by name our followers. So that was very, very amazing. And I think, I think that relates to something we were talking about, off off air earlier, about home. That during the pandemic, I found that home for me was spread around the globe. Yes, I didn’t find home in Chicago, where I live, I didn’t find I I didn’t find home in Puerto Rico, where I’m from. My My home, my people were spread around the world. And, and the thing is that there are very few in numbers, wherever they are. Wherever we are. So, like, and so that that need that we found back then, I have found that in the United States, yeah, there’s a lot of you can find a lot of people that are very comfortable being queer and Christian, and usually they’re white. Usually people of color are like a Christians, like churches that are churches of people of color, like black churches, Latino churches. I don’t know a lot about, like Korean American churches or Korean churches, but they tend to be very conservative churches, and they cannot fathom the idea that Christians can be queer or that queers can be Christian. And so I have found that there’s, or activists. It’s like they think politics and religion don’t mix, and so that the need for have those conversations, that those three things can coexist in a single person is real among communities of people of color in the United States as well.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 16:12

Yeah, I think that so like that gets at what we’re doing, which is one of the questions I was thinking about, was like, what’s going to make this season in English different? And I think part of that is this, like in Latin America, we found not a single soul who didn’t understand that religion was critical to whatever was happening in activism, in the world, in politics, like religion was right there, and particularly Christianity, because that’s the religion of power in our hemisphere, was like right there. And lots of countries are even confessionally Christian, or Catholic or whatever. And here we have kind of this myth in the mainstream that there’s a separation of church and state, and there’s this, all this mythology around it. But I think in our communities, particularly immigrant communities, and those of us who are like first generation and still very connected to those past. That that part about being in diaspora from land and people that you’re from, and also being in diaspora because you are queer or because you’re a feminist or an activist and those things not mixing in the intentionally created conservative denominations that our people come into when they come into this country. I think it’s really important that we talk about that because, you know, rainbows in general, at least in my experience, like first for communities who have been out forever, they’re like, oh my god, the rainbows. Roll your eyes. But whenever I go throughout the world, in the Global South, rainbows are still really important, like people get really hyped. And I think the same thing is true in our communities here, that it’s like, it’s still a really brave thing. And I think now, as politics is getting more and more difficult. It feels less like a foregone conclusion that you can just have rainbows and be out as queer or trans anywhere. But I think in our communities, it’s always been true that to be queer and or feminist and a person of faith in in your community, in your faith community, which houses so much of your culture and your language and your people when they immigrate to this to the US from other places, like, that’s still a very scary and brave thing. Because it it actually has very real consequences for most of our lives in terms of whether or not we’re going to continue to be accepted in a place that’s like home, even if we’re in diaspora. So I feel like queer people, activists, feminists and, like, immigrant people, we have those parallels. And I don’t know a lot about other immigrant communities more beyond, like, people whose roots come from Latin America, but I feel that resonance deeply of like the colonizer with its colonizing religion, made us kin, and then, so, in some of those ways, it feels like maybe in English, this will help us see each other a little bit more. Or at least, like, come out of the closet to be like this is still a very real ongoing concern for a whole bunch of us. Not, it’s not just a foregone conclusion that, like, we just go to the next church down the way that is inclusive or does welcome you and your partner or whatever. Like, that’s not true, that for us in the same way.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 19:18

No, it’s not. No, have you heard the term sexiled?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 19:23

No, tell me about it.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 19:27

I’m not an expert in the concept, but a friend of mine told me about sexiled, and it makes sense to me, because I have a lot of friends who left Puerto Rico even before me, way before me, because when they come, when they came to terms with their own sexual orientation and they wanted to be ministers, and they knew that in Puerto Rico they couldn’t be ministers and queer. Yes. Back then, when they left, they couldn’t be Christians and queer. Yeah. Even today, just I was having a conversation today with a with a religious leader in Puerto Rico, and he was telling me, like, there are things that in Puerto Rico, they still, you know, like in seminaries in Puerto Rico, he couldn’t teach. Like, conservatives are taking over the island in the same ways that they are taking over the United States. So sexiles are people who left Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico is more than an island, many islands, left Puerto Rico because of their sexual orientation, so they can live freely their sexuality without fear. So they became, so they exiled themselves. They became part of the diaspora because of their sexual orientation. Which is a different reason than in my case. I became part of the diaspora, because of other reasons. I thought, I thought it was, it was, you know, it was because I was running away from a very bad marriage, even though it was over, the marriage. But then I later found out that it was part of a social phenomenon that was going on, right? That it had to do with class, and it had to do with colonization. So a lot of people moved, right? Because of the exploitation of the island and the economical conditions and looking for jobs and better. But you know. So that’s how I left the island. I found a job outside of Puerto Rico. And I left the island because I was living in the in the Big Island. But other many of my friends who left the island were also from the island. They left because of their sexuality. And some of them still became pastors, but some of them didn’t. Some of them, they just renounced their calling altogether. And then, many years, decades, even later, you know, my denomination accepted. First we accepted what back then they call same-sex marriage, and later we accepted the ordination of queer people. Which, was kind of a very interesting way of going about things. And in Puerto Rico, even though we’re part of the same denomination, they were not, that hasn’t happened yet. So in the books, that is true, but in the ethos of Puerto Rico that hasn’t, in practice, is not true. Because the beliefs of this of the people are too ingrained to move away to a different practice. And it’s, the irony of this is that the indigenous people didn’t have all this that we have, right? It was colonization that taught us about heteronormativity and, yeah, and the idea of monogamy, the idea of, you know, the virginity is a construct that stay a virgin until married.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 22:42

That virginity is even a thing that you go from one state to another state.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 22:47

Yeah, yeah, exactly. All of that came with European culture. Yeah. And then they put it in the guise of Christianity and and morality. So then they impose all of that and and now, you know, and now, it’s like, we have the impression that is the liberal or progressive churches that are moving away to something else, when in reality, the indigenous people had that liberation, that had that different theology long ago, way before colonization.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 23:28

Right? It depends on what you mean by traditional. Do we mean traditional, as in the traditional European Victorian era white man theology? Or do we mean traditional, like, way back, like way way back? In which case, we’d have to get rid of a lot of the constructs of, like, sexual goodness or morality. And, you know, you’re one of the people, I love you so much for so many reasons, but I feel like one of the ways that we connected, was this work around sex and sexuality. And, you are one of the most adventurous people that I know. And I really love that because, you know you’re you said, “Hi, I’m Lis!” Right, but you are Reverend Doctor. You are a professor at a seminary. You actually, this year, in October, in a couple of months, is the 10th Anniversary of you ordaining me in front of community. So, you have a lot of roles in institutional, you know, the boxes that one needs to check for success. You have checked all of those boxes! You have become you’ve done the PhD, you have been the professor, you have been the ordained minister clergy. So, that for me as one of those beautiful juxtapositions where it’s like, oh, you’re supposed to be the epitome of institutional, organized idea of what’s good, and yet I find you to be one of the most creative people and one of the most adventurous sexually to explore. Like, what is true about your body, what is true about your pleasure? What is true about your desire? What? How do you mix creativity in every possible way that also includes your sexuality, which for me is like very hard to come by. And the longer we’re in institutions, especially academic ones or church ones, the harder that is to hold on to. So I’m curious, if you still, that’s how I encountered you all those many years ago. So tell me a little bit about what, where do we find you today? What’s up, what’s been in your recent exploration? How do you how do you identify these days? Does that still feel true to you? How did you maintain that adventurous spirit in spite of being in all these institutions?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 25:42

Yeah, well, I think adventures is a good, yes, that is a good character trait. As I said, socialization really killed my soul,in church especially. So, there’s a name for it, right? Purity culture. Yes. So, my denomination comes from the Puritans. And everything that you said about the explorations, adventurous with my sexuality, was not a thing until after my divorce. Many years after my divorce. Maybe it started when I was 38. But this is the thing, my beef now with sexual purity is because I was like, if it has not taught been taught to me in the high school that I went to, many of my classmates ended up being pregnant before they got married. Which I did too, but I was one of the latest. I did that at 19, when many of my peers did that at 14, 15,16. So for me to do that at 19 was like I was almost an adult, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 26:46

To have sex or to get pregnant?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 26:49

Both happen almost simultaneously, because sexuality purity, you know, yes, yes, sexual purity. So anyway, so, if I didn’t have all of those teachings from the church, if I had a different teaching from the church, instead of Puritanism, then

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 27:07

And science! Like what it means to get pregnant or not, right?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 27:11

I had the science. I had the science. I just, you know, tweaked with it a little bit, you know. I didn’t count well, but, or I counted the way I counted because I wanted to have sex. And the first time, you know, anyway, let’s not dwell on the past. I have two beautiful kids. But, and then I got married. I shouldn’t have gotten married. And then some other things. You know, my my mother did try to dissuade me to getting married. She told me I didn’t have to get married. So kudos to her for that. But I, but I married the first.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 27:44

And she’s a pastor! I love her. I love that. Yeah, she has grown alongside you leaps and bounds.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 27:52

And we were telling these days, we were telling the story of my me celebrating the 11th anniversary of my ordination, and she was making jokes about biscochos and milk. Biscochos in Mexico, you know, it doesn’t mean the same thing as in Puerto Rico. Biscochos in English is cake, but the Spanish word that we use in Puerto Rico for cake in Mexico is used for the for the private parts of the women for vulva. So, and she was making jokes, with a Mexican dude, in my ordination anniversary! About eating the cake and drinking the milk, which is another euphemism for semen. Anyway, so

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 28:34

Kudos to her! But, you got married to the first man you had sex with. Because of purity culture.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 28:39

Exactly. And it was like, something like, we, like, I, quote, unquote, “lost my virginity”. Quote, unquote, because, as you said, I had been exploring. And we had had conversations about, like, how creative you can be when you are in this purity culture. If virginity is defined penis inside a vagina, we go around that in many ways.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 29:00

I was the most creative human. I mean, I could just find 60 ways from Sunday to avoid. I’m like, that’s, we just got one act we have to avoid? One thing? Yeah, done.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 29:11

So we were very creative. So anyway, so I did. I did. I was very adventurous with my husband. But anyway, the cool stuff started when I was 38. I still, after the divorce, I was still in this thing of looking for a guy today who like not have sex until we had my no sex in the penis, vagina penetration kind of thing, also being creative around that, all of that thing, I was still there. Until I went to Vanderbilt and I meet Alba. And you know, there are not many Latino people, not when I was there. There were maybe three of us.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 29:49

When I went to visit, and that you were in PhD program, when I went to visit, I asked about the about Latinas. And and, you know, kudos to the lovely admin admissions officer, person, who was like, “Oh, we’re hoping you’ll bring that. We gave you a scholarship, literally, so you could.” And I was like, Oh,

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 30:09

They wanted you to be the first, oh, my God.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:12

It was very direct. I mean, I asked a direct question, and I got a direct answer, which I appreciated. But, so, when I when we talk about being the first, we were like that first cohort. You, me, and Brisca, who, who was another sinvergüenza, but more,

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 30:25

Because I was there for longer. So, the PhD is longer than the MD. So after the three of us were there, they were they were up to 10, maybe Latinos at the same time. So that was cool. Anyway, so I did a lot of explorations. And after I moved to Chicago, it was even better. Because I had my friend who I was like, “Hey, I created this character, Sofía Divinatrix” who is inspiring, like, you know, being a dominatrix. And, and then I started reading about dominatrix. So I learned that you can, like, take classes to be a dominatrix! And he started, like, he started, he researched that, and he was the one who said, like, hey, Lis, I found where you can take classes. So we started going to kink conferences. So, so yeah, since 38 from to here, I have been exploring other things like the kink conferences, and the swingers community, and non-monogamy, and dating women, and dating couples. And yes. And the most recent one that I was really excited about was pegging a guy that was really awesome, yes. So I’m excited about doing all of those things. And I really, you know, the non monogamy part, I was really suspecting it my whole life. Because, when I was in eighth grade, for the first time, I heard people talking about some some father of some students. Somebody was like, “oh, so and so left his wife for somebody else.” And I was like, so what’s the problem? And at the moment, I was like, if they stop loving the wife, well, just let him leave the wife and go with the other one. Because they’re just gonna hurt more if they are staying, just because. You know? Yeah. I didn’t, like, in my head, I couldn’t, so, and then I meet Alba. And I reached out to Alba. This is why I mentioned that the lack of Latinos, because I reach out, but because, um. You were the only other Latino other than Brisca. But you were in class with me, and I loved your comments in class. That’s why I reached out to you. And then.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 32:27

I have no idea what I said.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 32:30

I started studying. I took a class on the psychology and something as a psychology, and something else of kink and something else. So I’ve been learning, in books and also in conferences, the practices and the philosophy of all this stuff, and also playing with people. I joined fetlife, which is like a Facebook for people with fetishes, and so I can indulge in in my fetishes and meet people. That’s another place which we can have find home, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this thing publicly. I am a professor, like I was professor at a seminary. But anyway, I had come to embrace, I was saying.I do want to share the story that I started dating a person who is a leader, a religious leader, and I don’t know that we are dating. Maybe you can call us lovers. And we, at some point, we had the conversation of, like, wait a minute, I just embraced myself as a non-monogamous person. And you are monogamous. And if this goes well, what are we going to do about that? And we had that conversation of like, and then we left it at that. And then the next time we saw each other, we were like, okay, listen, I’ve been thinking. And I was like, “I’ve been thinking, and if being with you means that I have to give up non-monogamy, then I don’t want to be with you, because it took me a lot to be to get to this point of accepting myself.” And he said, “Well, I have been thinking, and I don’t want you to give up non monogamy to be with me, because I want to enjoy you the fullness of you.” So I was like, oh my god this is so awesome!I don’t remember, but it was after a while, a few different sessions have gone by. And I was like, in love with Alba’s comments. And I follow you. I remember exactly where we were, you know, and you were able to step out of the building, and then I was like, “Hey Alba, wait up!” And then we were talking there, and then you said something about you being non-monogamy. And I remember that I took a step back because, like, hey, I’m a recovering Evangelical. And it’s feeling great in my, you know, in my being. So my body took a step back. It was like, oh, that’s like a lot for me, non-monogamy. What is that? And so that’s how I got introduced to the philosophy of non-monogamy.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 34:28

Yes, literally.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 34:29

So, that’s why we kept going. Um, so anyway, that story I did want, I did want to share. Because maybe I, maybe I have reached the point, now I’m at the point in which I’m very choosy of what I’m looking for. I, I was for the last few years. I’ve been like, hey, if it is good sex, I’m taking it while I find more steady partners, yeah. But now I’m like, no, I know exactly what I want, and so I’m not gonna dedicate any time and energy on relationships that are not what I want, because I need that time and energy to find what I want. And there’s nothing wrong right to just have. I don’t want to and to shame anybody, right? Shameless here, not shaming anyone, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:23

But the way you got there is so much more organic. If like, we, I truly believe that at different moments in our lives, different things are right for us. Like, sometimes it’s the exploratory phase where we’re figuring out what feels good in this moment, in this body. Because, you know, the body that I have now at 45 is not the body that I had at 25 and is not the body I’m going to have at 65. So ,it’s like, there’s things about my body, about my life, about my finances, about my circumstances. So, the idea, it’s really wild and cool that you are getting to this place where you’re like, “This is what I’m looking for, and I’m going to date for that, and that’s what I’m going to spend my time and energy.” Because so many of us, and you’ve shared your own stories, right, about like, we go to what’s right, because that’s what’s allowed, and we don’t even know what the other options are. But for you, I have so much respect for folks who decide to be monogamous or who decide to, like, not be in a sexual relationship at all, or are solo poly, or whatever the statuses are. But it’s like, through a deep conversation with oneself, that you get there, rather than “that’s not allowed or that’s wrong, or that’s bad, or that’s evil.” Or, whatever those things are that try to shape us. It’s like, there’s not a wrong answer, when you get to what is right for you and your adult, consenting relationships that are ethical and transparent. There’s not a wrong except for if it’s wrong for you. And there’s not a right except for if it’s right for you, as long as you’re not hurting others. So I just respect that so much, that that is where we can land, through those other means as well. Because they they, I feel like we’re taught like, well, if you go down that slippery slope, you’re just going to be having sex with everything that moves forever. And then, you’re just going to be this used up, whatever, whatever. And it’s like, well, some of us will choose this life, some of us will choose that life. But what, what does it mean that we’re in a life that we didn’t choose? Right? So if I am swinging from the rafters, having sex all day, every day, and that is a life that makes me feel most alive and myself and I feel good in that, that’s a very different experience than I feel like what they taught us. Which was happened, which was like, I don’t know if you ever had this exercise, where they would put tape on everybody, and they’d be, like, every time you have sex, you basically, like, get the tape dirty, and then you try to stick it to the next person, and it doesn’t stick as well, and eventually, like, it loses all its stickiness. Awful, right? But, like, that’s what we’re talking about. Well, like sex and sexual partners, and it’s and so I just feel like it’s so important to

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 37:59

I had other exercises like getting the water dirty or the milk dirty. Awful. Equally awful.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:06

Oh, awful. So all that to say, I just think there’s so many different options, and there’s so many different ways to be relating to each other, and it doesn’t have to be one way. You don’t have to be like, “This is how I am right now and forever, I’ll be this way.” But, also, it may end up that you’re like with your one person, and y’all are monogamous. And what like, that’s a possibility! We don’t have to shame that. Because the other side happens, I think, in queer communities, where a lot of folks feel like, well, if I’m not having sex with three different people, and nesting with one, and co-parenting with it, like there’s like, this, all this thing that’s like, the more complicated your polycule, the more evolved you are, or something. But it’s like that isn’t necessarily where you’re going to land. The point is just to continuously be in line with your own self, rather than the boxes that society or religion has put you in.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 38:59

Yeah, and that includes it choosing to be asexual. Like, that’s what is that your choice? That’s your choice, and everybody needs to respect that. Your body, your rules, right? Also, I want, I want to name that I started, especially I started having an issue. My issue with purity culture became bigger when it became beyond myself, right? Like I had issues because of my own story, which, of course, I can paint on other, on other cause causes, not purity culture. But, there is a co-relationship, a causal corelationship between purity culture and rape culture. Yeah, so we do, we do have to name that, and be very careful about that. So at the same time that we have respect for people who choose to be asexual, and there are people who do not choose asexuality, like that is the way that they were born, right? Like they would say, just as people say, like, I didn’t choose to be homosexual, I didn’t choose to be heterosexual, I didn’t choose to be this or that. I was born this way. You know, that is what I am trying to say. Is not the same to be asexual that to engage in purity culture. Those are two different things. That’s what I want to say.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 40:19

Or like, side b culture. Which is like, I think this is a sin, and therefore I’m going to abstain from having sex, because I think the sex is a sin because of Christianity. As opposed to somebody who is choosing with their own body, their own autonomy and their own desire. I mean, some, it’s not even just the asexual identity that is, like something that you are born with is inherent to your identity. There’s also just the choosing of not having sex for a while with anybody, or with just one person, or just with yourself as a way of, like, creating more space. Because, Lord knows, people talk all the time about like, “oh my gosh, you’re non-monogamous.” Have been for now many, many years. And it’s, it’s like, seen sometimes as like, “Oh, that’s so evolved and so cool.” And I’m like, It’s not about being cool. It actually is an incredible amount of work, the quantity of emotional labor, communication, working on your own shit, working on whatever comes up for two people, or more. Like, it’s just, it’s a lot of labor. Like, it’s an incredible amount of labor. And I think, I have those moments also where I’m like, I actually don’t want to be in a sexual relationship or romantic relationship with more than one person. That doesn’t make me not monogamous, that doesn’t change that identity. For me, it’s about literally, the capacity that I have and the energy that I have and what’s best for myself and whoever else I’m choosing to be in relationship with. So like, there’s all these different ways to show up in sexuality that isn’t purity culture, even if the practices of having sex, or not, or whatever, look similar.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 41:56

Yep, yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 41:58

Okay, I want to ask you a question about institutions, because you have status and standing in both the academic institution, as somebody with a PhD. You have standing as somebody with a decade of ordained ministry, and many more years before that. You were also a lawyer before theology happened. So like you have been, you understand the rules, the laws, the structures, for a long time. And I’m wondering how you navigate all of your identities and your fullness in those institutions, like how that seems so, so many of us are like, “No, forget the institutions.” I am such an anti, anti-institutional person at heart, and part of that is just frustration, of like, I can’t navigate those systems. I can’t figure out how to navigate the institutions and still keep myself as myself, that I’m as somebody, I’m recognizable to as myself. So how you do that? Like, what, what has been, your strategy, your secret? Like, I remember your dissertation defense and you were like, doing a strip tease as part of that.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 43:08

It was burlesque! There’s a big difference. There’s not a big difference, but there’s a difference.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:12

Burlesque. The whole thing is that you have been irreverent from the beginning, and you have really found ways that I’ve constantly been like, “they’re not gonna let you do that!” And sure is, sure enough. There you go, doing it anyway. So I’m like, I really, I worry for you, and I also admire you, and I wonder how, if you will tell us a little bit about like, what advice do you have for others? Because I know there’s so many of us, there’s so few. La como latines, immigrants, first gen, second gen folks in theology, in particular, in the church leadership in a like, feminist way, not in a conservative way. So, what do you what are your thoughts, or what are your advice, or what are your cautionary tales, or any of that stuff that you have, because I really want to know that, like me, I want to know, and I know our listeners want to know too.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 44:07

Well, I admire you very much. You’re a strong person that I look, I was like, Oh, wow, advice. I want to be like Alba when I grow up, like Reverend Sex and like, I want to be like Sofía Divinatrix. Yeah. I want to be that dominatrix and that strong personality that I give her. And actually, Sofía Divinatrix is also like, she ended up being a dominatrix because I was trying to develop bounce, sort of a bouncer, like, like a soldier, like a military, like a kind of warrior, kind of personality. Anyway, that’s a whole other conversation. To your question. I tend to recommend people not to do what I do, because it comes at a great cost. You know, it’s like, I cannot help it, you know, I try a lot. I try a lot not to get to go against the institutions, but I cannot help it. I, you know, I’m, I don’t know how, how many times I can say, I try to help it, but like,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:49

You’re a sinvergüenza at heart!

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 44:52

Exactly! You know, I, you know, I write down what I am thinking. I do my exercise, my breathing exercises. I still, after a while, I just got like, and I blurt, blurt out, you know?! My, my, my health providers, my therapist, a few of them have told me that I lack, me falto un filtro. I’m lacking a filter. Recently, a friend of mine who has a kid with an niece with autism, has asked me, “Are you sure you’re not in the spectrum?” Which makes sense with that comment from professionals. It’s like, oh, maybe that’s why I don’t have, maybe I am, that’s why I don’t have a filter! Because that is one of the characteristics. So, I can, one of the things for self-care, when we are people of color in these white-serving institutions, is to have spiritual disciplines. And spiritual disciplines vary from people to people from person to person. You know, whatever feels, fits your soul. Alice Walker put it in some, so, in In Search for Our Mother’s Gardens. Yes. Because for, for, I don’t know if it was her mother, her grandmother, it was gardening, right? Yeah, it could be gardening. It could be painting. It could be, in my case, I have a spiritual director. You know, people go to therapists, I recommend that everybody should have a therapist. A therapist. One of the things that I do, because I have been performing artists my whole life, is that I create characters. And one of the one of the points of highest contention in my career, in my workspace, are faculty meetings. And there was a time that it was getting so bad that I started, found that it was during the pandemic and after and after, and so the meetings were online. So I started, like, wearing witch shoes.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 46:54

I love it!

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 46:55

It it was like, Okay, I’m gonna bring my witch energy to the faculty meeting. So I was wearing witch shoes, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t see it. But I was like, performing that I was a witch, and I had my witch hat. I didn’t wear it, but I had it by the laptop.So, I was seeing it, and I felt that I was like, like, dressed like that. I created a character called, what’s her name? Dr. Brown Nerd. Dr. Brown Nerd. I created her before I was a doctor. And, Dr. Sexy Brown Nerd, excuse me. Dr. Sexy Brown Nerd. She wears. She dresses up, sexy with stilettos, black stilettos, a black dress with with long sleeves and like collar and a business jacket that is light pink. But the black dress underneath has a very low cleavage. And then I put my hair in a in a bun, so it’s it’s display between respectability politics and super sexy. And and then earrings, dangling earrings, and they are plastic, and then the color is like multi-layered. And those kind of earrings jewels are not allowed in academic spaces. So, you have the business jacket, and you have, you have the black, which are things that Academy expects. They expect women to wear business jacket, and they expect women to wear black. Yes. But they, and they expect women to wear their hair in a bun, because the hair it needs to be controlled, like the women need to be controlled. But they don’t expect to see pink, because pink is too girly. You’re supposed to be gender less. You’re supposed to, you know, paint away your gender so they, you’re not supposed to show your cleavage. You’re not supposed to have dangling earrings. You’re, or stilettos, or stilettos. Yes, which I can barely walk on them anymore, but especially after the after the the surgery that I had. And I wanted to mention about that. It’s slightly out of what you’re asking, but I think I want to share it, because it has to do with how we live our sensuality and how we leave our relationships to bear fruit in the world. When I went to surgery, I was really sad that my uterus was going to be taken away, because, for some reason, I was still dreaming that I would have more children. And, and you gave me a box with two little eggs inside, inside a nest. I still have them, in in my office. I keep them in my office to remember. And you said a prayer that was something, we did a summer of a mujerista ritual, kind of, or inspired in mujerista theology. And you said some words around, around the the children that I would have, right, without an uterus. And you were not talking about real children, necessarily. But when we, when we started this, the podcast Teología Sin Vergüenza, I felt that that was our baby. And that was one of the most exciting things about starting the project back then, it was like, Finally Alba and I are going to have a child together!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 50:37

That’s right, because, and that’s a very queer concept, right? It’s like, we create and when the Bible says, you know, be fruitful and multiply, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean that everybody has to be birthing babies all the time. That means there is what we put our life force into, and that which we put our life force into is what creates and sustains life for us, for each other, for the planet. And so it’s a yes. Teología Sin Vergüenza as our baby was a very queer, beautiful like nest being built, which is, I think, speaks to why so many people, we now are like in 39 countries, and have followers and have had episodes from almost everyone in Latin America, in Spanish speaking Latin America, and a few folks in Brazil. But I think it’s this orientation of like we tried to create a nest that we needed and we wanted for ourselves as sinvergüenzas, and that we were inviting other people to be in. We were inviting other people to be in community with us and to be in our nest, in our home, and we got to create that space together.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 51:47

Yes, and now that I mentioned the dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity school when we were there together, she told me that was one way to stay alive in academic spaces, to always have a project that is life-giving for me, and that’s something that I still do today. So yeah, that’s one way that I would totally recommend people, you always need to do something that gives you life when you are in spaces that are death-dealing to you. So I think this season of Teología Sin Vergüenza In English, is very on time, because you’re right this, these are difficult times for us. And I think what this, what I hope for this season, is that we can provide a space for for these kind of people that are three in one, to find each other in times that are, that we are vulnerable. So we can be a support group, kind of, in which we can, you know, know that we are, like our slogan says in Spanish, we are not many, but we are here, and we have each other’s back, right? We are still being brave from our spaces, in our different spaces. So we are still Christian or whatever spirituality we practice. We are still activists in whatever space we are, and we are still queer. Proud to b

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 53:15

Yes, proud to be all of those things, and also that they can’t be divided from each other, right? It’s like this is who we are, and it feels like a coming out to say, we want to come out of all of the closets and be our full selves. And I hope that this is a space where our people can find that, especially folks who are in diaspora and maybe haven’t been with us before. I’m so grateful for your time today to get us started for this season. And of course, we always end, you know, as well as I do, we always end with the same question, which is, when you are having those moments, when you need to be restored, when you need to be reminded who you are and where you come from, what is your fount of strength, your cloud of witnesses? Who are those ancestors, be they family or cultural icons or thought partners. Who are those folks that you call on to help your spirit be reminded who you are?

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 54:15

I have many. And I have actually an art that I created in which I put a rainbow and I put all of them, like their faces, in inside of clouds, because it’s my cloud of witnesses, and they’re there. Even, you know, it doesn’t matter if I met them or not, if they are alive or not, you are there. Brisca is there. And I like to start with my mom and my abuelita Justa, because they were the the models I had of what what a woman was is. So I start with them. They model for me femininity and, and, and what a strong woman is to how to how to survive inside of a family of machistas. There’s that, right? Yes, and, and then in you know, the wisdom of of people like Gloria Anzaldúa, or like Marcella Althaus-Reid, who opened doors for us to do queer theology and kink theology and talk about the queer God and other many, many other scholars. I also like to quote a lot and and when I need like poems to read poems, I go to the to the, to the writings, I’m sorry, the writings of Rubem Alves from Brazil, who said that outside of beauty, there is no salvation. And my pedagogy is founded on Paulo Freire. And Augusto Boal, a Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theater of the Oppressed, respectively. Yes. But yeah, I have to say that my main theories are the theologian is Marcella Althaus-Reid, and the performance studies is Diana Taylor, who her name doesn’t sound like that, but she was born in Mexico, raised in Mexico, and most recently was teaching at NYU. I haven’t checked her bio recently, but the last time I checked, she was teaching at New York University in the Department of Theater and and she studied in Canada, went back to Mexico and naturalized in the United States, which is part also of this diasporic life. Yes. So, many, many other ancestors.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 56:22

Yes, I feel like one of the biggest compliments we’ve gotten via sinvergüenze André S. Musskopf Was that, you know, as a collaborator with Marcella, as somebody who was like in her like thought circle, one of her students, one of her colleagues, they’d say, you know, this is the direction she was going. Teología Sin Vergüenza, here is the continuation of that spirit. So I feel like Marcella is one of those ancestors for Teología Sin Vergüenza as well. So I’m glad to hear that she’s one of yours, and we didn’t even get to talk about the theater studies. But I feel like your embodiment with theater, church and homiletics is like a whole other episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza That I would love to get into. But thank you for your time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for starting us off and look forward to coming seasons where you’re back in the co-host seat with me.

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 57:21

Thank you very much for inviting me to this new invento, embeleco, and this new adventure of Teología Sin Vergüenza, and I am so delighted to be part of this crossover.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 57:31

Yes! Hasta luego!

Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz 57:35

Bye!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 57:38

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel, and find us on social media at soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish, cuídadete mucho, and remember we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi 00:07

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Welcome to the Teología Sin Vergüenza, queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer, trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to. Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work, in the academy, in the church, in our homes and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas activistas. We are shamelessly las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair, because you belong here. Now, let’s get down to pleasure.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:35

Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today we have the honor of having Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford with us, who is an author, a theologian, and has been Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology at Garrett Theological Seminary since 2003. Before that, she taught theology in her home country of Argentina. She’s written and co-written or edited 11 books and written over 100 book chapters and journal articles which have appeared in six languages. Her forthcoming book Jesús: Una cristología al andar and her latest book chapter “La teología frente a la violencia feminicida” are on their way. So don’t miss what she has to say in this amazing episode.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:23

Hi, welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza,

Dr. Nancy Bedford 02:27

I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:23

It feels like an honor to have you in our studio. I’m so excited for our sinvergüenzas to hear from you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us your name. And also we’re just going to jump right in with the same question we always have, which is this idea of sinvergüenza. Tell folks who maybe are not familiar with English or your particular cultural context, do you identify as a sinvergüenza? What does that mean in your terms, in your world? And we’ll start getting to know you there.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 03:02

Well, my name is Nancy Bedford. I live on the outskirts of Chicago. I am from Argentina. I have lived here a couple of decades, and I’m in and out of Latin America and North America.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 03:18

You are famous among our people.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 03:21

Well I don’t know about that, but I’m honored to spend time in different parts of Latin America, personally and virtually. And one thing about living in Babylon, as I call it, in the empire, is you have access to a lot of places that when I lived in Argentina, where I’m from, I did not have.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 03:43

Yeah.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 03:45

So it’s been great to be closer to the Caribbean, closer to Mexico, to Central America, to the north of South America these years. And I’ve really enjoyed that. Yeah, the sinvergüenza thing, that’s a really hard one to translate. What comes to mind as a translation in English is kind of scoundrel, right? And a kind of a male figure, which you could read maybe as a bit of a trickster, but it’s not really where I would place myself. But if I separate it into two words, sin vergüenza, right, rather than the one noun, two words describing what I do, then yes, sure, no tengo vergüenza, right? I’m not ashamed. And what comes to mind is Romans. Romans 1:16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it’s power, the power of God. And that kind of power is a power that it’s empowering. It’s not power over its power with its power alongside. So I’m not ashamed of that kind of power, that kind. Authority, that kind of movement. You know that word, if you think about that passage, the idea is, I’m not disgraced. I’m with grace. I’m not without grace.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 05:14

Yes, like divinely given grace, rather than societally given grace, yes, yes.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 05:20

Yes, yes, like, Mary full of grace. Like, we’re all full of grace. And we’re not without grace. We’re not grace-less, right? So to be unashamed is to be full of grace. You know, riffing on Paul.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 05:36

And that is the gospel for our community, Lord, we need that.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 05:41

We really do. We really do. And so rather than sinvergüenza, I like irreverente, which is another adjective which means irreverent. You can translate that better into English. So a theology that is not afraid of being irreverent in the face of things that we don’t need to take so reverently, right? That we don’t need to bow down and obey. So I love that word teología irreverente. I love the word porfia, which can’t be translated into English very well either, but it means a kind of resistance, a kind of recalcitrance, a kind of disobedience, once again, to the logic that’s the dominant logic. So la porfia de la resurrección is a line from a song in Spanish Tango that I took for one of my books, meaning that kind of recalcitrance, or that kind of resistance or disobedience that comes from the power of the resurrection. So very similar to that you know, Romans 1:16 idea:, revolutionary, irreverent, recalcitrant, full of grace. Those kinds of ideas resonate with me.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 07:01

I love it, and thinking about you speaking from that place of power and kind of an immutable right to dignity and grace, I want to jump to a quote that you said that for me, just feels so important because so many of us are told that we can’t be both Christian and feminist, or Christian and LGBTQIA, or feminist and activist, and also working on things around theology that we’re not allowed to touch it. And so you said to me in our first meeting, I became a feminist and ally because I followed Jesus, not the other way around. And I was like, Oh, that’s so beautifully empowering for so many of us who are told, and I’ve heard so many folks say I had to give up religion, I had to give up God, I had to give up faith, because feminism was a thing that saved my life. It’s a struggle that helps me survive, and feeling so much grief that folks feel like they have to separate and divorce those two paths. And so you saying that I resonated so deeply around it is my faith that makes me that compels me to work for justice, that compels me to be recalcitrant in the resurrection. So will you tell us a little bit more about how did you get there? What is that experience for you?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 08:28

Yeah, sure. And I think it’s a very contextual matter. I mean, so much of our biography is woven into this kind of thing, so there’s not one path or one way to get in any particular place. And I totally understand those who might say, you know, these places are toxic for me. I just can’t I can’t be there. And in fact, I raised with my husband, three daughters who are now in their 20s. And that was always one of my criteria for choosing a community of faith, was, Is this place healthy for them as young women? Yes, will they be able to flourish or or not? And if not, I’m out of here, right? So I’m very aware of those of those dynamics, and not naive. But I will say that I grew up in young churches, churches that were just beginning, that were very fragile, very horizontal, where there were no luxuries, as if to say, one person in this community can be dispensed with. Everybody was needed, right? So I grew up being needed and being trained to be a leader through things, as you know, might sound funny, but like Sunday school teaching, right? I learned to teach Sunday school to kids. You know, when I was myself, a kid 11/12, taught a lot of pedagogy that now I might think, oh, you know that was Freirean pedagogy. This was about being teacher-learners and learner-teachers. This was about a pedagogy of hope, of transformation. I didn’t know it at the time, or we talked about interpretation of scripture, and everybody had an opinion, and that was okay, right? So you might call that, you know, community reading of the Bible. So these hermeneutical ways were kind of instilled in me without me even knowing what they were. Nobody would have talked about a theology of liberation or feminism, but in reality, that was being formed in me.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 10:37

So as a girl, you were allowed like your gender wasn’t a thing in the church.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 10:42

Never, I did not encounter any of that till I went to seminary, which is another story. So it was the time of a dictatorship in Argentina. I was in high school when the last dictatorship came into power. And so church was a space of formation and of developing leadership that was basically off limits most in most other spaces, and my parents supported me in things like: No, I’m not going to go to the Te Deum, which is the kind of religious, militaristic at that time, confluence, you know, on a Sunday morning, to carry the flag and to celebrate, you know, nationalism. I’m not going to do that, because I don’t, I don’t really follow that. That is not my loyalty. Yes, my loyalty lies elsewhere. So that’s what I mean about that kind of irreverence and rebellion in the name of you know, what we would call the reign of God or the teachings of Jesus. So and we can talk about kindom, kingdom, if you want to.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:02

Yes, tell us cause, I bet many people have never heard both female words or pronouns or metaphors being used for God or the Holy Spirit. Many of us have never heard inclusive or feminine words for the for Holy Spirit for any part of the Trinity. Many of us certainly have never heard this very important one letter missing and you change the whole meaning. Will you tell us about that kindom versus kingdom?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 12:33

Yeah. Well, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, who was Latina theologian here in North America, coined this idea of Kindom, so kingdom without the “G”, to talk about the familial aspect of the project of Jesus. Which I love, and I really believe that it is so. And I, and I even think of it Trinitarianly, because if Jesus is our brother, and the spirit is our mother, and the first person has a parental aspect that we are adopted by, then we enter into the life of the Trinity in a kind of familial way, as brothers and sister, as siblings. So it’s a very egalitarian and beautiful metaphor, but families can be just as oppressive as kingdoms too, right? So we don’t solve everything by saying kindom, yeah. We have to be careful, because some families can be awful, right? And we don’t want the life of faith to be that way, Kingdom or rain or common wheel of God, is the way that we usually translate what Jesus talks about in the Gospels. And I like that part of it in the sense that it has a political dimension. There’s always a political dimension to faith. You are in the face of powers that would take on control of all aspects of life, and you’re saying, No, I don’t. I’m not a citizen of that logic. So if you take away that the rain, common wheel, or even Kingdom idea, you may be throwing out the baby with the bath water. So these notions both of the familial dimension of being in the life of God with each other in a very mutual in a way traversed by mutuality and not complementarity. Mutuality. And the political dimensions that were not party politics, but were polis-based, in other words, having to do with our life in the city or in the town. Or the small little town in which I lived in adolescence, those were embedded in my experience of church. And so, it was by following this path that then I became aware of things like liberation theology, feminist theology, queer theology, right this path of following the Gospels and taking them seriously led me to those other things, and they seem to really fit together, rather than the opposite. Now, churches often if they’re reading something like the Gospels, and the Gospels are like dynamite. You never know when that thing might explode, right? Sometimes they create people that then they don’t know what to do with.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:30

Yes, I feel like I am one of those people.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 15:35

Why is it so many that, you know, it’s like, let’s talk about these things, but let’s not really live them out. The minute a young person wants to live them out. Well, no, you’re not really welcome here, because that was just talk.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:46

Right?! And those of us who took them seriously, I was raised Southern Baptist and I’m like, I am literally the product of everything you taught me. You didn’t expect this to be the outcome, but here we are.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 15:57

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So you know exactly what I’m talking about then. And I’ve seen that again and again that churches just don’t have room for people who are trying to live out seriously the very things that supposedly they stand for, right? Yeah. So I developed later, much later, the notion of theological feminism to describe this kind of life of being empowered by the gospel, by the good news of Jesus, without giving it the name feminism. Either because you don’t like that name or because you never heard of it, which was my case. I had not heard of it, but it seemed clear to me that things were transformative, that the gospel was transformative, that things like, Okay, you will, you know, be oppressed by your husband, the Adam and Eve story, that was the bad outcome, but the gospel had come to turn that around. Yes, right? And for there to be equality, or the parts about we’re all made in the image of God. Incredibly good news, right for all of us. And I’ve never forgotten what is said one time when she was visiting in Buenos Aires, she said, Let’s not forget, just to remember what good news it is for women who are struggling in violent situations, to remember I am in the image of God just as much as anybody else, right? So Christology, although that might sound like a repressive kind of a discipline to some, and it could be, because every symbol can be distorted and misused, and Jesus talks about this right in the in the in the gospels, but Christology really well understood and not separated from the life of Jesus, of Nazareth not be not becoming abstract, but really always grounded and fleshly. It puts an end to these ideas that women are somehow secondarily or queer people, or somehow secondarily in the image of God. Yes, we are all in our particularities, beautiful love, beloved by God and made in God’s image. And in each of our particularities, we are so and nobody is like the other person, right? So Jesus did not become a generic human, but a particular human, and in that particularity, we’re represented, not in his maleness, not in his Galileanness, not in any of his particularities, but rather the particularity itself is the universal, yes. So, this idea of theological feminism allowed me to kind of connect to women who have felt empowered by their church experience, even though they might not use the word feminism to describe it. Feminism, feminist theory, like decolonial theory, like queer theory, like so many theories, can be very helpful to make sense of a reality and have a language to talk about. And in the case of feminism, there’s also a movement that’s politically based for, you know, the equal freedom, dynamically equal, not identical, but dynamically equal, freedom of all people, and so I would not want to throw that out the window. It’s helpful, right? Teoría, literally means to see, to look at. And so it helps me look at. It’s kind of like glasses to help understand reality. And so I would not get rid of that, but I only made my way to it, frankly, as a result of women asking me to do so. When I, when I, when I was not trained at seminary or later in my doctorate in these theories, I did my doctorate in Germany in the 90s, and when I got back to Argentina, the women close to the institution where I was working, who were some of them pastors, this kind of a mainline Protestant institution, some of them were pastors, some of them were students were like, well, we’ve been waiting for you, you know, let’s be talking about feminist theory. Let’s be talking about gender. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, I don’t know much about this. Let me study.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 20:25

Many of us come to it that way. Let me catch up with what y’all are talking about.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 20:30

Yeah, exactly. So that was where I realized, okay, no, actually, I have been formed in some of these ways. I just didn’t have language for it until now.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 20:40

Yes. And I also wonder if you see, or if you could talk a little bit about the difference. I feel like, growing up in the United States, in the US South feminism, one from my very conservative and religious background, feminism was a bad word. It was man haters and, you know, all of this very negative stuff. But then once I got to the academy and even to movement spaces it was a bad word for another reason, because it represented the kind of racist history of white supremacy in our country. And it wasn’t until I started spending most of my time in the Global South, both in East Africa and in Latin America that I really let like clung to and continue to cling to the word feminism, because it was a way that people saw each other across so many different lived experiences, and it didn’t, it didn’t mean the same as it did in the US both from the like the negative, conservative place. Maybe that one was a little bit closer, but certainly not from this race and class analysis. So I’m curious, you having used that as part of your work, and having had that distance and then closeness and then macro view, will you talk a little bit about how that’s been for you, that specific word feminism, and how you’ve seen it be different in different places?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 22:05

Yeah, that’s a great question. So many things are different the minute that you cross the border to the north, right? Everything is different. And so what I’ve tried to learn in that and that crossing back and forth is the power of each context teaching the other context something, not to translate it directly, but to give you new lenses to see the old context. So I’ve learned a lot about whiteness by being here in the United States, and I am white presenting, right? So what does that mean? But then it has also illuminated some things I hadn’t seen before in Latin America, you know, where white privilege also exists, even though it may not manifest exactly in the same way as in the north. So with feminism, the first thing I’d like to say is to presuppose that it’s something that comes from the north is a mistake we had in Argentina in the 19th century, so in the time of the first wave of feminism here in the United States, we also had leaders. And one of the ones that is important to me is Juana Manso. Juana Manso was a journalist, woman of faith. She actually became Anglican and a writer who lived in Argentina, then Brazil, who was not even allowed to be buried in a, in a cemetery, because that was before the fight for a civil registry and civil spaces in which to bury people. So if you weren’t Catholic, there was no space to be buried. She was buried outside the gate, so to speak. And she had a feminist newspaper or magazine and wrote feminist texts, right? So we’re talking mid 19th century. She was a teacher, so she was not somehow derivative from the North. These are feminisms that are, that are our own feminisms, yeah, right, and our own travails and struggles in the south going further back. Sor Juana. Yes, you know, which is a kind of patron saint for a lot of women, who was not perfect. I mean, she was a complicated figure, but was an incredible intellectual, and wrote theology as well as the love poems and many other things. She wrote in Nahuatl and Spanish, and also brought in habla de negros, which was the afro Mexican way of speaking in some of her some of her Christmas poems. So, you know, she is a lot older than any North American feminist movement, right? She’s a kind of a feminist hero. So to say that that everything derives from the north or from white women so called would be a big mistake. So that’s one of the reasons why these movements are different in our countries. And there’s a whole lot of theory that comes with feminism that’s not translated into English, yeah, but that isn’t Spanish and Portuguese. And there’s a whole lot of struggle at the grassroots that one never hears about in the north, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 25:31

So that’s a huge reason for Teología Sin Vergüenza, is because there’s so much brilliance happening south of the US border, and either because of our bubble in the US or because of just access to information or lack of access to language, I just have felt so much craving, desire for those of us who went through seminary and other things in the north to know that we have so many more things to talk about than just migration. We have so many more things to talk about than just the suppression of women in the church. And so I love that you’re talking about this, because I’m like, this is literally the beginning of why we did Teología Sin Vergüenza. Because there’s just, like, so much to be said and to be heard and to be talked about that we don’t even know because when our families come to the US, there’s a lot of assimilation, or institutions don’t know how to really dig deep to pull from those resources. And there aren’t that many of us in theological education. So there isn’t as much demand as there should be for, for our histories as well.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 26:37

That’s right, and those histories are so rich. I mean, in Argentina in the wars of independence, there was a black woman named Remedios who was, who fought alongside her sons and her husband and became an officer in the army. Yeah, a decorated officer. Yeah, I didn’t learn about her in school. Yes, you know, I

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 27:00

I didn’t, I didn’t even learn about Sor Juana in school!

Dr. Nancy Bedford 27:03

There you have it, you know. I didn’t learn, I didn’t know that that Argentina was the River Plate area was maybe 1/3 to one half Black. Back in those days, nobody talked about that, right? Because there was a big influx of European immigration in the mid to mid 19th century, late 19th century to early 20th century, that kind of whitened and erased some of what had happened before, right? And yet, there it is. So these, these stories of our of our past and of the women should not be erased, and that is part of the feminist legacy from Latin America. Flora Tristan is another one, the Peruvian Marxist amazing woman. And well, there’s so many. So our history is rich, and it questions some of the presuppositions here in North American feminism. That said, the critique of Black women to kind of white first wave feminism and later feminisms, for example, the erasure of Black women from things like Seneca Falls, you know, when you had amazing Black female preachers doing the good work that that is notable, right? So there have been these packs of, you know, white women with some Black men, or white women with Black white white men, or Black men with white men. You know, all these various pacts that somehow have left some women other women out of the, well, repressed. Their power really put down or attempted to put down by these logics. And so then there is a feminine feminism that is a kind of bourgeois middle class white presenting feminism that’s not really about a rupture with the logic of common sense, the dominant common sense, but it is rather about women becoming more like the men in power. Yes. That is not an interesting feminism to me. For me, what’s interesting is a logic that ruptures the way common sense says things should be, and changes our relations of power and is based on mutuality. And mutuality is so much richer than these complementarian ideas, because in mutuality, we realize there are some times in our lives when we be will be energetic and we’ll be strong, and there are other times in our lives will be weak and sick, and that’s okay, totally. Right? Because we’ll help each other out at different points, and we’ll have gifts to bring, according to what you know, what time of our lives. That is, I live with my my dad lives with us. He’s 98 you know. So he is not the strong person physically that he was, you know, even 10, certainly, 20, 30,40, years ago. Yes, but he has a gift to bring.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:25

That’s right.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 30:27

And so a kind of mutuality understands that and values it. And so that’s what I also see in some of these movements. So I’m never really that concerned about the adjectives such as feminist or whatever you would like to use. I’m basically a theologian. Yes, you can put the adjective that you would like to put on that, but in reality, if you, if you pursue these matters, you will be seen negatively by some, no matter what you call yourself.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:57

Totally. I really love what you said about the, it feels very queer, like queering and queer language when you’re talking about the difference between we want the same power that you have. You being whoever is, is in authority is in a position of authority or power, in this case, white men. We want that same “power over” which goes back to what you were talking about around not being ashamed of the gospel and the grace is about “power with” and it feels very queer, queerifying to be like right when we say we are queer versus just gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever, we are actually questioning the foundations and the assumptions around what it means to be a certain gender or a certain relationship, we’re actually questioning that entire system. We actually want to take that down and create something new and different that is about that that kind of mutuality. And so I’m just, I’m listening to you talk about that in the terms of what feminism is, what feminisms are interesting to you versus not. And I’m like, that feels so right in a queer body, to be like part of this is a political project around questioning the entire construct that it’s built on. And from there, then we get into this. I think it’s worth saying for folks who maybe are new to the conversation that complementarianism is kind of this idea that we hear so much in conservative Christian circles that’s like men and women were made for each other, this kind of like, hand in glove, penis, vagina, kind of sexuality that’s so basic and simplistic and not at all based in reality, but that is kind of their lock and key bread and butter. Of this is the proof that God made us in this way to behave sexually in this one kind of dynamic. And so when I hear you talking about mutuality, it actually rings very, feels very connected to pleasure and desire and connection in ways that feel good, both sexually and non-sexually. But it is this like based on, it feels for me, it resonates with my own feelings around God, wanting this kind of mutuality that is satisfying for us, that feels right for who I am, in my particularities, I love how you’re talking about it’s not Jesus specificities as male, for example. It is that he has those specificities rather than and particularities rather than, like, you know, gray,

Dr. Nancy Bedford 33:32

Yeah, so rich. And I do need to say something about complementarianism, which is the complementarianism that I’m critiquing is this binary based ontological separation of people, you know, basically on the basis of a uterus or not a uterus, or something like that. There is another kind of complementarianism in indigenous communities in Latin America, which is, it’s, I can’t wrap my mind around it totally because I’m not indigenous. But I learn from friends about this kind of complementarianism, which is a kind of understanding more like yin yang, right, and the way that things kind of bleed back around into each other. So I’ve learned from my Kuna friends in Panama, that Baba Inanna is the way that they talk about God, kind of mother/father, right? And so. So I don’t want to say that those kinds of complementary understandings are necessarily opposed to the to the mutualities, but I am speaking from a context in which these Eurocentric categories predominate. And so that’s what I’m critiquing, right? And especially these binaries. If you’re this, you can’t be that, and so, so José Muñoz, you’re probably familiar with him, he was a queer theorist, he takes Althusser’s ideas, this is a kind of Marxism, and that’s then queered about identification, counter-identification and dis- identification, right? And so if you identify with something, you incorporate it and you want to be that way. Some white feminisms have been that: I want to be exactly as the men, the dominant men have been, and that’s it, right? Yes, Counter-identification is: I will be exactly the opposite of that thing that is dominating, right? And but you I’m not realizing that I’m not outside of the binary. That’s right, because in my counter-identification, I’m letting the dominant structure define the thing that I am and am not.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:46

Yes, it’s like jumping in their frame.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 35:49

Yes, yes. So what we want is the DIS- identification, which is outside of either one of those, and saying, This is a new thing. This is by and I would use that pneumatological categories have to do with the Holy Spirit to think of, you know, we’re going to do a new thing. I love John, the Gospel of John 14 through 17, where Jesus has his farewell discourses and he says to the disciples, you know, I’m going to send this other, this other advocate, yes, the Ruach, feminine figure in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, and the Ruach, this other advocate, the Spirit, is going to help you do new things and greater things, Different things, greater things than I have done, that means that we can do a new thing. Yes, the things that we’ve done before may be valuable, and we’ll keep what’s good. And it’s not that we need to destroy everything. I am all about retrieval, but also about transformation. So in that Discourse, Jesus opens up this possibility for renewal, transformation, liberation, new things and yes, pleasure as part of that right enjoyment. Lacan the famous psychoanalyst, once said, If you want to know about pleasure, you need to ask the mystics. Mystics know about enjoyment. Jouissance. This deep enjoyment that is both spiritual but also physical, right? So, so we need to have a spirituality that is able to be fleshly, that’s incarnate, because that’s part of that good news. And so that has to do with also enjoyment and not only suffering through in order, you know, to for the cause to continue, or something like that. Yes, I mean, that may come. Yes, our testimony may lead us to places where we didn’t want to go. It can come, but we also need to celebrate and and enjoy meanwhile and so not be so grim. If you look at the history of liberation theology, the ones who hung in there and continued with this liberative path were the ones who were also able to celebrate Yes, and were not grim in that way.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:31

I feel like that some of our early queer and trans movement people was like we we’re, we fought in the streets, and then we were in the clubs dancing, and then we get up the next morning and we’d be doing. It’s like that kind of rhythm of play, hard, work, hard, love, hard. And not to say that we’re careless with ourselves, with our spirits, with our hearts or with our bodies, but it is to say that if there are not these moments of spiritual reprieve where we are in community, and fully reminded, for me, at least, I know the longer I spend in books and in the computer without being with community, I lose the like deep drive in my soul of why I do this to begin with, and then as soon as I’m with our community again, having these conversations for TSV is a perfect example, I’m like, oh, there’s so much brilliance. This is worth all of that effort to get it out there, to help more people connect with this work. So I feel like 1,000% I’m there with you.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 39:32

Yeah, and the matter of community is so important because it’s, it’s it’s varied, right? It’s varied in age, it’s varied in all kinds of ways. And so how can we communicate in a way that’s intelligible to all these different folks? And then how can we be questioned by what they are bringing to the table in various ways? And so that really grounds us. I think, for me, church is that. Community of faith is that it’s being grounded. I often say that theologians have the privilege of having a community of accountability in a way that really almost nobody else has, because if you’re a sociologist or an anthropologist or a philosopher, you may have some communities of accountability, but you know, you’re often not going to have that kind of every Sunday community that says, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. What are you talking about?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 40:40

Well, I would love to shift us a little bit, a same line, but a different, a different pathway, which is going back a little bit to what you said around this idea of Mother God. And so I want to just return your, your Trinity. Some of the work that you’re doing around going deeper and giving a fresh, new, ancient look at some of the roles of that are part of the Trinity that don’t get spoken to often, or that look in a new way. I can imagine somebody hearing our episode and hearing you say, thinking about the Holy Spirit, and again, that study that field is Pneumatology, thinking about that in this way of “mother”. I when I asked people, have you ever heard a feminine, you know, pronoun, ever anybody saying, Dear Mother God, or anything like that in your church? I can count on one hand of the hundreds of people that I’ve asked that question to, I can count on one hand the number of people who said yes. And so I think it might be shocking or a jolt to hear you just casually talk about the Holy Spirit as mother and I know you have work coming up on Pneumatology. Will you tell us a little bit about how do you how does that work for you? How do you wrap your mind around that?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 42:05

Sure, sure. One of the things that struck me when I was a young a young professor, was one of my older colleagues, Néstor Míguez, who’s a New Testament scholar, saying, one time you want to talk about the Bible, let’s talk about the Bible. Let’s look seriously at the Bible. You know, in other words, you think that these very closed ideas are based in the Bible, but when you start looking closely at that text, maybe you’ll find something else. Yeah. And one of the things that I find in John three, which is beloved of some folks, because of John 3:16, right? When God so loved the world, etc. Jesus is talking about being born again, but how we’re born of the Spirit? Yes, so the spirit in that text, in John three is being described as our mother, from whom we are to be born again. Which makes the waters of baptism an amniotic fluid of the spirit.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:08

Wow

Dr. Nancy Bedford 43:10

Which makes me love baptism by immersion, all the more because of all those waters, the deep waters of the spirit.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:19

As a Baptist you would!

Dr. Nancy Bedford 43:21

Yes. So they can also, you know, they can also be by aspersion, but there’s something so powerful as someone who has also had children physically, to think about that commitment of God as our mother, as our the mother, who is the spirit, but the spirit is also our midwife. Romans eight. And the spirit is helping this new thing that has never happened before come to Life. So we have two kind of female oriented figures in John and in Paul in Romans to guide us in this reflection, which I find very interesting. And you know, when I had my first baby, she was in a position where her head was down, but she was looking upwards. It’s called occipital sacral position, and so that’s very hard to push out. And the midwife, who was with me in Argentina, you would have a physician, but you’d also have your midwife with you in birth, and this is no drugs, natural childbirth. The whole thing, she actually put her knee at the top of my stomach and pushed and it my husband, who was with us, was like, What is she doing? She looks like she’s about to squash you, but that pressure that she put was the exact thing that I needed to give that push to bring the child into the world, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:55

Isn’t that a word? My goodness.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 44:57

And so I always think of that big, rather robust knee of that midwife helping push out new life into the world, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 45:09

But not without pain, not without struggle.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 45:11

Not without pain, no, not without pain. But as Jesus said, then, then the, the new life is worth it, right? And you celebrate the new life. So those are two images of the motherhood of the second person of the third person. I would not limit motherhood to any one of the three divine persons of the Trinity, the Father or the first person, is depicted in motherly terms in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere. In medieval piety, Jesus was considered to be our mother by people such as Anselm, who has beautiful language about Christ our mother. He’s well known for the satisfaction theory of the atonement, but he has some very beautiful things to read that we should read that instead. Yes, we should read those things. We should we should take the whole Yeah, sorry.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 46:10

Before we jump to the next one, I want to ask what you thought about this moment on the cross where the spear is placed in Jesus’ side. And some people talk about that also being an amniotic fluid, because water, quote, unquote, water and blood run out. And it was shocking to me when, when the first time I learned somebody said like, well, when you pierce someone’s side, it isn’t water that comes out. That’s a birth metaphor. Would you include that in that perspective?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 46:41

Absolutely. Medieval piety made a whole lot of that, and that’s where Anselm is coming from. And there are many images of a kind of divine vulva. Where Christ is crucified, but there’s a kind of oval Mandela, like vulva like surrounding which symbolizes Jesus as our mother. And indeed, we are born of his side, and he feeds us with His blood and with His own flesh, you know, in the in the Eucharist and and the ancient symbol of the Pelican, who was also thought in ancient times to pluck its own blood, to give to the to the babies when it was necessary. And really, in reality, the Pelican was eating bloody things and getting red on its on its chest. If a bird has a chest, I’m not sure what the word would be, but anyway, on the feathers, but that was interpreted as a self-sacrificial gesture on the part of the Pelican, the female Pelican and like and that was understood to be a symbol of Christ. So Christ the mother, the mother bird, the mother out of whom our new life is born. And certainly there was a whole lot of medieval piety and iconography in Europe around those symbols which people are just blown away by. So you know, when you have fundamentalism, which is a fairly modern phenomenon, yeah, of certainty, absolute certainty about how something should be interpreted. That is, that is not the Christian tradition

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 48:30

At any point in time.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 48:32

No, no, no. And the characteristic of fundamentalism is to confuse your own interpretation of something with absolute truth we don’t have access to that. We only have interpretations which can be further closer or further away from the way of Jesus, right? But, but we don’t have absolute truth that would be considering ourselves to be God. So what does Augustine say when he talks about hermeneutics, interpretation of Scripture, another guy that we need to reread, because he, you know, he has some really great stuff.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 49:09

Along with the terrible stuff.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 49:11

Along with some of the terrible stuff. And often, how would that’s been interpreted as with his film, right? Yeah, I call these guys my brothers.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 49:19

Do you? I just want to throw them out. So I’m grateful that they’re people who are willing to keep them.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 49:26

They’re siblings, and we’ve got stuff to learn from them, and but we don’t have to, you know? We don’t have to accept everything. Yeah, I have a theory or an interpretation that I call something against something. Like Augustine, against Augustine, Paul against Paul. And so you take the good parts, the liberatory parts of anybody, any thinker, including myself, and use them to test the more negative parts. And so Augustine says, look, if any interpretation is, leads to love of neighbor, love of oneself and love of God, he includes love of oneself in that triad. Then that’s a good interpretation. Any interpretation, there’s a multitude of interpretations. What they need to do is lead to love. So he gives us the criterion to say, you know, Augustine, you kind of glue some things. Let me use your own interpretation to say that and lead to that, and not leave to love, right? Yeah. And Paul likewise says, Look, if even an angel of God says to you something that’s against the Good News of the Gospel, let that one be anathema. And even if myself, even if I myself, am used in that way, let me be anathema. So I’m like, Thank you, Paul. You just gave me a way to critique the ways that your supposed writings have been weaponized.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 50:51

That’s a beautiful way to talk about Paul, because some of the most empowering pieces of the New Testament are in Paul and some of the most oppressive pieces are in Paul.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 51:05

That’s right. I wrote a book on Galatians, and one of the things that I learned in writing that book was how he shifts from a kind of fellow centrism in the first part of the book, where he’s very focused on circumcision and what is or not done with the penis to positioning himself as a mother of the congregation. So he does a kind of gender bending in that letter that is just very interesting. And so Anselm picks up on this in his prayers, and he talks about Paul as mother. Wow, not just Jesus’s mother. So there are you know theology is is really worth going into deeply.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 50:51

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 51:55

Yes, I love that so much. I’m a huge fan of the Bible and a huge fan of theology, and I find it endlessly interesting, because there’s always more and being of religion and a book that has a couple of millennia, there’s so so much to engage with, but there’s always these surprising places that I every single day, I feel like I’m learning something else that surprises me. And I would think, after this long of trying to learn and grow, that it wouldn’t be so much still, but there just is so much That’s shocking. So I also want to encourage folks who are listening, who might be thinking about things like theological education, that you don’t have to necessarily know what you’re going to do with it. You don’t necessarily have to be a professor, but there is, if you take your faith seriously, it is worth seriously studying it, rather than just taking what we’re told as like, this is what’s true. It’s, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told by conservative folks it’s right there in black and white in English. And I’m like, okay, yes. And I wonder if you have a word for us and for folks who are listening, who either have kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater of like, you know, religion this, the religion thing is so toxic because of lived experiences, or who are curious and who really want to know more. Like, what does theology have to say to us in this political moment, in this time in the world, in this moment where we now have AI and fake news and war and genocide. Like what is it that you, I see you as such a core theologian and your work as such a core part of so many folks’ queer theologies, feminist theologies. I’m wondering what you think, what does it have to offer us in this moment, particularly those of us who have never lived through a dictatorship before? What does theology, this study, this serious study, have to do?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 53:55

I mean, that’s now. That’s such a profound question. I am part of the racial justice team at my church, and we’re going to have a retreat this this weekend. And one of the things I want to talk about is the power of prayer and of contemplation in a time such as this, in this country, in the United States. Because there are so many things pulling at our attention, and so the desire of the dominant forces is to fracture our attention and put fear into us so that we are immobilized. Yes, but prayer, prayer focuses our attention. Contemplation focuses our attention and love casts out fear. Yes, so we can’t afford not to take advantage of this amazing possibility of contemplative prayer and of not saying thoughts and prayers, but actually following that example that Jesus gave us, of let’s pray. And that may seem like a lame, you know, suggestion, but I suggest that it’s something incredibly powerful to center ourselves and to realize, okay, what is the scene we should be concentrating on, because we cannot fight all of the battles and all of the fronts right now, but we’re called to be faithful in specific ways and studying resistance in the Second World War. I’ve been reading Jacques Sémelin. He’s a French writer who talks about civil resistance, because that resistance in France is so famous, right, that we have all of these ideas of armed resistance, but there was civil resistance in France and elsewhere that was amazing that we don’t even know about. Yeah, for example, he tells the story of some women who were not Jewish, but married to Jewish men in in Berlin, who go out and say, when the Nazis want to take their husbands, we’re not going to let you do this. And they go out publicly to defend these spouses and partners. And they have, they have success, wow. So you know, but we don’t know these stories. And he talks about, why is it that in some countries, so many Jews were taken Yes, and in others, almost none? Yes? What were the ways that people resisted? And I’m very interested in studying this and learning for our own circumstance, how to live out this nonviolent, civil resistance in effective ways. And one of the things that he mentions is the importance of maintaining your cultural values, your you might say humanist or religious values, yes, in a time when there’s a barrage that is dehumanizing, that is trying to destroy everything that is beautiful or true or good, till you almost forget that it ever existed. And he said that one of the functions that that civil resistance has is to hang on to those values that are beautiful, good and true, that that’s my language, right, that will help us reconstruct when we have a chance. Because if we allow everything to be destroyed, there’ll be nothing with which to reconstruct. So theology in this moment has a value. One, it teaches you how to think critically, how to read carefully, how to sift through information in a way that is cunning as a serpent, but mild as a dove, right? Jesus taught us to be very suspicious about religious discourse that is dehumanizing, even if it says Lord, Lord, right. So it helps us with that critical thinking helps us with the retrieval. How do we get something good, even out of the bad things? How do we how are we able to subsist? And you know, Luke 21 Jesus has that little apocalypse, and he’s talking about these bad things are going to happen, these institutions, the temple that you think is so strong, nothing’s going to be left. And you know what? There are going to be tsunamis and they’re going to be earthquakes, and they’re going to be fires and they’re going to be wars. Jesus doesn’t bring up the theodicy question. He doesn’t say, where’s the good God in the middle of all this? He just says, don’t be afraid. You continue your path with determination, with with this kind of tenacity that that we talked about, this irreverence, right? And you know what? Even your family is going to hate you. The bad news doesn’t stop in that passage. But don’t worry too much, because you can’t anticipate every circumstance. Just focus and the Holy Spirit will give you the words that you need. He says, a mouth and a word. So this idea a mouth and wisdom. So this idea of, I’ll give you the words, or I’ll give you the silence according to what you need, and the spirit will be with you, or the wisdom will be with you. So, so that passage can teach us a lot, and I’m giving you an example of how to retrieve from the gospel, you know, stuff that will help us right now. It can help you not worry, not be afraid, not be fearful, because then we can’t think well, we can’t act well because we’re overly fearful. Let’s relax. Let’s understand that the Spirit will help us discern how to be wise, and to continue along this path where we don’t hate the enemy, because this is key. We don’t want to mirror the enemy, we don’t want to do the counter-identification, yep, but rather, in prayer, we are able to go outside of that logic toward that dis-identification that doesn’t dehumanize us, because if we fall into hating those who hate us, then we’re no different than they are, right? So there’s a lot of spiritual strength that is needed right now. Theology, a liberating reading of Scripture, community. These are incredibly strong elements that are part of what we can do as people of faith, alongside the big marches, which are also needed, right? Yes, and the saying, no, no, I’m not going to follow this in times that are quite extreme cruel, there’s a cruelty at play that is that is quite breathtaking and hurtful and that is undeniable.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:01:13

Yes, I think holding on to our humanity, at least for me in this moment, it is remembering who I am as a beloved child of God that allows my heart to continue to break for others, and demands that I hold on to with every shred of my being, my own humanity, whether whatever that looks like, whether it’s kindness, whether it’s ethics, whether it’s practice of remembering who I am and who we are and and that feels like that is something that cannot be easily taken away, and that religion has to offer us at its best, has to offer us that identity.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 01:01:52

Right, right? And you know the what’s happening in this country. It’s not new. It is a new iteration of the very worst of the history. But you know, even FDR put people in concentration camps, put Japanese Americans in concentration camps, Andrew Jackson was also of a stripe, similar to this administration. So these things are not new. The Black church is a resource also for us right now, of not every Black church, but many of how to resist this logic of annihilation of those who are not straight white people or trying to pass for such. So we have resources, spiritual resources, that are helpful. And so even though religion can be used in awful ways, and I certainly don’t doubt that that’s not everything, that’s not the whole picture, right? And so we are in difficult times, but we do have resources.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:03:06

Yes, and it’s ours also. It’s not it doesn’t just belong to those who use it as a weapon, but it also belongs to those of us on the margins, and maybe even more centrally so. It belongs to us as that source of companionship, accompaniment, empowerment and fortitude.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 01:03:24

Oh yes, absolutely. I do think so. If you look at who Jesus prioritized, I think you have your answer right there, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:03:32

Absolutely. Well, let’s wrap up. I can’t believe how fast this time has gone. I feel like we could talk forever, but I do want to always include, for those of us who are listening, where you come from, so who are the ancestors that you pull from that you claim, whether they are theorists, whether they are part of your own family bloodline, whether they’re cultural, whether they’re spiritual and religious or divinity, like, where do you go? Where’s your well or your fount of fortitude, of strength, of reminders of who you are when you need that?

Dr. Nancy Bedford 01:04:09

That’s such a great question. And you know, there’s such a cloud of witnesses,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:04:14

Amen.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 01:04:15

But recently, one of my colleagues retired, and they had an iconographer make an icon for him as a goodbye present of his favorite saint. And when they did that, when my colleagues did that, I thought I wonder who I would choose, you know, this kind of thing, who would I want on my icon? And I thought, las tres Marías, the three Marys, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and Mary of Nazareth, because Mary Magdalene, to me, is this rebellious, irreverent, strong woman, disciple, the first witness of the resurrection, the preacher, to the preachers, amazing. Amazing, misrepresented woman, right? They tried to make her into something she was not amazing, amazing figure that appears not only in the gospels, but also even in the in the apocryphal gospels later, right? And then you have Mary of Bethany, whom, I mean, I love both Martha and Mary, but Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, she was a theologian, right? Martha was great because she’s the first one to really recognize that Christ is a Messiah, and she has this declaration that is even more powerful than Peter is, because she doesn’t get into trouble later with Jesus, as Peter does. But, but, but Mary, sitting at this at the feet of of Jesus, is very powerful, and that he defends her right to do so, because that was to be a student of a rabbi, that’s what that is, right? And then Mary of Nazareth, who, you know, I grew up with in Argentina, surrounded by her, and as a Protestant, you know, we were like, Oh no, we don’t, we don’t do that. We’re not, that’s not our devotion. But she, as I had kids, and my girls loved Mary, just just naturally, because it was un mamá con un bebé, a mom with a baby, and my older daughter would say, Mommy, Dios con su mamá! You know, when she was little, God with God with his mother. And I was like, wow, okay, I’ve come to love her as well, very much. So, and the tradition confuses the three Mary’s and conflates them. And that that happens with women, our particularities are denied, we’re made into a collective without any particularity. So the thought that there are three of them, and then the three stars in the southern hemisphere sky, las tres Marías, that are also very close to the Cruje Sur, those are my kind of constellations that I love in the south. So those are kind of the biblical characters. And then there’s so many more from history, Sor Juana, Julian, many more that are the awichas, as we say in South America, the ancestors, the female ancestors. Not to speak of my grandmother as my mom, my sister, you know, strong female women who have formed me. And you know, frankly, my students who have taught me so much and inspire me. So there’s a renewal that comes in the in the younger generations, which is just very satisfying.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:07:58

Yes, we are grateful for your work and your being in the world. And thank you so much for being part of Teología Sin Vergüenza, this was an amazing episode.

Dr. Nancy Bedford 01:08:08

Thanks so much for having me. It was lots of fun.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:08:14

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza, I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel, and find us on social media @soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi 00:07

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:23

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to, even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful to theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer, feminist, Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Hey y’all. Welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. My guest today is Belén Morales, who is a Mexi Salvi Queer lesbian from Oakland, California. They’re passionate about Queer liberation inside and outside of the church. And Belén is a nonprofit strategist and brilliant theologian who works with all kinds of social justice organizations and enjoys reading and movies and dance parties and family. She’s trained in biblical studies and systematic and philosophical theology. You’re gonna love it. Stay tuned. Hi, Belén.

Belén Morales 02:07

Hi! I’m so happy to be here.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:12

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza! I’m so glad to have you. I’ve been wanting to have an episode with you for seasons and seasons, so I’m like, yes, we finally got it. I’m so glad.

Belén Morales 02:20

I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:22

Of course. All right, let’s start with the same question as always. Do you identify as a sinvergüenza, why or why not? And because we’re in English this season and folks who don’t have access to Spanish, might not know the word sinvergüenza, if you can tell us like what does that word mean to you? Do you have any experience with it growing up? Um, anything about your sinvergüenzura and how you identify would be awesome.

Belén Morales 02:46

Yes. So I heard sinvergüenza a lot growing up, always in a negative context. And so what it means to me is one without shame. And growing up as an evangelical in the independentist fund, fundamentalist Baptist world, uh, shame, you had to have shame. Um, being a human was being, uh, just being fully human was of shame. Being a sinful human was shame to be human was to be sinful and to be distant from God. So, um, I heard sinvergüenza a lot, um, externally too. You know, I grew up in the Bay Area. My church was in the middle of the Mission District in San Francisco. So, you know, seeing people, um, del mundo, of the world, you know. They’re a bunch of sinvergüenzas, and, um, to me now, um, it’s such a powerful, powerful term. I’m so grateful that there’s been this reclamation that’s been led from Sinvergüenza, um, around the world itself. Um, ’cause I, I do live without shame and I think that’s a, a divine gift. Um, and we could talk about more of what that means later. But, um, yeah, those are my initial thoughts.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 03:47

Yes. Yes, sinvergüenza. And I do feel like there are these times where we can reclaim those things that were used against us in ways that feel powerful. And, um, I’m grateful for all of our community who has kind of leaned in and we have folks who may identify with one piece of our Queer feminist theology or a different piece, and it’s like a wide umbrella. But what we have in common is like almost all of us have a very lived and real experience with the sinvergüenzura and doing the shedding of shame. And one of the things talking about growing up where you did, I also grew up in a very like progressive place in Asheville, North Carolina. And I remember that growing up. I had no idea that I lived in a liberal place. Like no clue that we had had like a lesbian mayor when I was growing up because my community was a community of like white Appalachian mountain folk who had been there for generations and generations, and my entire life was centered around church. And so it was hyper conservative and fundamentalist, but I had no idea because. I was so insulated, I couldn’t even read like the community outside of that insulation. So you talking about growing up in a fundamentalist context, but in San Francisco, I’m like, tell us a little bit about that experience. ‘Cause I know we have that in common and do you have a moment where you were like, oh, thinking back, you can see that intersection?

Belén Morales 05:15

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’m totally with you. I was so disconnected from that world, from, you know, queerness, from, um, even like, radical political thought, right? I grew up in, uh, my church was in San Francisco, but I grew up in Oakland. I didn’t know who the Black Panthers were until I wasn’t in college. Um, and I was so, which is so crazy to think about now, or so, like, like it just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it does make sense ’cause that’s a project of, of fundamentalism. The patriarchy is to cut you off from your roots. Um, and that means a million different things. But, um, yeah, I, you know, my. My world was so small, um, growing up, um, immigrant family. It was an immigrant church and, you know, my whole social life was the church. I wasn’t allowed to really do anything but go to church, you know, after school activities. Even having like going over to people’s houses, friends from school, like that was like a hard no. Um, ’cause everything revolved around the church. Um, and so, yeah, my only relationship to like my geographic location was like this was, they were bad and evil and going to hell. Mm-hmm. And we were like the shining light on top of the hill, salt of their earth, you know? Yeah. And it wasn’t even like a, we have to go save them. I think there was partly that, but it was al- it was almost like they are, um, loving their sin. They, this is like a hopeless, um, campaign with them. We need to minister to other people because they’re, they clearly wanna go to hell. Yes. Um, and my, the biggest kind of interaction I remember having as a really vivid memory of. I was probably like seven or eight, and there was a bookstore right next to the church. And um, on Sundays we were there like all day. And so when we had a break between services, um, you know, we’d go to the bookstore, we’d go whatever. And so I was there. I think I was with a, parents, um, with one of my parents, I’m pretty sure. And I remember being at the bookstore, we’re about to buy something and then I look over and there is like the LGBT section in a rainbow. And my eye just kind of went big. And I literally remember whatever adult I was with just like putting their hand over my eyes and like turning me away. And that was just such a, like encapsulation of my childhood, um, in the church and being in San Francisco.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 07:22

That feels like such an important metaphor for literally so many things, and I wanted to talk a little bit more about your experience of becoming politicized and coming into your queerness. And I think that folks assume, like if you’re from somewhere like San Francisco or Oakland, if you’re from a big city, then of course you will have had this very like connected understanding of how the world works and the real world and you know, those kinds of things. But I think the church is a perfect example of how some of us are so insulated that it takes us a long time to get words and get frameworks to, for, to make sense of the world outside of that church world. And so it makes sense to me that we often are like complicit in our own small world-ness because that’s the logic that we have been instilled with. And so that process I think is so important for people to know. One, it’s never too late, and two, it is a process and you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be like the most, like, have all the history memorized and repeatable to be welcome in our community. And that is about us telling our stories of like, how do we come into consciousness? Because I was definitely, I mean, I was surrounded in an almost all white environment. And so the logics of white supremacy and stuff just were what was true, but it took like, I was well into college, out of college in my twenties, like before I even connected the dots like racism and xenophobia and things like that. So tell us about your experience.

Belén Morales 09:06

Woo. Where do I even start? Because it was a journey. Yeah, friend. It was a journey. It took me so long and yeah, I’ve had to do like work in therapy around like, it’s okay that it took me a long time because how, I grew up, I was so instilled with white supremacy, patriarchy, all of the things that were, um, like the DNA of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, which start was started by Jack Hyles, who was one of the less successful religious right um, founders from the eighties.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 09:36

And so maybe tell us a little bit more about them, because maybe folks don’t know about that church.

Belén Morales 09:42

Yeah. So, um, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement started in the eighties, uh, maybe in the seventies, but it kind of rose with prominence, um, with the religious right. Yeah. And so it is, um, very, um, I, I think what sets them aside from a lot of conservative evangelicals is their acute hatred of women. Like the misogyny was really, really intense. And I know misogyny isn’t intense in a lot of denominations, but it was very much about, like, it was centered around the submissiveness of women. And really, and, and this is why it took me so long to come into my queerness, like the inherent un untrust, untrusted worthiness, how inherently untrusted were, uh, women were. Um, you know, from the really like blaming all of human sin on Eve, um, yeah. And, and, and so forth, right? Yeah. And so, um, I think that’s where, and then just like the rest of it, like I didn’t know white people growing up. I grew up in Oakland in the nineties, you know, in Fruitville there weren’t a lot of white people around. Same in the mission in San Francisco, but like, the way that this church upheld white supremacy because of the theological beliefs, like all of them did. Um, it was also very Republican because a lot of folks in the church were, had, um, what’s the word? Uh, amnesty, immigration amnesty, because under the Reagan presidency, of course, what they didn’t have the political, political education to know is that all the co, all the issues in their countries of origin were because of American policies. But, you know, they didn’t have the, the education to put that together. So, um, so all that being said, it was, um, I, you know, I grew up in that church till I was about 15, had family dynamics, moved away from that church. Um, and then there is a lot of la- what I thought, looking back kinda lateral moves, but maybe like 0.2% more progressive moves that I had to make.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 11:29

That counts, every bit counts!

Belén Morales 11:31

Um, to get to where I am now every Yes. Yeah. And, and that’s what I needed. I couldn’t do it all at once, right? Like, it was just impossible for me to get there. ‘Cause there was so much undoing I had to do. I had to undo number one, the misogyny was so intense, like I didn’t trust myself, right? Yes. Um, I had to undo the, of course, the white supremacy, the patriarchy, the, the need for like the, the belief that he needed like a man around. Mm. Um, and that men like held systems together and that they were, that they were inherently trustworthy, that they were inherently leaders. Um, yes. And which made no sense, right? Because we got this from the pulpit. But in my realities. Yep. The, the men were like completely useless. Like they didn’t know how to, you know, do anything. They couldn’t even wash a dish, cook a meal, take care of the kids. Like the women did all of the things. Yeah. Um, even like put church stuff together. Right? Um, and so there was just so much, um, cognitive dissonance with what I was preached about and I was in the church like three times a week. Like it was, yeah, it was intense, right? Like it was three times a week, but like all day on Sundays. It was my life. It was like the indoctrination, you know, like, yeah. It was so intense. Um, and so then I went to a non-denominational white church, which non-denominational, in my opinion, it’s kind of like Baptist light. Um, so I went from like God being super scary. I was afraid all the time. My nervous system was totally rattled like all the time. ’cause God was always watching me, like the elf on the shelf guy. And then going to

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:56

Like Santa.

Belén Morales 12:57

Literally, but like bad Santa. Um, and then going to like this white church that was more, Jesus is your buddy, okay. Jesus. And they still had conservative beliefs, right? It still, at the end of the day we’re homophobic and patriarchal, but it was a different framework of like, Jesus cares about you, like actually cares about you, and, and you don’t have to be afraid to talk to Jesus. It was very much about like personal relationship with Jesus. I grew up with more of like a fearful, top down relationship with God. So it like morphed right? Uhhuh. Um, and then in high school I just became, I was super nerdy. I was like a religious history nerd. I was reading like Karen Armstrong and like, uh, just like, like histories of the church because I grew up believing and being taught that the god, that God just dropped the Bible from heaven. And God wrote it, you know? Mm-hmm. Pulled up Google Docs

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 13:48

In English.

Belén Morales 13:49

In English! No, in Spanish, actually. They know about Spanish. Okay. And, and that was it, you know? And so it was so mind blowing to me to just learn about the history of the, like, the Bible, um, how the Bible came to be, who decided what was in the Bible. And from then on I was like 16, 17, reading this stuff. Right. And from then on, like, it was very much a Pauline experience of like scales falling from my eyes, starting to really see like, whoa, like what I, I was kind of right as a kid. Like I, I did believe in God and, and there was something to this God thing, but like those men had it so wrong. Yeah. Um, and from then I kind of went to, I left that church for different reasons. Then I went to another church that was another white church. It was an Evangelical covenant church. That was a very much lateral from the, from the prior one. I thought it was a little bit more open and accepting. They weren’t. Um, but at that point I had started grad school, so I did my undergrad and biblical studies at a Pentecostal university founded by a woman, which as a kid that would’ve been like super progressive.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 14:52

Yes. Radical.

Belén Morales 14:53

Which is, like, really nuts to think about that. That would be, like, radical. ‘Cause it was founded by a woman and that was something, the baptism ab-, the IBF definitely didn’t, or IFB didn’t agree with at all. Um, and so I, and it was still super conservative, it was Pentecostal, right. But I did my undergrad and biblical studies, um, that was really illuminating. And then I did my, uh, master’s in theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. So it was really an interesting shift because my undergrad was like a very Brown and Black school with really conservative theology. And then my grad school was a very white school with a lot more liberal progressive theology. So it’s kind of like, a. It was a lot of learning, a lot of unlearning. Um, but it wasn’t until really after grad school that it had more of, like, a racial consciousness. Mm. Um, I think grad school really helped me open up my mind to, there are many ways to be a Christian. You know, the rapture started, like the belief about the rapture started like 300 years ago. Like, ain’t nobody believed that. And it’s like, uniquely American too.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:51:

Um, wait, wait, wait until like, wait. Tell us, tell us a little bit more before you continue because some people

Belén Morales 15:52

Sorry, I’m like, rambling.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:56

hearing this show. No, I love it. This is exactly what we’re here for. But I wanna put an exclamation point in that because for sure there will be people on this podcast who are hearing that the rapture is not like in Jesus’ mouth from like, you know, a thousand million years ago, before even Jesus showed up in the scripture and prophecy like, this is gonna be an exclamation point. So I wanna pause so you can tell us a little bit more because rapture, I don’t know how you were growing up, but I swear every time I came in the house and my grandmother wasn’t there and I expected her to be there, the first thing outta my brain was like, oh my God, rapture happened. And I’ve been left behind. Also the Left Behind series. So messed up.

Belén Morales 16:36

Yes. So messed up. Yeah, I, they like rolled in the TV at my church so we could watch Left Behind. Like, that was the only movie we’re allowed to watch there. Um, yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 16:45

So rapture.

Belén Morales 16:46

Yeah. My first anxiety attacks were about the rapture. Like I was super young. I would check in on my mom’s room to see if my dad was there. I’d be like, maybe he did get left behind, but if my mom wasn’t there, I’d freak out. So yeah, I learned through school, um, and through historical study of Christianity that so many of the things that evangelicals like propped up today as having like, been true always like the rapture, like Zionism, you know, the state of Israel. Um, these things happened in a very recent memory and, and, and very uniquely American too, which is what also tripped me up. If you go to like, um, you know, other countries, the, there, the rapture theology really isn’t as much like, prominent. Um, and so central to so much evangelical belief. Um, I was really into like, the study of the end times when I was in college. Mm-hmm. Um. Eschatology it’s also called. Yeah. And you know, reading like the scripture around the rapture, like it just had no historical precedence and it really gained traction after, um, around the Great Awakening, um, which was after the Enlightenment. It was like, kind of, the religious, like backlash to mm-hmm scientific discovery. It’s because they felt like they were losing control, like in the public square, um, and losing control of people. Wow. And usually these fear tactics, like the invention of hell, the invention of the rapture, um, are used to control people for power, for money. I mean, you know, all the, all the usual hits. Um, and so really, really learning Christian history saved me good. Um, because it was like, the church has not always looked like this. The church has looked like all kinds of people and Queer people’s. We’ve always been here. We are the church. And so I had spent so much of my undergrad and in these churches arguing about. Um, you know, can, can Gays be Christian and like those conversations. And then I had this aha moment, you know, towards the end of grad school of like, of course we can, like, this conversation is so silly. We’ve always been here. Yeah. We, like, we are, not only do we belong at the table, like we are the table. Yeah. Um, and so that, um, so I kind of had a little bit more of like, my Queer awakening before even like my racial, uh, consciousness. Um, which really honestly didn’t happen until Black Lives Matter movement started. Mm. Um, and then I was able to connect the dots because I started reading James Cone, um, God of the oppressed. I started reading the mujerista theologies. Um, and, and, and then they all came together for me. And then, you know, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, like all, it’s all connected. Um, yeah. And, and yeah. And, and that took a long time. You know, I was in my late twenties when, when most of this happened. So, um. Yeah, that’s kind of how I got there.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 19:20

Amazing. I know it feels late, but I don’t think it is late. Like, we each, each of us who are willing to do the work go on a journey and that journey takes us all over the place. And so I just do believe, like we do figure it out as soon as we can. And it’s the unwillingness to try that makes us, you know, that is the, that’s the late part, is the like close heartedness to things that we feel in our bodies, in our dissonance. I wanna go back to this self-trust thing because I think that that like demonization of our flesh and particularly female flesh, like assigned female, trans female, it doesn’t matter, but it’s the femininity that has to be, you know, just squashed out of us and seen as something that not only. Isn’t valid and we should and we shouldn’t listen to, but something really dangerous. Like we are supposed to kill all of those pieces within us that tell us no or yes. And then once that is sufficiently, you know, squashed down, then we can rely on our external brothers, fathers, priests, preachers, whatever, to, to guide us in what is true about our own bodies, our own lives, all of those things. So I know you to be somebody who has worked really hard on that self-trust, and I’m curious if you will tell us a little bit about like, how you map that arc of trusting your body and trusting yourself and like what happened that made you be able to do that? Because I know so many folks who are searching for that path to come back to themselves once they know they need to. But how do we do that process? So how was that for you?

Belén Morales 21:15

Oh, it’s such a long process and one that I’m still on. I don’t think that journey’s ever really complete when you grew up, you know, like we grew up. Um, and so it was a really long process. I think, uh, you know, one of the first big lessons I, I was taught as a kid was like, Jesus is God number one. Right. And I two is like, you are the worst. Like, you, like you are inherently sinful.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 21:34

You deserve hell.

Belén Morales 21:35

As a baby. You deserve hell it’s only by the grace of God that you’re here. Yeah. Um, and so it took me a really long time. I was able to like dismantle so much of like the, you know, the oppressive theologies, the new theologies like I mentioned around the rapture, you know, through kind of my study of Christian history. But like the self part was really hard, you know? Yeah. And even in college, um, I was like, you know, maybe it, maybe I should be, maybe I am and should be asexual. Yeah. Um, you know, ’cause I was reading like the first Christians, like, they even believe in marriage or sex or anything, you know? And. There was like this really separation from flesh, from spirit, because like if you read certain passages in the Bible, it’s like very, like flesh is no good. Um, and it’s also really gnostic understanding. Like some of the early gnostic Christians were very much like, it’s all about your spirit. Forget the body, forget the body, forget the body. And so in grad school, I started thinking about more of the body. Mm-hmm. Um, and um, I took some theologies of dance classes. I love, love a liberal seminary. Um, and like, and doing more embodiment practices was also in therapy at that point. So doing more embodiment practices and it was so uncomfortable for me. Really, really uncomfortable for me. Um.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 22:43

There’s no dancing growing up.

Belén Morales 22:45

No dancing. Yeah. I grew up in Footloose, like, truly like no dancing, certainly no red cowboy boots, like none of that. So, um, we would have secret dance parties, like for real. It was like literally footloose. It’s nuts. Um, so yeah, so it took, you know, it took some time for me to come into myself. Um, and I think that had to do with like, not trusting myself. One of the first, um, things that cults do is they tear down your sense of self. They tear down the individual completely, like down to the nubs, um, or even beyond so that they can rebuild you with only, uh, within like the community or the group. Yeah. Um, and so I felt like that happened to me really acutely in every church community that I was a part of until like my mid twenties. I mean, I had, you know, leaders even telling me like, you don’t know yourself. We know you, we will tell you what’s right for you. And, um, and yeah, and, and so it wasn’t until I started reading more, um, you know, feminist, um, uh, like Black scholars and, and really like learned about like, you know, um, and who was it? Oh, I’m, I’m seeing her name Zora Neale Hurston that says, um, that talked about how, you know, they will rewrite your story. I’m gonna butcher the quote, but like, they’re gonna rewrite your story and, and, and, and say that, you know, your life was great. Everything was great, even though that’s not your story, you know? Yes. And so a lot of people were writing my stories. And so, um, yeah. So, um, from then on I was, I really had to work and thank God for therapy. Shout out to Christina, my therapist. Yes. Um, on like, rebuilding that sense of self, that trust. Um, and it took a really long time and I, I, I’ve grown leaps and bounds around it. Um, and I’ve gotten older, you know, I’m almost 40. I’ve, I’ve, I, I think I’ve, I’ve made peace with a lot more of it. Um, and really forgiving myself for those times I haven’t trusted myself. Yeah. Um, and so, um, yeah, so that’s kind of, so it was through, through more study, um, through reading, uh, women’s stories, Queer people’s stories, and to like really take my power back. And that’s also like a therapy thing, right? It’s like taking your power back, having your own agency. Um, and it took, I think that was probably one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome. Um, even before like the racial consciousness, Queer consciousness, um, coming out to myself and then others. Coming out to myself was way harder. Um, but, um, that was like, kind of, the first, the, the first thing was like having to, or the hardest thing, rather, it was like the trust in myself. The trusted trust, my own narrative. Yes. Um, without apology.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 25:11

Yeah. And if we trust ourselves, it opens the, the doors to so many other possibilities like creating our own possibilities for future, like choosing our own lives, like creating different ways of doing family, of doing life, of doing work. Yeah. Like there’s so much that is behind that door. And I think that’s why, I mean, Audre Lorde taught us about that erotic the yes. Whether it’s sexual, not sexual, exactly. But yes. And then no, how powerful that is and therefore why it has to be so demonized. And I think it’s like the farther we have to come, the longer that is. Because if you started repressing what you knew to be true about what you wanted for your body and your life when you were born, basically. Then that’s a long journey. And I think we need to give ourselves so much credit and permission to be on that journey. All of us who are listening, like we encourage therapy, we encourage all of those things that we do to try to recover that because it has, it feels like it has literally been stolen from us, and it is so powerful and it is ours. Like it is our birthright, it is our divine gift. So I just feel like we can’t talk about it enough.

Belén Morales 26:34

Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of the things too that I meant to say was about, um. I mean, going back, going back to the Bible, like Jesus, Jesus became flesh. Yes. Like the flesh is important and it’s central and it’s good. Yeah. Um, and I think that was one of the things that was absolutely, you know, probably on purpose missing from like my childhood, um, uh, you know, religion was that the body is good. If it wasn’t, why would Jesus become flesh? What was the point of incarnation? Yes. Um, and so I think like having that in mind therapy, like when my therapist says, pull in all your resources like therapy and, and uh, and somatic, you know, practices and things like that, um, really helped me to, to come into my own sexuality, um, and pleasure and desire, like you mentioned, because I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to have any, um, and I strived to not have any Yes. For a long time.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 27:27

Yes. And I just, yeah, I wanna just let that breathe for a second because it’s so critically important. And that was the same, like Jesus was fully human and fully God, but we mostly just talked about the fully God part, and we never talked about any of the fully flesh part unless it was like, you know, Jesus was bleeding on the cross. Or like the suffering of Jesus was the human part, but not all the rest of Jesus. And I think that that concept of like enfleshment was the, was the connector piece that I needed between theology and social justice. Because I was also taught like we don’t get involved with that messy politics stuff because that’s of the earth and that’s prince like principalities. And that we just like, we save ourselves for heaven and we build up our gifts for the afterlife and we keep to ourselves over here. ’cause the world already hates us and everybody’s going to hell anyway. I mean, like you were saying earlier, I was like the Methodist across the way, we’re going to, hell forget the Catholics and forget people of other religions. Right?

Belén Morales 28:35

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Way off. Yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 28:36

Mm-hmm. Just even just like the conservative Methodists were going to hell. So it was just like, yeah. So I think all of that connection of like, it took me longer to connect theology and Bible and Christianity with social justice because I thought that that was like sullying my spirit and my hands. And it wasn’t until I got a better Christology around God clearly cares about the flesh and the human condition now on this earth, in these bodies, not as something that should just be punished and discarded and disciplined. We use that word a lot. Discipline the body. Yeah. Um, but something that we should actually care about, which means we care about social justice issues, which means we care about people. That also the Bible has, there’s a ton of backup for it, but somehow I just

Belén Morales 29:15

So much

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 29:16

skipped over that

Belén Morales 29:27

So much. Yeah. It’s, it’s, and it’s, and that one, and it’s always over. Like, same, like we were never supposed to care about, you know, the poor. I mean, probably a lot of us were poor at the church, um, but that wasn’t like that wasn’t something that like, you know, like there wasn’t like a, Hey, let’s everybody gather and make sure there’s enough food for everybody. That’s not something that we did, um, even though the first Christians did and the fir- and like, they were really concerned about, you know, um, like social justice and that’s all throughout the prophets in the Hebrew Bible and that’s also in, um, some of the Pauline letters and certainly in what Jesus was talking about. You know, even just, like, in part of the Lord’s Prayer is giving us our daily bread. Like that is like a, a, like a need of the flesh. Flesh on the daily. Yes. Um. And yeah, it’s just, and that was absolutely overlooked because I think, um, it opens a can of worms, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:13

Totally.

Belén Morales 30:14

Like you start looking at inequality outside, you start looking at inequality inside, and church people don’t want you to do that.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:20

Yeah. It was wild. Like we would go on mission trips, like, okay, so one, I grew up in a very poor church, like all poor white folk, and we did help each other, but it was like, a personal, like, we help sister so-and-so, or whatever. Even if it was like an abusive husband. It wasn’t the marriage that was the problem or the relationship, it was about the devil and it was about, like, the spiritual support, and we would provide, like I remember church ladies like providing food, but then when we were talking about the world, it was always like mission trips to far away places. Even within Appalachia, but, it was like a poor them and we are being good by helping them. But it was always conditioned, whatever benefit we were doing, whether it was helping rebuild houses or whatever, was directly predicated on people coming to the worship services.

Belén Morales 31:15

Yep.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 31:16

And we would count souls that we converted in exchange for these very basic things like shoes for kids and, like putting roofs on trailers. Like, it was basic human need. And it was, but it never felt like we were giving it freely. It felt like it was a very transactional, you come to these revival services, some of your kids, some of your adults are going to give their lives to Jesus Christ. And in exchange we will bless you by working on your house or your mother’s trailer or whatever. And now looking at it from this side, I’m like, oh, I so see it as an economic exchange rather than this like Christian morality, because good works were sinful. Like it wasn’t, we weren’t supposed about works.

Belén Morales 32:01

Exactly right.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 32:03

We were supposed to be about faith. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So

Belén Morales 32:05

Yeah, just James be damned. Yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 32:07

Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Belén Morales 32:08

Look at the Bible for those following along.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 32:10

Yeah, yeah. So I just think about that.

Belén Morales 32:15

It was highly controversial, right? Yeah, no, I, and I think ’cause their God was transactional, so we had to be transactional, right? Yeah. Their God was angry, so they were angry. Their God was oppressive. So they were oppressive. And I think it’s a direct reflection of, and somebody said at once, like, we build God in our image. Um, and uh, instead of the reverse. And so, yeah, I think all of those, like, because we didn’t do missions in my childhood church, but later in the evangelical church that the white evangelical churches I went to, you know, we went on missions and to Mexico usually it was really kind of a, a trip being there as like, being Mexican in Mexico, doing my missions work with these white folks. Wow. And like putting on church services and having to translate. It was very strange. Um, very, very intense.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 33:01

Oh, friends.

Belén Morales 33:03

I was like 17. Like, ugh. Um, but yeah, it’s, you know, it’s like, it has to be, that’s like, and then I think it also like, is part of capitalism, right? Like this like model of like relationships only being transactional. Like, we are going to give you something in order, you have, and then that makes a contract that you have to do this, you have to be saved, you have to, you know, come to the church service. And same like with, um, their version of God, right? Like, I’m going to be pious and not swear and, and not gamble in order for you to bless me in my life. Um, or like, not even bless you in your life, but like, so I can have, you know, treasures in heaven.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 33:40

Yeah.

Belén Morales 33:41

Um, it is such a transactional model, um, that really distorts what love is and what, you know, a relationship with spirituality God the divine can look like.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 33:51

Yeah. I’m wondering if you will talk to us a little bit more about, you know, growing up in a predominantly Black and Brown community and church, but having theology that is white supremacist, because that is gonna bridge us to the next conversation I really wanna talk about, which is what’s happening with our community these days and who these ice people are who are acting as terrorists on behalf of the state. And I would love, I think that how you connect those dots is so critically important. So will you tell us a little bit about your experience and how you see that connecting to this political moment?

Belén Morales 34:30

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for bringing that up. So, um. So we didn’t ever talk about white people in church. That wasn’t, it wasn’t something we talked about, you know, I saw the white people on TV like, Saved By the Bell. I thought those were all white people, like live like that, like Steve Martin and Father of the Bride was very formative to me. I was like, oh, all white, all white people have these kinds of houses and these kinds of lives. Right? And so, you know, we never talked in the home. And also, like my parents were immigrants. They came here in the eighties. Yeah. So they didn’t, also didn’t know about white culture like that. I mean, besides what they saw on TV as well. So, um, we never talked about whiteness white, people both in the church or at home. And so I, I had really no semblance of like, what it was. Um, if you told me, you know, as a kid that I was in a white supremacist church, I’d be like, that doesn’t make any sense. But Right. It really was so exemplifying that white. White supremacy does not need only white people to uphold white supremacy. Yes. Um, and I think this was mostly acute in the, in the, um, in the politics of it all. So it was very, like I said, it was an immigrant church, very Republican, Reagan. It was very much like America saved us from our countries. Mm. We come to America because the land of milk and honey, it’s the promised land. Mm-hmm. Um, where we have opportunity. I mean, my dad was from El Salvador, he fled the Civil War, right? Mm-hmm. So there is like, this, also this refugee mentality, again, not knowing that American intervention, um, was the, you know, seed of that war. Um, absolutely. So it was very much like thinking of America, in, as a very like, salvific saving entity. Yeah. Um, and so we had the American flag. We would do the pledge of allegiance at church.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 36:01

At church.

Belén Morales 36:03

All these Brown people doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Ooh. The idolatry jumps out it

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 36:10

On the altar. Did you have the like American flag on one side and the Christian flag on the and the other?

Belén Morales 36:15

Christian flag? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and so it was a very pro, and my, my dad was very Republican. There I don’t really remember my mom talking about America like that, but um, but it was just in the air that we breathe, you know? We didn’t, I didn’t think twice about it, you know? And of course I did the Pledge of Allegiance at school as well. Um, but it was like this veneration of, of America and of, um, and of the colonizer. And so, um, it was, it was like, yeah, you know, our countries of origin like matter. There’s still pride in like being Mexican, Central, you know, Salvadorian, Nicaraguan, and all, and all the like, but there was also this acute pride in being American, whether they were like documented or not. Like, right. There was like this pride in being American and like one of the, um, and I was just thinking about this the other day, one of like the main career paths that was celebrated at church, for the men, was military service. Like one of, you know, one of the jóvenes, as we were called the jóvenes, mm-hmm. Um, uh, of, of my generation, you know, went to the Air Force and everybody was like, wow. Like you couldn’t be spending your time doing anything better. Of course, women were not, Yeah, encouraged to go to anything. Um, except for like the bi-, the Jack Hyles Bible School in Indiana. That was like, but only for like, a summer program. Like, don’t really get a degree. Um, you don’t need it.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 37:30

So we could, so, so you could like, teach the children, Right?

Belén Morales 37:34

Right. Just to teach, teach other women and the children. Yes. Um, and so, yeah, and so the American, the American patriotism, um, the, you know, was, was um, wrapped up in all of, in all of this. In a way that I didn’t realize was so problematic till later. And then now connecting to the current moment, you know, um, and this is true I think in a lot, lot of evangelical circles. Um, I don’t think the Catholics do the whole American thing as much. Um, or at least the Mexican Catholics, from my understanding. But like, the evangelicals love America so much and, and it makes sense, right? Because, um, uh, evangelicalism is also like, very acutely American. Um, like I talked about the rapture, these are really, really Amer- and Zionism. Like these are really American, um, uh, American ideologies that were, uh, made, um, kno-, more prolific because of the church. Yeah. Um, and so,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:21

And supported with money and Bible study. Mm-hmm. And sermon seeds. Absolutely not organic

Belén Morales 38:27

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, Zionism was also in the air that we breathe, you know, the state of it. Yeah. I didn’t really get it like, as a kid, yeah, of course, but like, but I mean, we had like Mexicans and Nicaraguans walking around with like star, like, the, is the star of David. Like what? Like, you know, and they were like, judío, like Jewish by like, you know, ancestral heritage. And um, and again, it didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t understand. The, I did like, you know, we read about Jewish people of course in the Hebrew Bible, but like, it, it, those dots never connected for me as a kid. Um, but, but that’s what so much, um, what’s taught in so many individual churches, which is like, they’re so prominent all across America. And so it is not surprising to me to see so many Latine people, or Hispanic people as they prefer to be called, um, as ICE agents. Um, and I say Hispanic because that is the word that the colonizers gave us. Yes. Um, it is the people who have been colonized by Spain and folks find a lot of pride in that. Um,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 39:29

So you weren’t surprised when we’ve been, like, when people have been unveiling border patrol and ICE agents that those were our people under those masks.

Belén Morales 39:39

A hundred percent. I was not surprised. Disgusted, always. Yes. But not surprised because of, um, one, the military industrial complex is always gonna prey on vulnerable Black and Brown people. A hundred percent, yes. Like they need poor Black and Brown people to fight their wars. That has been true since the American Revolution. Um, it was true in Vietnam. It’s true now.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 40:00

Yeah.

Belén Morales 40:00

Um, and now their war is of course, um, around the world, with all their secret wars and whatnot, but also like the wars that they’re waging on people here, um, in the United States. So, um, of course they’re getting, um, you know, the signing bonuses, like all of these things. Like, just like how, the military preys and does recruitment at, you know, high school, low income, high schools. It’s the same, it’s the same spirit there. Um, and, and, and, and we have a sincere lack of political education for nuestra gente. Like I said, I didn’t know about the Black Panthers tales in college because I took an African-American history class and I was in Oakland, California for my whole life. Um, and so there is such a lack of political education for our people that’s accessible. Um, and, and, and this is why we have all these people upholding white supremacy because they will be happy to sell out their communities. And like people selling out their own communities for the sake of empire has is also as old as empire. Yes. Um, this has [00:43:00] always happened and is a strategy of the empire. Um, is to create certain pathways to success for certain people of the marginalized group so they can help control the marginalized group and, and so that they have this also this, um this fantasy that, that those select few will be part of the, the reigning class, but they’ll never be. They will absolutely never be white, um, in the way that they think that they’re white because they’re making $300,000 a year. You know, your last name is still Nuñez, honey. Like you’ll get beat by the police. Sorry. Even if you’re in a shitty Tesla. Can we swear? Sorry.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 41:32

Yes, you can swear.

Belén Morales 41:33

Okay, cool.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 41:34

It’s a really interesting, I wanna, I wanna just connect those dots, make sure for our audience, because I do think there’s a lot of people who do not understand what the hell is going on, and so I think it’s important to connect those dots really explicitly.Because, I think political education is so critically important and we have prioritized, like, assimilation, being good, work, all of those things over those kinds of community education. So basically what you’re saying is connecting the dots between why would people from our own communities, children of immigrants, first gen, second gen, sometimes immigrants themselves, why would they work for the government that is kidnapping and like just terrorizing our communities? And one is about financial success, one is about lack of understanding the systems that they’re working for. Another one is about being part of vulnerable communities and they’re specifically being targeted. But there’s another piece that’s like the theological connection. Will you connect the dots for us around like, what would somebody, how could somebody who comes from an immigrant family, be, consider themselves a Christian, and participate in what’s happening in the domestic warfare against our own communities.

Belén Morales 43:01

Yeah. And, you know, I said that there’s no political education. I wanna correct myself. There’s a lot of political education. Mm-hmm. Like, um, in, in the way that we’re taught in evangelical churches, it’s the, the politics is, um, I might, I think I froze. Okay. The politics is just conservative politics, white supremacist politics. Yeah. Um, and so I think kind of like what I was talking about, the project of, of cults, um, and white supremacy is to destroy the sense of self. And part of that is cutting off access to community ties. And so I think a lot of these ICE agents, they don’t consider themselves part of the community, a community at all. They consider themselves individual. There’s like individual intense, you know, individual, and that’s also evangelicalism, right? Like individual salvation. Um, and so this individualism like

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:42

Individual sin, not societal level sin, individual sin.

Belén Morales 43:43

Individual sin. Right? Yeah. Right. And so they don’t, I, I think for a lot of these people, they would say they, that’s not their community. I’m not vulnerable. Um, and so, you know, any, and, and they’re cut out from their ancestors too. Um, about, and like ancestor practices

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:58

Talk about that.

Belén Morales 43:59

Um, and, and, you know, ’cause trauma, you know Yeah. Trauma and, you know, family trauma, societal trauma. And a lot of, a lot of folks aren’t, aren’t given language, therapy, space to talk about these things. And so, um, I think, uh, theologically, you know, with the, with the infusion of American exceptionalism, infusing of American patriotism in our churches. It makes sense that so many people sign up for border patrol for ICE. Yeah. For the Air Force, uh, for the Marines, what have you. Because, um, like the, the best thing you can do in like those positions is, um, their, their God is one of power and dominion and, and con- and, and conquering God. Yeah. And so that to them is, is almost also the performing of their gender role. Um, yeah. And, and with that mixed with being cut off from your people, not even knowing who your people are or not even like identifying with your people. I mean, I, I think that’s why we are in this place.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 45:00

Yeah. And it’s so surprising to me. And ironic and heartbreaking in all of the things mixed into one mush where we see so many people now who voted for the orange dude and then, is, are, like, but I didn’t think he meant me or my partner. Or my kid. Or my mother. And it’s like, what is, what happens in our, in our lack of connecting the dots, like our intentional silencing of those parts that help us understand ourselves as interdependent, that made you believe that this wasn’t gonna impact you. And then there’s this really heartbreaking piece around realizing that you are vulnerable, you are one of them, that you even yourself mm-hmm. Are talking about. Mm-hmm. And I don’t know what we’re, my hope is that we as a community can be open enough and soft hearted enough. To receive so many folks who are going to be in that process of connecting new dots or being surprised, heartbroken, hurt, realizing that they are not white, or that they’re never gonna be seen as white. Mm-hmm. That they are a part of the them that they are talking against or voting against or whatever. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know if I have that softness, but I, my best version does. I don’t know if this version does, but my best version Yeah. Does. Yes.

Belén Morales 46:33

My Christianity has its limits. You know, I think, um, I, I, I, I, I hear you and I, and I think that there should be softness and care. Is it gonna come from me individually? I don’t know if that’s my particular ministry. I’m sure it’s somebody’s, um, but I think for me, that that patience has run out and it ran out a long time ago. Um, around 2000 November, 2016. Um, yep. I can pinpoint, um, because I’ve brought a, you know, I, I think that was the work of like most of my twenties, is trying to bring people along, trying to bring people along.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 47:08

Yeah.

Belén Morales 47:09

And just being so exhausted. I’m like, I can’t, all my energy is going to this. I, I can’t. I need to save myself. I need to take care of myself. Um, and so I think for some people that’s their ministry and God bless them forever. But, um, for me at this point, um, that’s not where I’m at. But I do think that there, um, that there should be entry points always, you know, like we said, like it’s a lifelong process for us. Some folks, it takes longer to get to political, racial consciousness. There’s different triggers that happen for folks that helps them get them there, and I’m glad they’re here. Um, but it’s like, it, it goes back to American individualism, like, oh, you don’t care. Yes. Unless, until it personally affected you. Like, that’s really bad. Like you have no empathy, no compassion.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 47:48

Yes.

Belén Morales 47:49

You know? Um, and, and it’s, and it’s hard, you know, and I, I think that’s when I struggle with being a Christian. ’cause I should have, maybe not should, but like, I would like the idea of having endless compassion. Um, but it’s, but it’s really hard. Um, yeah. Because, you know, this man has shown who he is for over a decade. Um, so it’s, it’s confusing to me that folks wouldn’t get that. I mean, it, yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 48:13

Yeah. I kind of stick with this passage in the Bible where, you know, Jesus says, you know, father, forgive them. And we always focus on the mm-hmm. Before they know not what they do, part. But I really feel very comforted by, this is not my first original thought. I learned it from other theologians and, and faith people of like, Jesus said, God, you do it ’cause I’m done with these people. Like I just don’t have to do it. So that really comforts me to be like, I can’t give that to God. God, can you please, um, yes. Can you please help out on this one? I do want to, to just touch one a, another touch around Zionism because you’ve talked about it a couple of times. I think it’s really, really, really important in our communities to talk about and I feel like it’s harder to talk about, or I see it being talked about less in our communities of color. And I’m wondering if you, you were saying like, it doesn’t make sense. I think it doesn’t make sense, still to me now a lot of the time. Yeah. Like I had to do a lot of re- reading, relearning, because I had this innate, it felt like innate, like default to yes, [00:52:00] Israel is a state, should exist and Jews should own it. And they should be able to protect themselves. And these narratives that just like nobody had actually said to me out loud, but were so clear that it, I, I’m embarrassed to say that it took me like reconnecting with my own humanity and empathy to be like, I actually don’t give a shit what is happening. This, like, what that theology is or what people deserve or don’t. Human beings deserve to live. Children deserve to live. People deserve sovereignty over the place where they live and reside. And so. I would love it if you would help, especially folks who maybe are hearing about like free Palestine or hearing words like genocide and feeling like those are big words and those are scary words. And maybe have a sense of like, but, but Zion is this holy place and, and Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. And like, will you help tease out a little bit? I think there’s a piece around what a government state is that is really important as compared to a people and, but any of the dots that you can connect for folks who are a part of like our community who are like, I don’t know much about what’s happening on the other side of the world ’cause we, we stick to these continents, pretty much. Um, but how that connects to religion and the, the colonizing white supremacist culture. How did you know about that? Yeah.

Belén Morales 50:57

Yeah. So I wanna speak to what you said about how like, you kind of just like believe these things and not sure where they come from. Yeah. Um, I think, and I’m, I mean it might sound kind of like a joke, but I think it’s, I’m being sincere. Like, I think a lot of it comes from Left Behind. Um, like the movies,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 51:12

You kidding?

Belén Morales 51:11

Like the movies, The books? Those, like, there were huge,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 51:13

I totally grew up on those. Yes

Belén Morales 51:16

They were huge. And what was the; they were, I mean it’s, it’s eschatology, it’s like the end times, right? Yes. And like, some of, like the most, I mean, to me, images that stand out in my brain are like the two witnesses in Israel that need to get killed for the, the antichrist, you know? And it’s just like, you know, it’s this whole thing. And I think a lot of like, um, I think it’s kind of like in the back of a lot of like our head, like people who grew up in the evangelical church, kinda in the back of your head. But there is this belief of like, oh yeah, Israel needs to be a state. Um, which makes no sense biblically, one. Um, I think, and I heard this from a rabbi who was protesting Israel. Um, he said, um, how Jewish people are inherently nomadic. And that was like one of the big lessons that, you know, God was teaching them. Is, um, their, either their desire, deep desire for political power, um, for a state is didn’t really matter. Um, and so, um, and, and I think with the state of Israel, which has been existence since 1949, I mean, it’s within our

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 52:15

Not 2000 years.

Belén Morales 52:17

No, not at all. It literally just, I mean, we have grandparents that age. Um, we have grandparents older than the state of Israel. Um, and so it is a classic tale of settler colonialism. It is, you know, it’s colonialism draped in religion, draped in a particular religion. It was after 19, um, after World War II. Um, and the Western powers, particularly, um, the United States, wanted power in that part of the world. Um, similar to what have, what’s happened in Iraq and you know, 25 years ago, um, it is always like the inventions of rapture, like the inventions of hell. It comes back to land, power and money. Um, and so we see we can connect these dots, um, with the, um, you know, there would be no genocide in Palestine if it wasn’t for American dollars. And why, and, and what is America’s like? They don’t care about no other country, like their safety, their freedom, like they care about, um, power and, and, um, and it’s a land grab. It’s a money grab. And, um, and you know, the October 7th of it all is, is clearly just an excuse to, um, have this ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Um, and we are reminded that Jesus was Palestinian. That Palestine was a mix of folks from different beliefs, different cultures. It has been, um, settled, colonized by different empires and entities for millennia. Yeah. Um, so, um, that’s something to remember. Um, and I mean, Jesus himself was also not particularly worried about political overthrows. Um, yeah, it was quite the opposite actually. Um, and so, um, I think we’re seeing that like American, uh, exceptionalism, uh, patriarchy, like just violent male patriarchy, um, really drives some of like the, the, the schools of belief that had to, that have to be in place for this [00:57:00] genocide to be happening.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 54:06

Yeah. It was really helpful for me that there are so many Jews, like Jews for Justice and other Jewish groups who are at the front of this like, call of naming it genocide of like saying we can be for Jewish people without being for the state of Israel. Of Yes. Teaching us about, you know, the state of, is, the creation of the state of Israel was in and of itself antisemitic because a lot of other countries were like, we don’t want all these refugees and that, like Jewish refugee specifically. And so those, I feel so grateful for our, like brothers and sisters and siblings in Jewish activist communities who are doing so much lifting and, and labor. Of course, of course Palestinians everywhere doing all that they can. But I think it was helpful also to disconnect Zion as a concept, as a like. You know, even es eschatological like this in times kind of concept of like, this is our, this is our home from a physical place in the Middle East or the ancient near East. If we’re talking about the Bible that I’ve don’t know anything about, that I’m not a part of, and, and that connecting the, the, like the myth and the fantasy and the fairytale from real life human beings in a real place on the planet, I think is, is one of the strategies that helped me most, like dislodge that that notion that was embedded somewhere that I couldn’t even identify. And you blew my mind a little bit with that Left Behind series. Um. I’m wondering if it feels like the end times for you now, like, I’m like, this feels like the apocalypse or esco- eschatology feels like it is right here. And I hear that a lot. And I’m curious, as somebody who was like into that, studied it, looked at those things, what’s this moment feeling like for you? Does it feel like that? Did you debunk some of that stuff? And you’re like, that is connected to myth and tell, tell us, tell us, is it the end of the world? Like, how are you feeling?

Belén Morales 56:18

But before I answer that, ’cause I Yeah. Have so many thoughts about that. Um, I wanna go back to about the state of Israel, just to, to wrap that up.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 56:24

Yep.

Belén Morales 56:25

I also think as, as, as Christians, we need to divest from states at all. The state of Israel, the state of the United States, the state of Mexico. I am an anarchist on most days. Okay. And I, I don’t believe in the veneration of any nation. Um, at all. Um, I think these systems, all, all of them, every state has our, are usually like founded by, especially the western ones, white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy, which has been a death sentence to our people since the beginning of all of those ideals. So I also like invite Christians to really problematize and think about their relationships, to citizenship, to the, the state, the country. Um, ’cause even I’ve seen like, you know, folks like, and, and I think, you know, I don’t really judge folks that bring the Mexican flags to the protest. It’s like, yeah, but that, that state’s not gonna save us either. Um, you know, looking at Mexican history, it’s not the best either. Um, especially the ways that our people have sold out to West sorry, go ahead.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 57:25

That’s very Christian of you actually. It’s like That’s very Christian of you. Yes. It’s, yes. It’s to be like our p-, our, we owe our citizenship to God to a higher authority. We do not.

Belén Morales 57:37

I know that’s right.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 57:38

Belong to any nation. I’m like, that sounds very Christian

Belén Morales 57:44

It’s, it’s, and to each other, you know, our Yeah. Our, our um, our loyalty, our allegiance to, to one another as well. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I just needed to say that. Uh, please say that bit. Absolutely. Um, and so the end times, I think we’ve experienced the end times many times. Mm-hmm. The world has ended in a million different ways for a million different people. We’re experiencing the, you know, the end times right now in Palestine. Yeah. Um, we’re exper- we experienced the end times in, uh, the Nakba, you know, in 1949, we’ve experienced the end times, um, with Jim Crow here, with the, the rise of slavery here, um, with the rise of the United States here, going that the state of it all. Um, and so, um, so there’s this poem by Nayyirah Waheed, um, that I actually painted on a canvas and it’s hanging in my, in my house. And it says I don’t pay attention to the world ended- ending. It has ended for me many times. And began again in the morning. I think for those of us who have studied eschatology, um, is, we’re also then students of resurrection. Yes. And so, and that’s one of the things that keeps me, uh, with my identity as a Christian. ’cause I so much believe in resurrection. Um, and resurrection can mean all kinds of things. I think we are also co-creators in resurrection. We’re co-creators in new worlds. And as much as we see empire falling. Um, empire rising. We are always in co-creation of creating something new, something better, um, something for our people, um, for our own salvation. So yes, the world is ending. It has ended before. Um, and a new one will begin again.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 59:20

Yes. Uh, ugh. Yes. That gives me chills. I have one more question before we get to the final question, which is, I wonder what home is for you? What feels like home? Where feels like home? Feel who feels like home? Which connects to our last question, which is about ancestors. So you can answer that Yeah. However you want. But I’m curious. Home when we live in diaspora is a very complicated conversation. Yeah. And I’m curious what feels alive for you in that question.

Belén Morales 59:49

Yeah. Um, I think about my physical location. Like I said, I’m from the Bay Area. I’m from Oakland. Specifically, and Oakland has, um, quite the reputation in, in the rest of the world. Um, and I think we have so much character and, um, grit. And it’s the home of so many political movements, so many incredible political leaders. Um, and so home to me is, is not only Oakland, but also just, I have such a amazing community here. I have such a amazing group of friends, Queer friends from all over with many different identities. Um, and my family, my, my, my, um, I live with my partner. My brother lives 15 minutes away. My mom lives half an hour north. And, um, they’re all home to me. Um, they make up so much of my, um, my hope, my inspiration, my will to get through shitty days. Um, and they are, they are my good news.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 1:00:44

Amen. Amen. So then your cloud of witnesses, where is that fount of resilience and resistance? When you need to be reminded who you are and, and you are having those shitty days. Like who are in those cloud of witnesses, be they ancestors. You’ve already talked about your chosen and your family, um, close to you. Who else is in that, whether they be thinkers or theologians or cultural icons or family members? Who else do you put in that?

Belén Morales 1:01:18

Yeah, so I have kind of like these, like silhouette ancestors that I think of, um, that kind of look like my mom. I don’t have, my mom doesn’t know her bio family. Um, my dad’s family, I’m not, I haven’t talked to my dad in over a decade and we were never really that close. So I don’t really know much about his side. Um, but I know that I come from a lineage of fighters because I’m a fighter and so is my mama. So they had to have been fighters too. So,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 1:01:47

Yeah.

Belén Morales 1:01:48

Um, I think of them, um, and I feel them, um, I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what their names are, but I I know them. Yes. Um, so I think of them. And then my Queer ancestors, I just finished a Tourmaline’s book on Marsha P. Johnson. And, um, I think of Sylvia Rivera. Um, I think of Gloria Anzaldúa. I think of all the amazing, um, Black and Brown, you know, Queer ancestors that we’ve had, and all Queer ancestors really, um, that we’ve had that, um. And it’s, especially right now, I was just telling you about this book, uh, Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, and it was written in 1977 by, um, Larry Mitchell. Um, and, uh, it’s been such a balm to my heart, especially with everything going on right now. And it, it also goes back to the idea that the world’s always been ending. Um,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:02:23

Yes.

Belén Morales 01:02:24

That there is solace and, um, with one another and with our ancestors. So those are my cloud of witnesses. Um, and then, and then like my current realities with my, my family, my chosen family, my um, my bio family, my amazing niblings. Mm-hmm. They’re so smart. Um, and my two wonderful dogs, so. Mm-hmm. Um, those are my people. That’s where I come from. That’s why I’m still here.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:02:46

Mm. We are so grateful that you are still here. And I just wanna say thank you so, so, so, so muchas gracias. I have wanted you on, like I had said, I wanted you on an episode Teología Sin Vergüenza forever. We finally made it happen. I’m so grateful for your time and for your light and your love. Thank you for being you in the world and thank you for spending some time with us.

Belén Morales 01:03:08

Thank you so much. It was such a joy to be here, and it’s always a joy to talk to you friends, so thanks for having me.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:03:14

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi 00:07

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:23

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:30

Welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today we have Dr. Norma Ramirez, who is a psychologist in Nevada and California, and whose practice is dedicated to serving undocumented immigrants, first gen professionals, neurodivergent folk, and the L-G-B-T-Q community. As an immigrant herself, Dr. Ramirez is a passionate advocate who was a plaintiff against DACA’s 2017 Recension, and whose leadership in the Latinx community was publicly [00:02:00] recognized by the Biden and Harris administration. Her professional approach is deeply influenced by her own marginalized identities, spirituality, work, and activism. And she graduated from divinity school. Stay tuned. Hola, hola, hi!

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Hi.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza. I am so thrilled for our time together. We are new friends, but like an instant kind of connection of what I’m talking about with Soulforce and what you’re doing with your healing work. So I just feel like this is a wonderful, why not just put it publicly out in the world, having conversations, as, as new friends. So welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Thank you so much. I’m legitimately so excited to be here.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

I am too. And we’re gonna start, as we always do, with a question of, do you identify as Sinvergüenza, why or why not? And again, for our audience who might not have access to Spanish, will you tell us what sinvergüenza means to you? If you have any experience with that word, growing up, and family or culture? Just help us understand what your take on sinvergüenza is and how you identify connected to it.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah, I mean, I think instinctive- instinctively, I wanna say yes. I. I, I have, you know, these vague memories of being called that, like que no tienes vergüenza as a child and stuff like that, coming from my perspective of now being a psychologist, you know, thinking about how that translates to, mostly related to shame, but I think colloquially how we understand it, it’s a bit of shame and guilt, which in Spanish guilt would probably translate to, to culpa. But they’re kind of intertwined. You know, we, we try to sort of separate them and identify it as, so for example, guilt would be, I have done something bad, versus shame is, I am bad. I just think though, in, in real life, the way that they play out, they tend [00:04:00] to be pretty intertwined. And so I think it’s a version of those. I don’t recall, I don’t have very clear memories, if any, of feeling, oh, I’m ashamed or feel guilty about who I am. What does come to mind though is, is the context like of who I am and my own history. And so when I was five years old, so I was born in Mexico, and when I was five years old mm-hmm. I came to the United States and, and even at five years old, I could have a sense of, oh, this is different. People don’t want me here. Mm-hmm. You know, you, you hear that from the people around you. In terms of, for protection, don’t let anybody, anyone know about your status, to broader, you know, on the news or TV or whatever. There’s TV shows, you know, that make fun of or make comments or this or that of people who are undocumented and those kinds of things. And so I think that has been, maybe the thing [00:05:00] that sort of pops out more comes to the surface for me or has been more integral to what I have had to sort of overcome in that sense of feeling shame or guilt. Yes, because it’s both. There’s shame of who you are. ’cause not all immigrants get treated the same. So there’s that shame of because of your skin color, because of where you come from. This is wrong. And then there’s the guilt of, you’ve broken the law, there’s something that you’ve done that’s wrong and that you have to atone for, which never comes. Mm-hmm. And so that has been what I’ve had to deal with that, that’s been my life.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Well, it just feels, I’m hearing you talk about a political reality and I keep hearing these Christian parallels in my mind. So it’s like the difference between shame and guilt. I’m thinking about love the sinner hate the sin where it’s like we are told, a lot [00:06:00] of us are told like, well, I love you as a Queer person because I’m supposed to love everybody, but I hate the sin of you behaving in any way, shape or form that lives into the truth of who you are. Yeah. And how my experience with LGBT people is, none of us can ever feel the difference between loving us and hating everything about our lives. Like it just feels the same. It all feels like hate. And that’s, so, it’s like a, a split that can’t really be made. And I think the same thing when I’m listening to you talk about the shame of this sense of, of you’ve done something wrong and it reminds me of this original sin. Mm-hmm. Because at five you’re pretty damn close to original sin kind of time. Of like, mm-hmm, what did that 5-year-old do that they need to like get on their knees and beg Jesus Christ to be, to come and, and cleanse their heart or whatever. Like I got saved when I was like five or six. I remember the like cartoon of the five fingers of the prayer of confession that I am bad and I deserve to go to hell. And it’s only through the grace of God. And it feels parallel to like only by the grace of the President who grants amnesty or like those kind of narratives that we start off at a negative. Or a like deficit that then we have to somehow make up or earn or submit to in order to get a gift of grace that we don’t deserve. And, and so I just am hearing all those, those stories and narratives in Bible verses ringing in my head. Yeah. In a similar kind of, no. Like, you as a 5-year-old coming here to the US has absolutely nothing to feel shame about in terms of like you as a 5-year-old breaking the law and, and that mingling between you know, you broke a rule that said this is a line that is a boundary and you’re not allowed to cross it, you know, on the hip of another adult who was bringing you here. And the same thing about we are sinful because some woman way thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago was more, was interested in learning the, the truth of good and evil. And they like, it’s like, that kind of mm-hmm nonsensical logic that’s, that makes us worthy of hell and makes undocumented folks criminals. Like it all feels like it’s mushed up together. So in addition to being a doctor of psychology, you also have had theological education. So I’m, I’m like, what? Where are the intersections? Do you see those things too?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Is that just in my head?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I mean, no, as you talk about it, absolutely. Even in the, in the way that I talked about it, like this feeling of having to atone for your sins, breaking the law, whatever. Yeah. And, and to some of your points where you’re talking about the parallels of hate, the sin, not the sinner. It was, for me when I was, it was around high school when the first Dream Act started to become more popular. And there were students that were walking out of classrooms and stuff like that. It was like that parallel of, well, I care about you, but politically this is not okay. You know? And so it, it’s that, yeah, that, that, that’s not, that is not accepting or loving in any way. In, in that sense. It’s, oh, that reinforced that I’m not safe, that I’m not wanted, right? That, that I have to continue striving for some kind of approval. And so in terms of the theological pieces, like absolutely. Because there’s this false narrative of, you were a child, so it’s not your fault, but there’s fault for someone and they place it on our hands.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Right, there’s an adult behind it. Yes. Mm-hmm. Which is also your family.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

It’s our family. But it’s also not true. Like theologically, our parents get sacrificed. Like Jesus. Yes. They get sacrificed for our sense. Mm. I don’t know at this point. I don’t know if there’s any theological grounding behind this, but to think of the border though, like that is something that we made up, right? It, it’s not real. And so this idea that you’re breaking a law and that this law that, it’s just the way it is because we so called it to be now has these consequences where I would say that people, especially you see it now, that they would say that we are deserving of hell because of Mm. Wanting a better life. Mm-hmm. And mm-hmm. The piece that’s not get talked about, which is that, how the United States, since its inception. Yeah, it is a violent history. Continuously. Yes, it’s a violent history, and then it goes out, creates more violence, destabilizes these governments, and so people have to figure out how to survive and so what are they gonna do? Yeah, they’re gonna do everything they can. To survive.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Absolutely. And also that is even mentioning the border that moves. I love those, those statements that, we didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us. Like, and I think that is so relevant because it points to how arbitrary, I mean I think the similar things are true of Christianity, of there are some very fundamental life rules that are really great. Don’t hurt other people. Mm-hmm. You know, be kind to the stranger, feed the hungry. Those kinds of rules make all the sense in the world. But then there’s this whole, just like, encyclopedia level of other things that you’re not supposed to do. That’s, well, originally, you know. This kind of homosexual sex was an abomination, and eating shrimp was an abomination, and wearing mixed fabrics was an abomination and all those things were bad. And then at some point we decided, well, we all like camarones so we’re going to eat the shrimp and it’s okay to have, you know, flexible fabrics, so [00:12:00] that we can have both rayon and cotton so they can breathe and be elastic. And, but then we kept this one about this homosexuality thing that wasn’t even about like, loving relationships. It was about a form of, of being like those on the other side of the border. There’s just so many of those things that I feel like people hold as law. Mm-hmm. That is, as moral law, when in reality it totally is dependent on the powers that be at any given moment. And that is true both politically and that is also true religiously.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

We’re gonna get into this idea of like free will and whether free will exists or not.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Oh, okay. Yes, let’s go.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

But I think as human beings in this western context. We have this very deep pride of, you know, I’m independent and everything that I think and I do comes from me, and no one controls me. No one influences me. This is all me. Yes. When in reality, we are [00:13:00] so, so, so deeply shaped by our context, our history, who’s around us. You know, we are so deeply influenced by color. That’s why we have this big marketing conglomerate of people trying to influence us. ’cause it works. We are so easily influenced. Yes. And um, yes. And so that, that’s,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Some of us are more aware that than others. Yes. I mean like, yes. Well, before I had a kid I was like, I’m stoic. It’s fine, whatever. I had a kid, this is a, you know, a decade and a half ago now, and now I’m like, cry at commercials. I’m like, it’s McDonald’s or it’s Coca-Cola. Like I don’t approve of these companies, but they show pictures of like, kids and people helping each other. I’ve watched the Dodo. I’m just like, with all the little animals, where they tell, like, stories of shelter animals or, or whatever. I’m aware of that, and therefore I have to be really careful actually with what I take in. Because I can feel my whole being like, I worked [00:14:00] hard at unlearning apathy because when I first started working after college, I was working with, recently arrived mostly undocumented immigrants and because we were doing direct services, life or death, every day, all day long, 10 hours a day for things like food and shelter and the police and all of those things. Over time to be able to do that for so long, I built up this really thick layer so that I could hear even the hardest stories.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

But still be like, okay, how do we get to social services? Where, how do we get through to police so that this person who’s experienced this domestic violence won’t get deported? Also, like it was just a logistics mind and I had to do some really intense work around peeling back so that I could reconnect with the layers of what feels like to me humanity. Mm-hmm. Which required effort because there is just all of this information that comes that, that I learned later terms like secondary trauma. And I wonder about you who [00:15:00] have your own lived experience, but also are like a community level therapist. Will you talk a little bit about, what is your experience? How has that been for you, who both have your own story and are receiving our siblings and our community members who are going through some of the hardest moments of their life often when they come to you?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. It’s a whole process. Yeah. But I think now where I’m at, I think the way that I would describe it is that. I learned, so my school, the, the school that I went to, they actually did a really great job in, in the psychology aspect of it and the formation of me becoming a, a psychologist, a clinician. And so I will give them their credit.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

However, it it, it was also in, in the sense of our best interest. What, a message that we constantly received, was that we needed to learn how to sort of separate the work from our lives, from, from ourselves. And I get where that

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Like compartmentalization?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Okay.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And so I understand it in the sense of it’s, it’s this idea of sort of not wanting things to spill over and for you to be okay and, and to have some kind of safety in the work that you’re doing. I, I understand the thought. However, what I have come to learn through my own lived experience of I know what this is like, I know what this is touching. Um, I relate to the idea that you talked about of becoming sort of hardened. But to me mm-hmm. I felt like that process started way younger. You know, where I actually felt like I had the heart of stone and then God needed to create that into a heart of flesh. And so I’m in this process as this is happening, and, and in order to do the work, I think, we do need a beating heart. We do need a heart that feels.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes, yes.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And so that’s what I have now. These last decade or so, have been unlearning that, and learning how to feel. Yeah. And then learning how to process and encounter and listen to then, what I find when I feel. Yes, because that’s what we’re trying to avoid and right. And so I’ve been learning to befriend what I have felt as like a black hole, like it’s created from the rejection, from the hatred, from the violence, from the instability, and learning to befriend those pieces and those emotions that come. That process, I think now I’m at a better footing. You, you, you have caught me at a better time in my life. Yeah. Where I can feel it, I can cry, I can do whatever I have to do and process it and let it go and feel all the other emotions too. The joy, the love. Yeah. The whatever. And that feels a lot more grounding to me in the middle of all the chaos.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yeah. What recommendations do you have? You’ve already named some of them. I think like therapy and giving things time so that they can be processed and digested. Any other thoughts of those folks of us who are on the front lines talking to people and listening to people’s stories and trying to support in whatever the aspect of the work is that we do and what and how we hold onto our humanity. Mm-hmm. How we hold onto that heart of flesh that you’re talking about, like what are thoughts or recommendations around that? Because it feels like we are all, well, I don’t, I can’t speak for everyone, but I hear a lot of folks talking about trying to hold onto our humanity in this moment. Mm-hmm. Where it feels like we are being barraged intentionally to make us not human anymore. To not be able to understand basic humanity. As a thing

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I, I think there’s a couple of things that I think they’re all connected and so I think there’s different starting points, maybe. Potentially one could be recognizing that you do have the capacity to face and to feel whatever is coming up. Because I think that’s what makes the emotions or, or sitting with the emotions, recognizing them so, so scary is because we don’t have good models of how to do that. And so then we’re like, oh, well, I, I can’t do that. I don’t have the capacity to do it. And so, first step is recognizing that, that you are, you are bigger and capable to sit with and engage with these emotions and listen to them.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes. Speak a word. Yes. Speak a word of life over our people. We are capable. Okay. Amazing.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

The other one is our society. Again, this western society, very much benefits from our own self-deprecation. If I think I’m not worthy, then I don’t matter, that whatever. Then I can find other ways to buy that worthiness. So yes, you matter. Whoever, wherever you are, you matter. Yes. And. So then when you connect those two, if you matter and you’re capable, then hmm. You deserve to pay attention to yourself, to take care of yourself, to listen to yourself.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Hmm. Yes. That feels like the work that we do when we talk about healing, healing, generational trauma, recognizing, yes, I have a lot of agency maybe compared to others or maybe compared to a different point in my life, like childhood. And we want people to use every bit of agency that they have and and make that muscle strong and self-determination and all of those things. Free will, like you said. And that we come from a place, we come from a people, and especially [00:21:00] those of us who are immigrants, who are first and second gen. We carry also all of that from displacement, whether it’s chosen, whether it’s economically forced, whether it’s through trafficking, whether, whatever it is we carry with us that experience. Along with experiences that go all the way back to colonization and before, both the strategies of resilience, and finding places in our bodies, and making ways out of no ways, and the heavy and the hurt and the hard and the. You know, strands of trauma that are replayed again and again when we have these experiences over again. So I’m like, that totally comes back to that individualism of yes, you are an individual, and also, you are, an interdependent being in a vast ecosystem of beings.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And so here’s a little bit of a nugget that I think might help is that. It’s bidirectional. So in the same way that we are individuals, we are also a part of, and so we tend to do to others what has been done to us and we tend to do to ourselves what has been done to us. And so you know that at some point you start off nice listening to yourself, and here I am, but at some point you’re going to get to Oh wow. I can hurt people. Mm. What does that mean? Unintentionally!Most of the time it’s unintentional. Yeah. So what do I do when I intentionally hurt the people that I love?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

And a lot of times we, well, I don’t know, maybe I’m just telling on myself and others, but there is all of this shame and guilt that comes from recognizing that I’ve hurt somebody, that I love in particular. And I would fight and die for these people, and yet, like my daughter, and yet there are times where I cause [00:23:00] pain and it is a lot of work to step out of that. Like self-deprecation, self-focus. Like, I’m the worst, I can’t believe whatever, whatever. Mm-hmm. And actually like connect with a person that I hurt, and apologize, and come forward, come clean about it and ask for forgiveness. At little things. Not only just huge awful things, but mostly like the daily little things. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But man, for me at least, that’s been a whole practice to not just melt in shame.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Because again, we’re, we’re told that we, if, we have to be perfect in order to be deserving. But once you can really connect with nothing, absolutely nothing can take away how much worth you have, inherent worth, just because you exist. Mm-hmm. Then that’s not a problem. Yeah. You’re like, oh yeah, I messed up. I’m so sorry. How can I do this better? But if you’re stuck on I messed up and therefore I’m a horrible person, therefore I don’t matter anymore, therefore, and you know, you keep going, then, then we never get out. Yep. And we keep, then, doing the same things.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

And we are isolated, which is the other part of being like, and I think that when I hear folks share stories around being undocumented, it’s the isolation also that’s like, you’re in it alone or with your specific family group, but like when you’re at school, you’re in it alone. When you’re on your own, you’re in it alone. And. That aloneness I think is so parallel. Dr. Ali Benitez talks a lot about the parallels between being undocumented and being LGBT. And I think there’s just so much there that’s like that same thing, that’s we are taught that we need to self isolate, and we need to carry shame about things that are totally unchangeable and mostly uncontrollable. And that work that you’re talking about is also the reaching out and the reaching across to be like, I, I am worthy of existing and therefore have a responsibility to other people and beings who exist to, to be honest and morally integral.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

As you’re talking that makes me think of, so, when we cannot acknowledge that we have the capacity to also cause harm, to participate in practices that cause harm. And in order to defend against that, we sort of have to do a one up. Mm. Because of whatever, whatever I’m, I’m a little bit, just more than you, better than you, whatever. Mm-hmm. When we keep doing that to each other, we keep replicating the same system that is doing that to us. Yeah. When people talk about, well, what can we do to, you know, change it, change the system, or help these communities or whatever. Well, that means that the person that’s doing the one up, you have to take the risk to make mistakes. Mm. You have to take the risk that when you encounter and meet someone who’s being detained or whatever, that you’re gonna mess it up. And just because you mess it up, it doesn’t mean that suddenly you’re like, I’m done. I’m, I tried. It didn’t work. I’m gonna go somewhere else. It means that you are like, I messed up. How can I do this better? How can I try again and keep going? Yes. Acknowledging those pieces that come along with it.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Mm. Wow. Yeah. That’s powerful. I wonder if you have thought about. Well, we’ve talked a little bit about in past conversations around this moment of uncertainty. Mm-hmm. And so I feel like we’ve talked a little bit about this and I would love our audience to hear about it. This time in particular feels so uncertain. And I’m wondering how you’re feeling these days around that uncertainty, how that is showing up for you and what [00:27:00] you are doing in response to that uncertainty, how you accompany others who are in that same moment of uncertainty. Based in response of the spiritual and physical terrorism that’s happening to our community right now where people are being kidnapped off the streets. And I know there are so many people in the community, and adjacent to the community, who are feeling so panicked and so fearful, and you’re a healer by trade and also you’re part of our, our communities. Because of just who you are and where you are in the world. And so will you talk to us a little bit about that, that whole thing and whatever feels alive for you right now.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Part of what we’ve been talking about is that I am gonna feel the terror.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yeah.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I do. I, I feel the terror. Not to sound redundant, but it is, it’s terrifying. You feel it. Again, me practicing what I said, of even with [00:28:00] that terror, I am capable. To feel it. Mm. And yes, and I will cry. I will take my time to cry to, to walk, to write poetry, to connect with friends, talk about it, you know, people that are able to see it and name it with me. So all of those things, and recognizing what that means. It can happen to me. Do I wanna go through it? Absolutely not. But, wrong time or place, whatever that means, it can happen. There, there, there is no way to predict. So all of that. In terms of, you know, the people that I serve, that I work with, it’s there. We talk about it again based on the person’s capacity because what I’m talking about, you know, it’s heavy, it’s heavy stuff like,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And, and people are at different places in their, in their journey. And so based on where they’re at, we talk about these things, naming them. Again, doing the process that I know how to do personally ’cause I’ve done it and what I know scientifically. All of that is bringing all of that together and making sure always that I never validate or reinforce the violence that is being thrown upon us. Oof. I, I am always try trying to name it like this is violent. It’s not, okay. Yes, we’re experiencing it. Yes, but it doesn’t make it okay. Yes.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

I think it is true that sometimes I hear people give narratives. I mean, this is terrible, but I was at church on Sunday at a new church and somebody was talking about talking to conservative Latino pastors. I think she was visiting South Dakota and she was saying that. Their narrative was like, this is what has to happen for Jesus to come back. This is part of the apocalypse. This is part of wow. And so there were those narratives. I’ve also heard people’s narratives of, well, everything happens for a reason. This is God’s timing. And you know, maybe we did do something bad to deserve this. And those kinds of theological narratives. Come from the church, come from pastors, come from people who are supposed to be in charge of caring for our souls and our spiritual wellbeing, and it totally makes political structures invisible and it attaches to God things that should never be attached to a God that we would spend our life serving or trying to emulate. Like I wonder, have you heard any of those kinds of narratives or how would you respond to folks if you did hear those kinds of narratives? What do you do with those? In those moments where people are trying to make sense of things, but with theology that is just, I mean, it just rips my soul out to, to imagine. Yeah. Assigning that to God.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I mean, they do come up. They come up in, in different ways. And just the point too, what you said though, that it makes political structures invisible and more powerful because then you don’t get to go against them directly. And so that’s part of the work is, okay, where are these messages coming from? How did you learn or, or where did you hear that? And talking about a grounding. So in, in the instability of my life and all the things that have happened, and, and this actually, I ran into it today on Instagram, there’s this video of Tony Morrison where I think she gets asked, what does it mean to belong? She talks about how. I hope I’m not making, I’m not making it a disservice, but it’s something along the lines of recognizing that maybe not belonging to one place only or, or belonging to several different places. Actually talks about how free you are and coming home to yourself, so that way you are always home wherever you are. Something along those lines. Part of creating yourself, your home is getting to know yourself and getting to check in with yourself, and so I am constantly prompting my clients to check in with yourself. Okay, so you heard this. Horrible message or, or maybe I wouldn’t even name it at that point as a horrible message. Yeah. But yet you heard this message. Mm-hmm. What does that do to you? How does it land with you? What does it make you think? Yes. What does it make you do? Would a loving God send this message that is hurting you? Does that make sense? Yes. Or I do describe a lot of the different bio psychosocial factors. So like the mm-hmm. Like how you were raised up with, like, your family, what did they teach you, and then your church and then your schools and stuff like that. Because that’s where all of these messages are coming from. And so, yes, that message, what was the function for that in your life? Oh, well, it was to try to get me to do whatever they wanted me to do. It was trying to get me to follow this and that. And so that’s how we start checking in on that. And then, ’cause I don’t decide anything for them. If the question, again, checking in with yourself, is that something that you are okay with? Do you want to follow that and then they decide? Yes. And most of the time, you know, they don’t.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

And there’s this freedom to have a choice at some point to be able to revisit what you’ve been given and do that sorting of, yes, I wanna keep this. No, I don’t wanna keep that. I think that’s such an important part of, of growing up, of being mature both spiritually and like in terms of your consciousness. But most of us are never permitted that. So the fact that, I mean, yet another tick of why therapy is helpful and so important is because it literally just creates space [00:34:00] to recognize, oh, I’m not that person who was a child or who was in that church, or whatever. I’m my own person now and responsible because that’s what happens with sin. We are individually culpable. Mm-hmm. God gets the credit for good. We get the credit for bad and, and there’s no questions, you can’t ask, you can’t submit the recommendation box of how it could be improved. Yeah. So you’re giving folks so much freedom and space to think and feel for themselves. I’m gonna shift us a little bit because I wanna go all the way back to the beginning When you were talk, when I was asking you about your relationship with sinvergüenza and shame and all that stuff, you were talking about documentation status as a thing that you carried shame or guilt around, and I’m like, oh, that’s fascinating because most people that I talk to, their first, their first responses are around gender or sexuality. Mm-hmm. And when you and I have talked before, you’re like, eh. And so I’m like, tell me about that, that, tell me about those, like those experiences with gender and sexuality and how was that different or what was your experience with that? That was not the like crushing shame.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I started feeling more like this, calling toward God when I was like, around 15 years old and, and, and yeah, it’s going to be conservative, obviously, you know, anything that was related to queerness, homosexuality, whatever. It wasn’t good. It was bad. And so I did have those messages and. There was some kind of wondering, you know, there’s people that say that ever since they were young, they knew that they were Queer in some way. I didn’t, I’ve never really felt very attached to labels. What does it feel to be a man? I don’t know. What does it feel to be a woman? I don’t know. I know what it’s like to feel like me,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Me!

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

You know? So, yeah, and, and so, I [00:36:00] don’t know. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but. Yes. Even in thinking about that, of gender norms and expectations, and you are this or that, that is something that I specifically really struggled with as a child once I had a say in what I could wear. Yes, I never liked the texture of clothing, or it felt too tight, or I couldn’t move, like I’m uncomfortable. So to me, I was like, I don’t like it simply because of how it feels and, and so then I just don’t fit the gender expectation of being a woman. So, so I think in that sense, I’ve always been in very in between and sort of blurred spaces and, and you could just kind of see that repeatedly in my life in all these different areas. So when it came to. Thinking about it, I don’t think I had, like, a good clear of, am I this or am I that? And then it wasn’t [00:37:00] until I was in graduate school at a seminary where I was, like, really more coming to terms of, okay, maybe there is something that’s been happening. And so that’s where, yeah, I just had my first relationship with a woman and it also so happened that I was at a place where other people were also exploring that for themselves. Or they were just accepting of, of that, that that was just not an issue. And so I never, I never came out to anyone uhhuh. It was just like, Hey, if you’re my friend, this is who I’m dating. I think, so maybe, the only person that I came out to was like my mom just to let her know. ‘Cause she would keep asking me like, ’cause it wasn’t just who’s wanting to date you, but it was something like. What man or what guy, whatever is wanting to date you. And I had to be like, it’s not a man, mom.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

How’d that go?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

It was interesting ’cause there were other family things involved in that conversation. Mm-hmm. But honestly, at one point I just told her, I’m like, this is not gonna change. This is not a phase. So, you know, that’s up to you. And then after that it was just, it’s not an issue.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Maybe mamas know their kids sometimes, and so it wasn’t that that shocking. But it is interesting. I love this orientation of, it’s true. I, I feel a little bit that way about Jesus, where I’m like, do I love Jesus? I don’t know. Do I know Jesus? No. I have no idea. What I know is the Holy Spirit, and that’s what makes my Christianity what it is, is because I’m like, the spirit makes sense. I can feel them, I can hear them, but Jesus was this, like, historical person at a particular place in time. Mm-hmm. So even if Jesus is one of my ancestors, and I claim that. It feels so much more hard to quantify that kind of personal direct relationship. Whereas spirit’s just always been with me. I just feel like from, from birth, from [00:39:00] childhood. So I love this orientation of, I don’t know what a man feels like, because we always get accused of, you wanna be a man or you wanna be a woman, or whatever. It’s, I don’t know what that feels like. I know what I feel like. And then, you know, some of us have different desires around how we present and how we wanna be addressed. Mm-hmm. And pronouns and all of those things, which is about, again, how we feel. In our own beings about who we are. And I kind of love this. You and I had talked before and you were like, I just did my own thing. I liked what I liked because I liked that thing and I was that thing and, and so I think there’s something so beautiful about being like, not leaving your frame to jump into somebody else’s frame of goodness or expectations, but rather I am me. And I am a good version of me in my frame, because that’s what I know. So I love that. I love that orientation.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. And you know, something you said right now about being good because, you [00:40:00] know, in, in, in these conservative narratives, the idea that like if you’re not with God, you know, you’ll suffer some kind of punishment because of sin or whatever. Mm-hmm. And during that time, like I said, I was in graduate school and for someone who’s undocumented to be in a doctoral program to, you know, like funding is the very first block. Yes. There’s no way like that is Yes. There’s less than 1% of us in, in graduate school and make it through. So to them, to the people that knew me, God was with me. Yes. ’cause how else could this have happened? Yes. And so I think to some degree it’s, well, is God with you or not? And you know, like now that we know that

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

You’re confusing people!

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

You’re with the woman. And so to some degree it was like nothing horrible is happening in my life. And so, I don’t know, I wonder if something about that was just kind of like, okay, whatever. You know.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes, I love that too. I, whenever I spend time with fundamentalists or people who are super anti LGBT and claim that it’s about their faith, I authentically and truthfully say like they say to us, I’m like, I will pray for you and I am really explicit that I’m going to be praying that there are enough LGBT people that come into your life that God will help you see. And have a change of heart of who we are and how much God loves us, and I always feel so heartened when. Particularly religious fundamentalist people are so confused because they’re like, you sound like a Christian and you have a whole faith practice. And now that I’m ordained, it’s a whole other layer of, this doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense. And that making sense and not making sense at the same time is really confusing because I can remember from my own [00:42:00] fundamentalist evangelical days that I really did think that gay people mm-hmm had like horns growing outta their head. They were all like, you know, pedophiles, and criminals, and drunks and like all these terrible stereotypes. And I feel like so many people, if you can hold onto the hate, you have to kind of hold onto those stereotypes. And then when you meet somebody who holds both of them together and like you’re saying, like being, having this miraculous possibility. Which, we wanna celebrate the hell out of that because congratulations and you got through it, doctor, and that that is amazing and that is incredible. And all signs would point to not only is God with you, but you are amazing and brilliant in your own like trajectory for your work. But that is confusing. That makes sense. That is that, that would be confusing to folks. Absolutely. Why did you choose to go to seminary of all of the paths? Why was it seminary?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. Well, you know, so I was an undergrad and I was doing my undergrad in psychology. There were a couple of cl uh, classes that I took where literally the first day, first thing that came out of their mouth was. This is a class based on science. There’s no, you know, don’t come with your God theology, whatever point. And so to me, at that point, you know, I, I was trying to study the Bible and reading and stuff like that, and. That didn’t make sense to me because there were things that I was reading, and obviously, I mean, think about it, psychology, human behavior. How is it not totally going to be in the Bible? There’s plenty there. Yeah. But people are surprised by that. And so I was reading it and I was like, this is telling me about human behavior. Just look at Proverbs or like the wisdom books and stuff like that. That’s really easier. And so I wanted to go to a place where there could be integration of both the psychology aspect of it and the faith piece of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I got a good piece of the faith piece of it because, well, the degree, actually, that I went into was not the degree that I thought I was going into. So it, it was titled, or it’s titled, a Master’s in Intercultural Studies. So I thought, Hey, this is great. Okay, I wanna be a psychologist and this is gonna help me understand different cultures. You know, it turns out that the classes are set up so that you could pro- convert people of different cultures. And I was like, oh,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Oh my God. I was like, that’s like a missionary.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

I didn’t know. Wow. And yeah, there were, I didn’t see any fine line or anything, you know, so, so that’s what happened.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Amazing.That’s hysterical. And totally understandable. I do wanna talk about one theological concept because I feel like we really [00:45:00] connected on the apophatic nature of God, which is a fancy word for folks who have not been through seminary, which is about the part of God that is unknown, the mystery of God. So will you tell us a little bit about why the mystery of God is important and about that not knowing and how that connects to your life and your theology.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

When I first started, or I guess when I became a Christian and when I was trying to get closer to God and those things, one of the messages that I heard was, you know, talk to God as if he was your friend, at that time.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Mm. He.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And, and I took it to heart, you know, I was like, yeah. And I would sit down and instead of the typical stereotypical prayer of, can you please do X, Y, and Z, I would tell God about my day and um, I mean, I never heard anything back. But there was a, a sensing, you know, a sensing that got built of what God feels like, the [00:46:00] movements, the, you talked about the Holy Spirit of, of what that, that sensation, that embodiment of what that is. Mm-hmm. And during grad school, something that we haven’t mentioned is that around that time was Trump’s first presidency. And he had promised that he was gonna take the DACA program away, which gave us a work permit and like, protection from deportation. And he, he went and did what he said he was gonna do and yeah. Because of how we deem people as worthy or not worthy. Yep. Being someone who was undocumented, who was also DACA recipient at a graduate school level, I was invited to into this lawsuit. I said yes. And so. As I’m in this piece, learning how to, you know, be a psychologist, do all the things. I’m also like fighting to survive.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Wait, what was the, what was the lawsuit? Tell, tell us about this experience. This is really important.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

So the lawsuit was against the Trump administration for illegally taking away the DACA program, and so that started in 2017. I started grad school in 2015. So for the next four years of my life, of grad school, that’s what it was. And we went all the way to the Supreme Court, we won.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Wow.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And then Texas was like, oh, now we know how to take the program away. And so it, the program is like every time it’s like just slowly hanging on by the tiniest of threads, but it’s hanging on, and, and I take pride in that.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes!

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Because, yes, you know, our participation, when so many people, even now you can see, there’s very few people, one, who are willing to say no to these powers that be. And even for those that do stand up, there’s very few that can actually stop them. And so we’re one of the few that actually stopped them.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

That’s amazing. Congratulations. Congratulations. I feel like that’s such an example of in the face of horror and terror, to take back some of your own humanity and personhood and be like, we will fight because we are worth fighting for. These are our lives. And you know, I was with, I was the ED of a community center when the Dream work started happening in the very, very early two thousands. And so many of those young people are now adults, have children. Are lawyers, are all kinds of amazing things that they learned by unlearning fear. Or not even not having it, but just recognizing, yes, it’s scary. I’m scared that fear is there and I’m also going to resist. I’m also gonna fight back. I’m also gonna do whatever I can. And that sounds like you just snatched your own dignity, humanity, and worth, like right back from a system of dehumanization that was trying to insist that you were less than the full human that you are.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. And, and it’s a constant process, because as obviously right now Yeah. That is the messaging and so, so all of that is going as I’m in grad school, there’s Yeah. All these questions, all these questions about. Uh, just existential questions about life and God, and, and what is happening and why am I here? And part of a, the, a piece that’s, I think, important before going to grad school, because like I said, it, it definitely was a miracle. Yes. When I learned about this school, I literally prayed. I told God, I was like, look, if you want me to go here. You are gonna have to figure, you’re gonna have to do the things to move it. I will do my part. Yes. But then you have to do the other part that I cannot do. Yes. And, And I even said something along the lines of, I will go through hell as long as you’re with me. And let me tell you!

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

I never play. God took you at your word. God was like noted.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Yeah. By then, there had to already been some kind of trust in relationship between me and, and God too for me to even think of saying that and, and to go forth and all that. And, and I ended up going, and so there was this piece of. I literally do not know what next, what tomorrow’s gonna look like. I don’t know if I’m gonna finish the program. I dunno if I’ll get funding. Yeah. I don’t know if, you know, someone’s gonna come after me. Because that’s what it was before. Mm-hmm. They’re taking the program away. I don’t know where I’m going to live. I just, I don’t know what’s in front of me. And that gave me a very real visceral experience of the unknown. Of uncertainty. Yes. Of literally, I cannot count on anything other than the very moment I’m in. And, and so that made me think of, of God, of we try to pin down God into some kind of theology or modality, or maybe not modality, but denomination of some kind and mm-hmm. At some point, to me it felt, well, by definition I cannot know God. God is infinite and I’m finite, and so I’m not gonna be able to take all of it in. Yes. But I can trust. Maybe like the character of God, you know, like the God I’ve gotten to know. Yes. And then from there I can kind of structure my decisions of where I’m going and what works and what doesn’t work. And, even when I don’t know the full theology of, for example, like women in the Bible or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I know that God is not going to oppress or punish or destitute women just because they’re women. Yeah. I’ve accepted that I, I won’t fully know all of God. Yeah. They will know me fully.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

And, and to somehow, sort of do this dance of then living life in this finite moment with this sort of infinite being. And so that’s kinda what it is.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes. That’s a beautiful vision of that dance and holding the both ands and holding the, like what we can hold onto, and then the vastness beyond that, that we cannot. And I wonder, as somebody who is both living through this moment and supporting others living through this moment. For sure there are people listening to this podcast who are in similar situations, and so as a healer, both from your mental health lens and from your [00:53:00] theological study and experience lens, what are some words or thoughts or advice or good news or, suggestions that you have for other folks who might be hearing this and for the first time, hearing somebody putting together this moment and spiritual violence, spiritual terrorism. And this feeling of being enoughness, like all of these things around this apophatic God., I just wonder, you would be the person that I would call if somebody came to me and was like, this is the situation and even if I can’t change the external conditions, I need to get something sorted inside me. And you would be that human that I would call. So I’m curious. Knowing that there are for sure people who are listening who are in a similar situation, what is a lesson or a a word for those folks?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

What comes to mind is, is, first of all, your pain is absolutely valid. The terror that you’re feeling, the anger. The even sort of like, maybe even rebelliousness of, no, I don’t wanna listen to anyone, don’t tell me that I need to heal. All of that is valid. And, and it’s telling you something. It’s, it’s screaming and yelling at you because it wants you to pay attention to it. And so. In this sort of distant ways, I, I recognize that, you know, and, and it matters. Yeah. And it is sacred. And whenever you are ready, whenever you can listen to that pain, to that anger, and you can hear, my guess is that it’s telling you how much you matter despite what everyone else is telling you. Ooh, once you can hear that and hold it. In there, there’s an invitation to come [00:55:00] and to be held by this being who is beyond all of the things that are happening, but not just beyond. ‘Cause it’s at least my view is not that God is separate, but that they are beyond and with us in the moment. I cannot predict what’s going to happen. There’s, there’s so much that has, and that will happen. That is horrible and terrifying. Yes. But in that moment where you are still breathing, God is still holding.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Oof. Whew. I’m just gonna let that breathe for a minute. I feel like so many of us need to hear that. It’s that incredible presence that you’re talking about. The I have this moment right here and that is something. So thank you for that. And thank you for being here with us, and thank you for spending your time with us. Our last question is always, who are your ancestors? What [00:56:00] is your fount of ancestral wisdom? Who do you think of when you need to be reminded of who you are and where you come from and you know that interconnectedness that we were talking about, who is that for you or who comes to mind? Be they blood, or cultural, or theological, psychology, wherever those come from, who are those reference points?

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

For a really long time, I felt very uprooted and disconnected from, from anything or anyone from my culture, right? Like I said, at five years old at that time, I. I don’t even remember what I would’ve been learning, you know? Um mm-hmm. And then traditions and stuff like that. My family didn’t grow up with traditions. And so for a long time I felt that disconnect and uprooted. This last time though, that I was able to go to Mexico, I was able to see family that I hadn’t seen since I was like, in 30 years. I saw, wow. I was able to see my grandmother a different time, but to be in the place where I was born. That changed something in me. So there’s a piece of, like a connection to a place, a connection to the people that I met. I, I reconnected with my godmother and just, that there’s, there’s a piece of that that I think has been really forming me in new ways. And then there’s the. Just historical relationship that I’ve had with God on and off throughout the years. Yes. And, and so, yeah, I think that’s sort of what I connect to. I’m, I’m careful mm-hmm. About claiming any ancestry that I, I haven’t really, I really had that experience to be raised or, or to be influenced by, um mm-hmm. But I would hope to be able to reconnect. More as the years goes on.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Yes. Amen. Amen and amen. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being you. I think there’s so much to be learned and gained, and I think folks will hear so much that resonates, and I know I’ve certainly felt that in this time. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being a Sinvergüenza with us.

Dr. Norma Ramirez 02:22

Thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Me too. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi 00:07

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:24

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 01:31

Welcome to this episode of TSV. Today we sit down with ana lara lópez, who is an organizer, minister, and the coordinator for Freedom Church of the Poor Care and Engagement. They’re rooted in Guatemala and shaped by global liberation movements of poor and dispossessed peoples. ana’s work is grounded in dismantling capitalism, white supremacy, ableism, and patriarchy, with an unwavering commitment to collective liberation. They build community through trauma-informed, intergenerational and disability justice centered praxis, organizing people to remember, reclaim, and revel in their shared power, beauty, and belonging. Welcome. Hi, beloved. Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza.

ana g. lara lópez 02:17

Hello. Hello. Hi.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:20

I am so excited to have you here. I feel like your voice is missing from our Sin Vergüenza lineup. And now we are here, and we have you, and I can’t wait to get us started.

ana g. lara lópez 02:34

Thanks. I’m so excited. It’s, I’ve, I’ve heard about you all and now I’m here, so it’s, it’s a, a coming home. It feels good.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 02:43

Yes. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. We’re gonna start where we always start, which is, do you identify as a Sinvergüenza ? Why or why not? But in the English season, we’re asking folks to tell us. What does Sinvergüenza mean to you? Do you have experience with that word? Especially because we might have folks in the audience this season who aren’t familiar with that word or what it means. So let us know a little bit about Sinvergüenzura and what your relationship is to it.

ana g. lara lópez 03:11

Yes, definitely consider myself as Sinvergüenza. No, I have to say, if you would’ve asked me that like even three months ago, I probably wouldn’t have said it in the same way that I’m answering. Yes, I’m as Sinvergüenza today, like, unapologetically like, yeah. Full body mind. Soul. Spirit. Yes. ‘Cause it wasn’t really until like a month ago that I really felt that I was coming through this, like, exodus of like this wilderness of my gender identity, my sexual identity, my intergenerational traumas, to really tap into this like wholeness. Into this, full body liberation acceptance and like this real commitment to life amidst death dealing systems. This commitment to liberation in my body and in my relationships with others, and really tapping into somebody that lives with chronic pain. So like from the depths of pain, choosing life. Ooh, uh, choosing myself in this body in this moment, and, you know, saying yes to love and saying yes to, uh, all types of love, but especially romantic love. Because,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 04:45

Okay, wait, what happened a month ago? Because I’m like, okay, you know, everybody listening is gonna be like, wait, wait, what happened? What happened? Was there a moment or was there a breaking point or what? What happened? Because that’s amazing. We’re getting you like right at this pinnacle moment of being like, yes, yes, yes. I am me in here, and I’m so delighted to be in that moment with you, but, okay. But, what happened? Tell us what happened.

ana g. lara lópez 05:11

Well, to all listen and it gets even better. No, it’s just, what’s so nice about this moment is that I was taking a bath. Yes. Okay.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 05:22

That’s a great start!

ana g. lara lópez 05:25

Because, alright, I’m taking a bath because I’m in real pain, you know? Mm. And so. It’s like, it’s a, it’s a moment of self care. Yeah. It’s a moment of being tender. Mm-hmm. Of choosing to care for my body in the way that it needed to be soft and gentle. And so it’s in this moment, in the intimacy of this body with water. Just like a safe, you know, we were born.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 05:50

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 05:52

I have this moment when I say. Nope. This is the body that I have. This is who I am, and this is who I am in, in, in everything. Like ,who I am as Queer, as non-binary, as an immigrant, as a woman of color, as somebody who lives with chronic pain, like this is me. Like I have no other body, but this, I have no other life, but the one that I’ve been living in right now, in this moment. So choosing myself felt like, just like starting this, this podcast, like, a coming home. A coming to me and a coming to me from like very aware of my relationship to ancestors and to ancestors like being told, no. Or being made feel like they’re less, being made, feel small. And in this moment of me being in the bathtub, like seeing I am expansive, I am one with this water. I am one with like, you know, divine spirit.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 07:00

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 07:02

And so that’s, that’s what happened. And that was the moment where I also said like, I had been wondering whether I wanted to be a mom and birth and you know, Queer, there’s many complications and things to figure out. But my hesitance a lot of the time lately was more around living with chronic pain and whether I would be able to do it or not. But in that moment of choosing life and choosing myself and, and my body, I was like, I do, I do wanna be a mom. In whatever way that will come about. I, I love kids, I love intergenerational relationships. And therefore like, saying yes to, to this saying yes to love and, and to bring in life on earth amidst again, death dealing systems felt like in this moment, a radical act of love.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 08:00

Absolutely.

ana g. lara lópez 08:01

And of choosing our people, our community. Like to, to carry on the lineages of resistance. Yeah. That move through my body and our collective efforts of liberation. So that’s what happened and that’s how, how I’m here.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 08:18

Yes. It feels like so much ritual. Even like, I think that’s something that is so critical is that we always have access to ritual. We always have access to the divine. For me, ancestors live in the water. I’ve definitely had the experience where I was like going to do a talk and then like taking a shower. Like, literally getting ready for the talk and feeling the ancestors being like, that’s not the talk you’re giving today. We have other agenda items, you actually are gonna shift. And that, that happens to me in hot water in particular, where I just feel so much more connected and, and so much ritual is done with water. And so I think it’s so beautiful to hear your story of this, you know, moment with the divine. In yourself and the water, when you’re your most vulnerable. I mean, baths are like, we’re naked, we’re in water, we’re super vulnerable. And that you were having a moment of intense pain feels like, is the exclamation point in your conclusions in that prayer world and that like in-between liminal space between you and God. I just feel like, yeah, felicidades. Like, that’s good for you, like holding that. And, maybe you could tell us just a little bit about what you’re up to in the world. Because when you were talking about death dealing systems, you’re not talking abstractly about something theoretical over there, in a different country or in a different group of people. You are in the midst of that work every day, in your ministry, in your work. And so when you say the choice to choose yourself and choose our community. Mm-hmm. And choose love and life in this moment where so many people are feeling the consequences of the death dealing system is a particular one, because it’s right there with you. It’s not those other people over there. So will you tell us a little bit about your work and, and ministry in the world right now?

ana g. lara lópez 10:22

Yes. Would love to. So I’m an organizer.I am a minister with the Freedom Church of the Poor. And I say that if y’all could see my smile. Uh, I say that with pride. I say that with my feet deeply uh, grounded and rooted in the lineage of poor people organizing for a better world.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 10:49

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 10:50

I have been working with the Kairos Center for Religions Rights and Social Justice for about five years now, and they come from this lineage of the National Union of the Homeless, the National Welfare Rights Organization. It is everyday people like you and me. Um mm-hmm. Uh. Latinas, Black, white, poor white, poor Black, poor Latinos, poor people, living under this death dealing systems. But who have resisted and who continue to resist by coming together in community, by being led by the poor and the marginalized. And so, it is from that lineage and from that reality today where we see the continued attacks to our Black, our Brown siblings who are incarcerated, who are living on the streets, who are being Medicaid- from, who are being cut from Medicaid, um mm-hmm. And, who are saying, another world is possible. You know, the current situation within the US is just about to get worse.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:03

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 12:04

And so we’ve been traveling around the country connecting with different communities who are showing us how it is that another world is possible. How it is that we live actually in a world of abundance.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:18

Yes, we do.

ana g. lara lópez 12:19

Where absolutely every need of everyone could be met if we chose to do so.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:26

That’s right.

ana g. lara lópez 12:27

We in the United States throw away more food than it would take to feed not only everyone who’s hungry across the US, but everybody across the world. Yes. So therefore, there is enough.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 12:41

Certainly

ana g. lara lópez 12:41

We, uh, released a report that talks about, right before the pandemic, that there is 140 million people who are poor or who are just one emergency away from absolute economic ruin here in the United States. That was before the pandemic. So you can only imagine that that number has gone way up. And that is, like 140 million is 43% of the US population. And so that is power that also reflects that poverty is not because of a individual’s fault, an individual’s misdoing, which is a lot of what we hear, like, oh, this is the country of dreams, the country of opportunity. This is the country that like you can pull yourself off from your boots,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 13:30

your bootstraps.

ana g. lara lópez 13:31

Yes. Yes. Like that’s what we hear. That’s the narrative, and that is not true. Yeah. If you’re talking about 43% of the population, then we’re talking about systemic problems.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 13:41

That’s right.

ana g. lara lópez 13:42

Uh, and so, yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 13:44

Well, it made me think about also this word. I’m curious what your experience is with this word poor, because I come from Appalachia and I was raised by coal miner, coal mining, coal miner’s daughter, literally. Mm-hmm. And we were poor, but we would’ve never said that out loud. Like, well one, it was also Appalachia, so when, when we were just helping each other out because it was that, whatever crop it was, whether it was peaches or strawberries or beans or whatever, we just had tons of them and we would can them and do all these things.

ana g. lara lópez 00:23

Yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 00:23

And so in that way, that’s how we got by. But I wonder. Like, part of our issue and part of the systemic injustice is that nobody thinks they’re poor. Like literally nobody. Everybody’s like, well, I’m lower middle class, or, mm-hmm. Like that’s, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about your experience with that. Or talking to folks, like this idea that you have to sell your labor for money to meet your basic needs. That that’s not just like an average middle class household. It, I just feel like that was a whole process for me that took forever. I still kind of flinch at the word poor. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I feel like that was, it’s, it was not untrue at all. And yet I had been given this narrative that, like growing up on $13,000 a year, I mean, granted it was the eighties, but still $13,000 for two people.

ana g. lara lópez 15:15

Yeah.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:16

Was not enough money. And so that idea of like, we’re middle, we’re not middle class.

ana g. lara lópez 15:20

No we’re not.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 15:21

But there was like this fictitious idea that we are all middle class at some range. What’s your experience with talking with people and you and having that be like explicitly what, what your organization is called or what the campaigns are called?

ana g. lara lópez 15:36

Two of my mentors Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis and Willie Baptist wrote this article about who are, who are the poor? And why are they poor? And they really invite us basically to think about if you don’t have, I was gonna say assets, that’s not the right word, but like if you don’t have money, like if you’re not in the 1%, basically.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 16:01

Right.

ana g. lara lópez 16:02

You are poor. Like-

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 16:03

Which, most of us know zero people in that 1%. Exactly. Even the richest person, you know, who maybe has like a beach house or whatever, like your parents friends cou- like even that’s not even who we’re talking about, right? Like that’s not even the 1%.

ana g. lara lópez 16:18

That’s right. That’s right. So if we’re able to then understand that-

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 16:23

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 16:24

Then it’s like, oh snap, it’s all of us. And that we’re a part of this like economic system. Like that can be different. Like capitalism hasn’t been around forever. Mm-hmm. It’s a new development, therefore, like we can think about something different than the current way of, uh, of living and of relating with, with Mother Earth. And so. There is such, such shame and I’m choosing shame because you know, we’re talking about being in sinvergüenza and so it’s like resisting to the shame of calling ourselves poor. It’s so needed to be able to say like, there is no shame in me being poor. I am poor because of this system. There’s no relation to, you know, spiritualizing like poor in spirit or whatever. Like, no, none of that. Like it’s actually economic conditions, material reality of people. Yes. Like God, like Jesus was a poor man. Jesus was a homeless man. And so Jesus was organizing amongst the poor and marginalized, and was aware of the economic, societal conditions of his time, and was against those realities and was organizing for all of us to experience Jubilee, which is like-

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 17:47

Amen.

ana g. lara lópez 17:48

every need met because we know that God created abundance. And so there is definitely like everywhere we go or like in, we get emails about like, Hmm, maybe you shouldn’t use the word poor. Like maybe you should use something else. And I’m like, no, that is exactly why we’re using it. Yeah, why we have to. And so, that is like the lineage of, of the organization and the work that we’re doing to really bring together those 140 million people in the US, but also building bridges of solidarity internationally for all the ways that people are, are made poor. People are not born poor, people are made poor by the systems we live under. And so it’s a, it’s a commitment to knowing that that another world is possible and that there is enough for everyone.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 18:42

I love that. And I was gonna ask you as a minister, what’s the connection to, and you totally just read, my mind went there and was like, absolutely this is, this is directly in line with Jesus. This isn’t even adjacent. This is like part of the gospel. And one of the things when we have talked before that you said is like, God is not neutral and God does not want us to be poor. God does not want us to be limited. God wants you said, God is not neutral. God wants me to live fully. Mm-hmm. And the idea that that is even possible, I think is something that is hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. And then you have statistics that show us like, actually there is enough. It is about human will and human greed on the other side that that doesn’t happen. So I just feel so grateful that you’re like connecting those through lines because they’re absolutely connected. And I wonder if. I ask you before, and I’ll ask you again now, how did you get to be this badass organizer? Where did you come from? Who did you come from? Because I just feel like it feels like you’ve been doing this your whole life. And you are like, I kind of have! And so I would love for you to tell us a little bit like what is, what, especially when we’re thinking about the, the bridging back to the places that we come from and home. Mm-hmm. Um, and the lineages of resistance. I think there’s so much that we in the US can learn from those of us who come from other places and what those struggles were and what those histories are that were often not told. So will you tell us a little bit about your connection?

ana g. lara lópez 20:25

Yes, for sure. I was not created in a vacuum, you know? Mm-hmm. I am a part of, of a history of, of resistance. Of a history of, I, I’ll say resistance, and I, and I’ll uh, talk about my mother. I know later on you’re, we always, uh, the sinvergüenzas, always talk about what is our lineage? Who, who forms us? And I’m thinking about my mother. Um mm-hmm. I’m thinking about my, my grandparents, but I’m thinking about my mother specifically. Because she is the daughter of, she has five brothers and it’s only her as the only girl. And you know, she lived in a very chauvinist household. Very machista household. Um, oh, and for, I haven’t said that i’m originally from Guatemala, uh, from Antigua. If parenthesis, if you haven’t been there, you definitely should. ’cause it’s absolutely gorgeous. Um,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 21:26

Yes, you should.

ana g. lara lópez21:29

So I was born in Antigua. I was born in Antigua in 1991. That is just five years before we signed the peace agreements after 36 years of Civil War. So, I’m five years old when we signed the peace agreements. But before I’m even born, I was bringing up my mother because my mother said if she ever has a daughter, she doesn’t want her to have the same life that she had. Where she had to serve her siblings, where she had to literally have less food because the men needed to have enough food for themselves. Where, when she was finishing high school, or middle school, I guess in, in Guatemala, she was trying to decide what she was gonna study and she decided what is known as home economics. Like, mm-hmm. You know, that can be seen as a very traditional like women role. Yeah. But she chose it because it was the one career that you have to travel to the city to study. Mm. And she wanted to leave her town. She wanted to see more. Yeah. And so she chose that because it got her out. Yes. And so this is, uh, a fierce woman, a sinvergüenza through and through, uh, that then said, if I have a daughter, I want her to not have to go through the same circumstances. And so she has a, a, a son, my brother, who is five years older than me. And this is somebody who then loves to cook, loves to sew, loves to do, then, all the like female, uh, roles of society.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 23:16

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 23:17

And then there’s me who, for the life of me, I can took to survive. But like, sadly, I have not yet learned the lessons of the, the, the cooking recipes from my family. But I’m coming through this like, lineage of resistance. Of like immediate lineage with my mother. But, I talked about the 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, and I talk about, therefore, a culture and a society filled with fear, filled with the trauma of war, of genocide, of erasure, um,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 23:58

mm-hmm.

ana g. lara lópez 23:59

annihilation of, of bodies, of culture, of language. And so, I’m raised in that, in that culture, uh, with that awareness. And I come to, you know, I end up having, we end up having to leave Guatemala when I am 14, just a couple of months before my quinceanera. And I arrive in, out of all places, Louisville, Kentucky, uh.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 24:28

Welcome to the South.

ana g. lara lópez 24:32

Yes, just like, uh, a week before starting high school. I come into a, a, a church here that like is committed to justice, is connected to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which are amazing organizers in Immokalee, Florida who are organizing for, fair wages, and for dignity in the fields. And so that’s how I like, I, I come into, into organizing, into community building, like with them. And you know, I organized through my high school years. Then, I organized through my college years in Asheville, North Carolina, where-

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 25:12

That’s where I’m from.

ana g. lara lópez 25:13

Yay. So we have connections to, to land, um mm-hmm, and to region in this country where you know, there’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of racism.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 25:25

Yep.

ana g. lara lópez 25:26

And, but there’s a lot of resistance. Like on campus we were organizing. So that the, the few people of color who were there could, didn’t have to drop out, but could continue in their studies and could, could finish their studies. ‘Cause many of them were first generation students. And so, there’s, yeah, there’s all of this lineage of like, of resistance, of building the world that we so desperately need in the every day. In, in the ways that we relate to one another, in the ways that we share our resources. That then, due to hurt and racism, I end up leaving the US. I end up going back to Guatemala, but I end up like, coming together with other young people in a time of resisting and, and, and organizing in Guatemala to remove our president in 2015. That, uh, really taught me, like ,the need for us to come together, meet each other’s material needs, and organize to create societal change, change to meet the needs of our community. And so we were organizing like healthcare clinics and dental care work and with, uh, like young people, uh, coming into different towns, connecting artists and organizers and reclaiming the streets and the local parks to, uh, to say this is, these are our streets. This is our space.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 26:58

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 26:59

And together we can make sure that elected officials, you know, like, do the things that they promise every time that they are running for office. That we ourselves will put in the pressure and just as we get them to, to do what they say they will do, we will meet, uh, the needs of our community. And so, that is a lot of what, uh, has grounded my work. So we are doing this organizing of our material needs, organizing our communities to, to respond and to connect and to organize themselves. And to scale, I guess, the organizing. Mm-hmm. Because in some ways, like people were already caring for each other. But we’re politicizing the way that they’re caring for each other and why they’re having to step in themselves in the ways that they’re caring for each other. And what is the role then of, of, of government, of the society to share the abundance of the world with their people. And so that’s a little bit of like my politicizing that is happening in Guatemala. But this is all happening in, in a time and in a body. In my body, when I am also wrestling with heartbreak. Where I’m also wrestling with mental health issues. And so there comes a moment where I break. And I break with a mental health crisis. And a friend who I deeply love, who I met through college, and who we have like this incredible otherworldly connection, immediately calls and she’s like, what are you about to do? And it’s a moment of, of, of fear. It’s a moment in my, of being lost. Being lost in pain and pain that is both my own, but it’s also communal.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 29:01

Mm-hmm.

ana g. lara lópez 29:02

Um, a pain of, of just knowing. Like, knowing that more is possible, but that we don’t have it. And so therefore we’re hurting in such real deep ways. And she’s like, I’m buying a ticket. You’re coming to to stay with me for a month. And so I leave Guatemala and I go back to, and I, no, not go back to, and I go to LA actually, and I spend oh, some time with her. Just like, being nurtured and cared and loved and being seen, right?

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 29:36

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 29:37

And so. I say all of that because that leaves like a few months where, like, I didn’t go to my parents and I’m cared by them, and I share my journey with them too. And so, I don’t know, I’m, I’m sharing this like organizing journey deeply aware of I’m organizing for and with my community. I’m organizing yes for this body, for myself, for my mother, for my grandparents, and for the many, many generations to come. Aware of, of the living conditions that my body has experienced, that our collective bodies have experienced, and a deep commitment to a better world and to therefore like intergenerational care and and resistance. And so that’s a little bit of the organizing background that like, then brings me back to the us but I’ll, I’ll stop there.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:40

Yeah, because I wanna ask the next question, which is, okay, so that’s the justice line, that’s the organizing line. This work that you’re such a badass at. Okay. Now, when does ministry come into it? I know that you’re a PK, a preacher’s kid.

ana g. lara lópez 30:55

That’s right.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 30:56

So was it inevitable that you be in ministry? So many, I think of us who have a call to ministry either delay or deny that call because of our sexual orientation or gender identity. And so I’m wondering about that journey, like so where does the ministry get interlaced into that organizing journey? Because now you’re at this beautiful, sweet spot of both being fully in ministry and fully in organizing, and it fits, it seems like from over here, like hand in glove. They go so smoothly and fluidly together and you move so beautifully back and forth between the two centers and, and like make them make sense together. But like, how did you get to here. How did you get to that point?

ana g. lara lópez 31:43

I feel like to others, it was clear to me, no. As a PK, I feel like I grew up and I was like, oh no, I will never, like, you know, go into the ministry in that way. But literally, that one year where I’m in my mental health crisis and especially, many times before, but it’s, it’s within that year where I’m meeting, like, random people. Yeah. And people are telling me I should go to seminary. And people had told me before and I was like, nah, it’s not for me. That’s my dad. Um, and then. I’m like in this moment of like, what is next? What am I doing with my life? Yeah. And then everybody’s telling me I should go to Seminary.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 32:28

Seminary.

ana g. lara lópez 32:29

And I was like, man seminary, really? But if I was to go to seminary, it has to be a seminary that is committed to justice. Um, yeah. And so people start telling me about Union Theological Seminary here in New York. And I applied there and I applied to Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. ‘Cause that’s where my dad studied. And so, I get accepted to both. But then, of course I wanted to go to Union. There’s long lineage of liberation theology and so

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 33:01

And like your mama going to the big city.

ana g. lara lópez 33:05

That’s right. That’s right. Yes. That is just wild. Just full circle. Again, just life works. And so, I end up moving, but I end up moving, and I’ll say this. Like I end up moving at a time where I’m also moving through grief. Because I had been one of the caretakers for my grandmother that last year. She was diabetic, had many complications and so a cousin and I were caring for her. And I shared with her that I was gonna move back to the states and she was absolutely heartbroken. She understood, of course, as a devout Christian, me going to seminary was like an incredible gift and like she was really proud. But she was really heartbroken that I was gonna leave. Yeah. And she was like. What am I gonna do? Like what am I gonna see you? And you know, I try to comfort, I try to, like, affirm that we would video call each other. And this is the reality, right? Of migrants, of, of living between worlds. Of not fully here, fully there. And being everywhere. Where, of course I wanted to be with my grandma. Of course, I wanted to pursue a ministry. And so it’s about like two weeks before I have to move that she continues to deteriorate to the point where she does pass away. And, you know, we, we celebrate her life. And I’m so conscious that, like, of our connection.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 34:45

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 34:46

And. And the heartbreak that she was experiencing. My nephew is born along that same, like within the month there. So there’s like this life and death and grief and the opportunity. Yes. And so I arrive in New York with all of that.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:02

Of course.

ana g. lara lópez 35:04

In 2019, August of 2019, just before the pandemic.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:05

Oh my.

ana g. lara lópez 35:09

And so I’m moving with, with this grief.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:15

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 35:16

And with this also in some ways reclaiming of of, of who I am. Uh, of this tapping into ministry and spirit and the divine in my life, telling me yes to go down this path. I really wanted to learn more about chaplaincy. Sadly, you know, economic-, we were talking about economic systems before, and for chaplaincy you have to do

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:47

C-P-E.

ana g. lara lópez 35:48

C-P-E, uh mm-hmm. During your studies. But it’s a time where you can’t get paid. You do work. And so I,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 35:56

That’s why I didn’t do it also.

ana g. lara lópez 35:58

That’s right. Like I couldn’t do it. I had to work.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 36:00

Who could do that?

ana g. lara lópez 36:02

Exactly. I had to work to pay for my housing and for my food. I was just coming from Guatemala. There was nobody to provide living in New York but myself, and so I was never able to pursue that. But, I did find the Kairos Center and I did my internship with them and I, they helped me understand the economic conditions that we were living under. The, this moment and, and how important it is for us to, to come together across the many lines that divide us, whether it be race or gender or sexuality, but to come together and, and, and to read the Bible and, and to create a world with all of our connected resistance. This is how I end up in, in seminary. I do think that a part of me being Queer and me being non-binary, definitely pushed back against me going into ministry. I,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 37:04

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 37:05

After high school, I left the church for about 10 years. Just knowing that, like, I wasn’t welcomed for who I am, or that was my understanding at that point, to like being like, no, wait. God is love. God is created abundance. God created you and me in this fierce, sexy, queer self. Like God is all of this, right? So therefore, like, I wanna know more about this God, more about this lineage of like, of, of love, of abundance, of, of liberation, um mm-hmm. And. I wanna be able to share this with others. Especially, yes, within the Latinx community, but like anyone who’s hurting, anyone who has been told that they’re not created in the image of God when we know we are.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:00

Are, yes.

ana g. lara lópez 38:00

When we know that God is, is, is everything, is God is queer. You know? Like,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:09

yes, prove me wrong.

ana g. lara lópez 38:11

So, so that is how I connected my two worlds.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 38:14

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 38:15

And you know, recently, even with Kairos, like, we continue to hold our Pride services in the month of June. And even just this past season, like we were really wanting to study the texts of terror that have been weaponized against us to say like, you know, some of those texts are, are not here to be saved. Like they’re problematic and they’re just hurtful. And others like have just been weaponized to annihilate us when that is not what they were intended for. That is the, the walk that I’m on now, like continuing to, to learn more about the Bible, to learn more about God. And to continue to create the world that we so desperately need, but the world that God intended to be a world of justice, a world of love, a world of abundance. And so here to do all of that.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 39:13

All of that, yes. And I wanna talk a little bit more about your ministry of presence. Mm. I think that’s so beautiful to think about how, what it means and how it is to be with people, particularly in this moment. I feel like there’s so much, so much spiritual terrorism in this moment. And there is, there is something so critical and yet so understated about, uh ministries of presence and rituals of-. You’ve talked, you and I have talked and you were talking about building containers where we get to meet the divine, the divine in ourselves, the divine in others, and. And I’d love for you just to talk about like, do you have an example of something you’ve been thinking about recently or something you’ve done or, or what does that Ministry of Presence mean to you, particularly in this political moment?

ana g. lara lópez 40:17

Thank you for bringing that in. When I talk about Ministry of Presence, I always. Go back to me being five years old. And, maybe as you’re listening to this, you, you did not see how I was gonna jump back to me being five. But, it’s because when I was five years old living in Guatemala, my parents visited an elderly home. And they met this woman who had, who, who was terminally ill and who had been abandoned by her family. And, you know, during their time together, they ended up offering if she wanted to come to our home. Of course, when you are seen, when you are like loved, when like someone’s, a home is open up for you, you say yes wholeheartedly. So she was excited. She, she was grateful. And so she moved to our home. It was a parish home that we were living in at the time. And I, to this day, remember running down the stairs into her room and simply sitting in her bed. I cannot tell you what we talked about. Uh, but I can tell you that we were present with each other. That we saw each other, that we valued each other. Yeah. That we practiced a ministry of presence. And so, I’m five years old, she did end up dying in our home. And that really is what now, as, as I reflect back, like that’s what leads me then on this path. And in this ministry of just showing up, of being with people, of seeing people of, of caring for one another and of understanding how it’s done in the everyday. En lo cotidiano, we would say in Spanish. It’s in the everydayness where, where we have the opportunity. All of us. Mm-hmm. To build containers, to meet the divine, to meet one another, to create this intergenerational relationship, this interdependence with all that is living and to create a different world. Like, we’re bombarded with death dealing systems, that that traumatize our bodies and therefore that that limit, from our trauma, the ways that we’re able to relate to one another, that limit therefore our imagination.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 42:53

Imagination.

ana g. lara lópez 42:54

If we are able to like. I was gonna say simply, but it’s not, it’s, it’s simple.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 42:55

No, it’s hard.

ana g. lara lópez 42:57

But it’s hard. It’s simple because

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 43:01

It takes, it requires a leap.

ana g. lara lópez 43:03

Yes. It requires, like, a surrender, though. Mm. A surrender to, to what we’re like, if you’re an organizer it’s you surrendering to the world that you’re organizing for. And the org organizing for is not a future thing. It is a thing that is here. And so a ministry of present is like fully aware of the world that I’m headed towards, but that I am inhabiting here and that I’m practicing here. When you were asking about like rituals that, or like ways that I’ve practiced this, or spaces that I’ve created, it makes me think about the rituals around Día de los Muertos. Um, that in, in recent years, I’ve been able to, to craft and co-create and hold, with many others that are part of Freedom Church of the Poor. That you can also, uh, learn more and read ’cause we are releasing a book actually on September, eh eighth, uh, called We Pray Freedom.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:04

Ooh!

ana g. lara lópez 44:05

It’s from Freedom Church of the Poor. That holds a little bit of, of this rituals. With Día de los Muertos it was this commitment to creating a container where we could grieve communally. This culture, though we are living through death dealing systems we don’t have systems or containers or practices to communally grieve.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:35

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 44:35

The different ways.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:36

Lament.

ana g. lara lópez 44:36

That we’re being oppressed. Mm-hmm. The different ways that our communities are dying.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 44:43

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 44:44

And it’s, for Día de los Muertos, there’s an element of, of celebrating life that is crucial as we hold each other in the depths of our, of our pain. Mm-hmm. Um, I think that creating this, uh, this rituals of remembrance to like, serve as a, as a bridge for our social movements to be able to connect to, to tradition, to, mm-hmm, to other generations, to other cultural practices. That are able to, to hold the, the liminality of life and death because we can’t, we can’t fully birth or live into this world of abundance and life if we don’t also hold and nurture and care the pain and the grief and the trauma that our bodies are carrying. Not only for the the, the atrocities of this moment, of the evil, of this moment, but everything our bodies and our ancestors have lived through in the past. We have to be able to, not just reckon, but care. Be mm-hmm tender and be caring to our bodies and our spirits today, to therefore create and embody the world that we want for ourselves tomorrow and for the many generations to come. And so Día de los Muertos has served as an opportunity to, to pause.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 46:27

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 46:27

To, to remember. To resist, to recommit to the, to this work of, of justice.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 46:37

Yeah.

ana g. lara lópez 46:37

Totally embedded and grounded in, in a practice and a ritual of, of ancestors. So there’s this like, dance and liminality of you are here, but you’re connected to the past and you’re connected to the future.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 46:54

Future

ana g. lara lópez 46:54

That I think specifically rituals are able to, to help our bodies. I was gonna say understand, and there are elements that we understand and that our minor understand, but there are elements that. Our bodies can just know,

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 47:11

Know.

ana g. lara lópez 47:12

Um, that the ritual creates the container for us to at least surrender for our, our bodies, our spirit, uh, to experience.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 47:23

Yeah. That makes me think of home and diaspora. Mm. And I’m wondering for you, we’ve been talking a lot this season in Teología Sin Vergüenza, because we’re focused in the diaspora and in English this season, in the US specifically, we’ve been talking a lot about home and what does home mean and what does home feel like? And so I’m curious for you who has lived now in many places and who travels to find more of our people all over. What feels like home or who feels like home, or where feels like home, all of those things. And, and does it feel like you are in diaspora? What is that experience like for you?

ana g. lara lópez 48:15

Because my dad is a pastor, it has meant that we have moved. A lot. It is only my first eight years of life that I’ve lived in one place, and then it’s almost every year that we have moved. My parents always taught us that home is wherever we are, that we make our own paradise wherever we are, and so. Home for me is, is many places, is many people, is both the people and the places that I know and the, and people and places that I don’t know, but that I know that others have walked that therefore have informed my body. And so, with that awareness, home is, home is here, home is now, and home is something I can’t even fully name, but I deeply experience and this is, this surrender with with a divine is this surrender with knowing that I’m, that I’m, that I’m cared for. Knowing that I’m held at all times. Yes. Home is my faith in that it feels like laughter, it feels like playing with, uh, or walking in nature with a 2-year-old picking up a stick and like walking alongside an ant. You know, like it’s that wonder. Of the world as me being this like tiny spec in it, in this like world, but in it, in like in history of like, yeah, there was a before there is a now and there will be a, a future. It’s this like awareness of like, I’m made out of, uh, stardust, right? Like, yes, home is, is is wonder is therefore like that surrender to that wonder. Home is like safety and belonging and dignity and, and, justice. I definitely feel it when I’m out on the streets, arm in arm with others who are chanting, who are singing, who are day in and day out, uh, figuring out how we create the world that we so desperately need. It is in that like interdependence and interconnectedness to, to all that is living, to all that is resistant and, and birthing life that I think I find home. I see myself in it, a part of the whole, I feel it in my body as part of many things. Mm-hmm. Um, as part of the cosmas, as part of a lineage that has resisted and will continue to resist.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 51:15

Wow. Woo. What an incredible conversation. I wanna end us with the question that we end all of our episodes. Which is a continuation of this conversation about lineage. I feel like you’ve shared with us about your mom and about your grandma and place that you come from. And so in those moments when you need reminders of who you are and whose you are and, and where you come from, what, who are those ancestors? Whether they’re thinkers or theologians or cultural icons or family members, like what is that fount of restoration and remembrance? Who are those cloud of witnesses the closest to you?

ana g. lara lópez 52:02

I love this question and I love this question because it’s a constant reminder that we are not alone.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 52:12

Mm-hmm.

ana g. lara lópez 52:13

It’s this reminder that we are doing this with, with many others, and that we’re standing in the shoulders, that we’re standing alongside like many others who, who have resisted. And, and I think therefore living of, of my mom, who still to this day is like, you know, trying to unlearn the machismo that has been passed down. Like, trying to learn how to slow down that it’s okay for her to slow down and to rest. Yeah. That she doesn’t need to be serving everyone all the time. That she can choose herself and what brings her joy. You know, like

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 52:54

Mm-hmm.

ana g. lara lópez 52:55

Then I do this work like, I never. I’ll say this, like I’ll never, I never came out to my grandma. The, the one that I was like, really, well, okay, I’ve never come out to, there’s only two cousins who know about me back home in Guatemala, and so definitely my grandma did not know. But I do this work, and I tap into, into fully who I am so that she can be liberated too. Uh, from anything and all the ways that made her feel that she needed to be any less than her full self. Yeah. And I think about Gloria Anzaldúa, you know? Mm-hmm. Who once said, I change myself. I change the world.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 53:44

That’s right.

ana g. lara lópez 53:45

And so like that awareness of, it comes back to my body. It comes back to this like everydayness en lo cotidiano of me practicing the world that I wanna see in the way that I move through the world right now. Being aware of like those liminal spaces, those, those borderlands that we’re crossing all the time and that as you and I, uh, were saying at some point too, like the things are not like black and white. Mm-hmm. There is a lot of gray. And so there’s a lot of, of queering, right? There’s mm-hmm. There’s this, this expansiveness to our understanding of ourselves. To our understanding of our relationship to Mother Earth. To, to this ability to therefore like, imagine and deconstruct, and therefore construct and transform the, the, the structures that we are living under so that we are able to all tap into the abundance of the world. And I think too about like, Audre Lorde Yes. And the ways that she talks about like caring for herself, not as self in, uh, self indul indulgence, um, but as a form of political warfare. Of just like, the ways that we care for each other. But we care for each other in relationship to the other, is like what I’m connected to, what I’m tapping into to continue to love myself, love this body. And, and more connected to Guatemala. I am also thinking about Las Abuelas de Sepur Zarco. Which are the grandmothers of Sepur Zarco. Which is this community in El Estor Guatemala. Who were sexually abused during the civil war, and who took to court and won, like, being able to persecute, um, mm-hmm, at least two of the men that caused so much harm to

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 55:57

Yes.

ana g. lara lópez 55:58

them, to their communities who helped disappear you know, many of like the men in that community, but like in Guatemala overall. Like, and where we saw just through their fierce love to their community, how justice can persevere in some element. Yeah, in some ways. And so I think about them like just their fierce commitment to, to justice to something else and. To all the women, to all the gender non-conforming bodies that day in and day out are like willing to try new things. Like, willing to unlearn and commit to, to our full connection with, with life that can therefore birth a world of where every, we say in the movement, we say, if you lift from the bottom, everybody rises. Like, a world where we commit to building, at the grassroots level from the bottom up, so that everybody has access to the world’s abundance. And so I’m thinking of them, and I’m carrying them into this space and into this work.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 57:23

Ooh, yes. I wanna be in this work with you, also. I think this is just a really important theological framework to put on top of justice work. Because many of us were taught that justice or social issues or politics were something over there, and that we as Christians didn’t touch them. And those of us over here who are saving up our treasures for heaven shouldn’t touch those things. And I think you are the perfect example of how those things live together all the time, anyway. And so tending to both the spirit and the body, and the material and connecting those dots for people, and being in deep care and love and community with each other is so Christian and so important. And so I just feel like you are a perfect example of the best of las Sinvergüenzas, and I’m so, so grateful for your time and for you being with us today.

ana g. lara lópez 58:22

Thank you so much. Yes, we’re in this lineage together.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 58:27

That’s right.

ana g. lara lópez 58:28

So I’m really grateful for that and for all who are listening and continuing to resist and continuing to be fully, unapologetically, sinvergüenzas.

Reverend Sex (Rev. Alba Onofrio) 58:39

Amen. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.