So what's wrong with Drag?
Mike Starkey writes: "Drag Church is now joining the inventory of new missional expressions of church, such as Messy Church, Café Church and Forest Church, in contextualising mission for particular groups in a diverse society."
He documents its march into the Church.
One such Drag Church hails its mission as "provid(ing) a non-judgmental sacred space for people to express themselves proudly, through drag performances and other creative expressions of spirituality… Worship in drag is permission-granting, encouraging individuals to be their authentic selves, exactly as God intended them to be."
St James’s Piccadilly recently hosted a drag night called Preach!, billed
as "a sparkling evening", which "welcomes drag
icons from around the world to perform beneath its ornate gold ceiling,
showcasing some of the biggest names in the art of drag, as well as fresh
talent." Earlier in 2023 another Church of England church,
St Mark’s Southend, hosted what it described as an "age-appropriate" show
for children by a drag artist.
At the end of August 2023, the annual Greenbelt Festival, which started as an evangelical event but now identifies as "inclusive Christian", will
host a School of Drag for children: "Through
quick drag catwalks, arts and crafts, and Drag Story Time, the School of Drag
is the perfect introduction to queer art for youngsters, giving them a chance
to enjoy LGBTQ+ stories, meet Drag artists and express themselves creatively in
a safe space."
It’s all about the churches being “inclusive”, “welcoming”, “overcoming hurt,” and “engaging in conversation.” These events are certainly not intended to be stunts to virtue signal “respect” for those with minority “sexual identities,” or a controversial ways to show off their fostering of the values of “diversity” and “tolerance.” No, no. They nail their rainbow colours to the mast to let us know they are “true evangelists,” reaching out to the “hurt and excluded” and to prove “the church is for everyone.” It’s about “positive affirmation of the love of God and neighbour.” Inly “neo-Nazis,” “Pharisees” and “homophobes” object.
So what's going on? Surely drag is all in "perfectly
good taste"? It is harmless fun, isn't it?
Drag culture today has become significantly more sexualised since the days of Les Dawson, Danny La Rue and Dame Edna. Gone is the family-friendliness of the panto dame or a Mrs Doubtfire. Today drag shows involve "grotesque pastiches of sexualised womanhood:" thick clownish make-up, extravagantly bouffant hair, exaggerated breasts, sexualised costumes including kink and fetish gear, burlesque-style routines, suggestive gestures, jokes about female biology, and stage-names that are often offensive. It’s very much an adult form of entertainment.
Drag has broken out of its comedy and gay bar niche, thanks in part to "RuPaul’s Drag Race" and its many TV and stage spin-offs. We're all be aware of the overt attempt to normalise drag through "Drag Queen Story Hour" in libraries, schools and at other family events. These are presented as an overdue challenge of binaries among a younger generation. Men dressed as eroticised women throwing out sexual double-entendres as a way to educate young children! In 2022, London’s National Theatre hosted family drag performances. One performer announced from the stage that children should be taught to "open their minds, open their hearts and open their legs."
The
recent rise of drag has been accompanied by a rhetoric of personal empowerment
and self-discovery, carried along on a tidal wave of gender theory.
Happy Jack has no need to mention Mermaids and the recent revelations and scandals that have come to light about this charity, its influence and reach, and its unquestioning approach towards young children who are confused about their gender. It promotes the idea that children can be 'given' the wrong gender at birth. It has delivered training in schools across the UK promoting the idea of a 'gender spectrum'. The training sessions appear to teach children that simply playing with toys associated with the opposite sex somehow rendered them 'transgender', leading them down a medical pathway.
Drag today is a part of being “queer”; its an an identity
label and a point of pride and celebration. Academics use the word
queer to define radical social theories aimed at promoting non-traditional
sexuality and undermining heterosexuality. Queering is intended to complicate
and disrupt what is perceived to be normal; the use of words, actions, or
representatives to directly challenge heterosexuality, traditional gender
roles, and the male/female binary.
This is how queering is defined in the “Encyclopaedia of Diversity and Social Justice” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015):
"Queering is one strategy for queer activists who want to unsettle or complicate normative practices, spaces, or discourses. Introducing queer bodies into normative spaces, for instance, changes the dynamics of that space by unsettling the taken-for-granted characteristics of that space. Drag queens might “take over” a “straight bar” in order to queer the space, or complicate what that space means to the people inhabiting it."
This is all part of a strategy to "queer society" and to “queer the church”, to break down conventional heteronormality and binary male/female concepts. Deliberately or otherwise, churches are colluding with this wider agenda. Gender is presented as a social construct, not a biological reality. It’s pernicious, especially when presented to children. They are being encouraged to accept these men could be women because of how they are dressed.
Actually at one level I don't care whether drag has become hijacked by activist gays. Or that it promotes a sluttish sexuality. I wouldn't care if it had stayed family friendly, Les Dawson inspired . None of these expressions have anything to do with attending a service to worship God. They are completely inappropriate as they are about the wearer drawing attention to themselves. They both forms in a Church would be irreverent, and narcissistic.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am suspicious of the motivation behind trying to bring this into a Church.
Ignore "they" in second last sentence, start at "both".
ReplyDeleteJack - your first link 'Mike Starkey writes' links back to your draft posts.
ReplyDeleteThe Church of England has completed its descent into parody. The only thing being worshipped here is oneself. That applies to novel all forms of 'worship', not just this one.
Yes, Jack has now corrected this - ... thanks.
DeleteI fully endorse everything Clive and Lain have said here. The sooner the poor old Church of England gets back to its real business, which is repurposing cathedrals to house miniature golf and helter skelters, the better for all of us.
ReplyDeleteThis is now beyond parody. However, Iranian-Italian comedian Nicholas de Santo - a man so outrageously right-wing that he acepted being expunged from his plumb job at the BBC World Sevice so that he could continue his comedy shtick unfettered - maintains that the CofE is in fact Britain's second-funniest invention (after The State of Pakistan). It's so sad considering that, whatever one may think of the church and how it came into being, it once produced sone decent and interesting thinkers such as John Stott and N. T. Wright, not to mention the Wesleys.
ReplyDeleteOne reads that apparently it should be 'plum'.
DeletePlum was apparently 17th century slang for £1000 - a very well paid job.
DeleteThe CofE's commitment to be a national Christian presence is commendable. However, in their desperation to be accepted as such, they have allowed themselves to be led by the nation and its political desires, instead of providing a witness to it. It may have produced some good theologians, but it barred Wesley from the pulpit and has pushed out many more.
'And today's sermon is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy Chapter 22 beginning from verse 5'
ReplyDeleteDeuteronomy 22:5 does not forbid Scotsmen from wearing kilts, and it does not forbid a woman from wearing jeans or pants.
ReplyDeleteNo Israelite in that time wore pants or slacks – both sexes wore some type of robe, so how does it apply today? The general principle seems to be that men and women ought to dress in a way appropriate for their culture, maintaining gender distinctions.
HJ found this interpretation helpful by John H. Walton and Victor H. Matthews:
“Just as clothing served as a status marker in the ancient world, it also distinguished gender. In classical contexts, cross-dressing occurred in the theatre, where women were not allowed to perform, and was also an aspect of homosexual practice.
Most instances in which cross-dressing or transvestism are mentioned in ancient Near Eastern texts are cultic or legal in nature. For instance, when the Ugaritic hero Aqhat is murdered, his sister Paghat puts on a male garment under her female robes in order to assume the role of blood avenger in the absence of a male relative. An Assyrian wisdom text contains a dialogue between husband and wife who propose to exchange their clothing and thus assume each other’s gender roles. This may be a fertility rite or perhaps a part of a religious drama honouring a goddess. It may be this association with other religions that made transvestism an ‘abomination’ in Deuteronomy, but the issue may also be the blurring of gender distinctions.
Hittite texts use gender-related objects as well as clothing in a number of magical rites used to influence one’s sexual status or diminish or alter the gender status of an adversary. The objects of the female where mirror and distaff; those of the male, various weapons.”
Pants and slacks? Have you emigrated? 🇺🇸
DeleteIn most ancient cultures, everyone wore some kind of robe. Trousers seem to have been invented to enable riding on horseback. The earliest known examples were found in a Tocharian cemetery (now part of China), and date to the 13th century BC.
In Exodus and Leviticus we find minute descriptions of the vestments that Aaron and his sons are instructed to wear when officiating in the Tabernacle, along with the no less minute descriptions of the tabernacle itself, the sacred vessels, and so on. But I can’t recall offhand even a single verse in the OT that describes the clothing that men, women and children wore in everyday life. Not so much as a shoe or a sock.
DeleteWe know that they wore sandals (Ex. 3:5) fastened with leather straps (Gen. 14:23; Is. 5:27), unless they were very poor or in mourning (2 Sam. 15:30). They wore heavy outer cloaks (Deut. 24:13) with folds (Ex. 4:6), which had pockets in them (2 Kings 4:39) and was probably removed while working (Mat. 24:18).
DeleteThey also wore 'bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, earrings and bracelets and veils, headdresses and anklets and sashes ... signet rings and nose rings, fine robes and capes and cloaks ... and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls' (Is. 3:19 f.)
Prostitutes had a distinct style of dress (Prov. 7:10), possibly including a veil (Gen. 38:14-15). One would wear sackcloth in mourning or penitence (Joel 1:8; Jonah 3:6).
My reply about Old Testament clothing is being censored. Outrageous 😡
DeleteKnickers!
DeleteDo you mind if I go off topic, Jack? I have a Bible translation question. Here are two verses from the ESV, generally reputed to be a first-class translation, albeit leaning Protestant rather than Catholic:
ReplyDeleteAnd we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, (Acts 10:39)
And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.(Acts 13:29)
I wonder why the ESV, along with some other present-day Bible translations, still uses “tree” in these verses. The Greek word is *xylon* (or *xulon*), whose primary meaning is “wood” although it can also be used for “tree”. And in the Vulgate Jerome used “lignum”, which only means “wood,” not “tree.”
In earlier centuries “tree” could have quite a wide range of meanings, including a gallows and Christ’s cross, and also any beam, pole, stake, or shaft, as in surviving compound words such as axletree and rooftree. But I don’t think we can use “tree” on its own in any of those senses in modern English.
It's partly traditional, I think. The ESV sees itself as standing in the tradition of the KJV, which also uses 'tree' here. The NIV, for example, uses 'cross'.
DeleteThe NT word for cross is stauros, and tree is dendra, which isn't used in the NT in connection with the cross. These verses are referencing Deut. 21:23 - cursed is he who is hung on a tree - tree being rendered as ξύλον in the LXX (the Hebrew ets can also mean wood or tree). I think it's simply preserving the Semitic idiom and making clear the prophetic connection between these verses. There's no OT verse that says 'cursed is he who hangs on a cross', but the NT writers clearly saw a parallel between the crucifixion and the curse in Deut., which is lost if those NT verses are translated as 'cross'.
But is that echo of Deuteronomy worth preserving and, if so, at what cost? Jerome, after all, writes lignum for xulon in Acts.
DeleteEven in Deuteronomy, in fact, Jerome doesn’t bother to preserve the idea of “tree” for ets. In that passage (Deut 21:22-23) he uses patibulum (“gibbet”) the first time and lignum the second time. The Vatican’s twentieth-century Nova Vulgata leaves Jerome’s terminology unaltered:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_vt_deuteronomii_lt.html#21
Perhaps and perhaps not. I've seen people confused as to whether Christ was crucified on a cross or a tree. But I also recall arguing with someone on Cranmer who said that the + shaped cross was unbiblical, since stauros strictly means 'pole', which is how some translation render it (even though ancient graffiti testifies to something between a T-barred cross and a + shape). So no translation is going to be perfect, and it's a balance between preserving the original meaning of the text and ease of understanding for modern readers. I personally feel that English translations mask a lot of the Semitic content of the NT as it is, and I think that could probably be dealt with in a footnote.
DeleteLatin isn't my speciality, but I think lingum can also mean tree. Patibulum, I believe, refers specifically to the crossbar of a crucifixion cross, so Jerome seems to be making that connection quite explicit in the OT passage, instead of the NT one.
There are three Latin words, patibulum, furca, and crux, all denoting a wooden framework of some kind to which a criminal was sometimes attached, either to be whipped or as a death penalty. The trouble is that, as far as I can tell from Latin dictionaries and from Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, none of the three terms indicates the specific shape of the framework, which at different times and in different places could be a plain upright post, a post with a crossbar, a Y-shaped gibbet, or two posts with a crossbar.
DeleteEven the crux, according to one source, was at first a plain upright stake that only later had a crossbar added.
I suspect that the shape was changed and adapted through history and by location.
DeleteThe earliest known depiction of the crucifixion is a piece of graffiti near the Palatine Hill in Rome, which dates to c.200. This piece is mocking Christians and depicts Christ with a donkey's head, but the figure is clearly on a T-shaped cross, with a foot bar.
Evidence from literature and the remains of crucified people seems to suggest that the arms were extended, either nailed or tied to a crossbeam. Josephus noted a shortage of wood in first century Jerusalem, which would point to a separate cross beam that could be reused, which the condemned was forced to carry (as Jesus and Simon of Cyrene did).
Jesus and His cross (or part there of) is mentioned in all the canonical Gospels: Matthew 27:31–33, Mark 15:20–22, Luke 23:26–32 and in John 19:16–18. Only John specifically says Jesus carried his cross, and all but John include Simon of Cyrene, who was recruited by the soldiers from the crowd to carry or help carry the cross. There are descriptions of criminals carrying "crossbars" by Plautus and Plutarch, so it seems Jesus, then Simon, carried a heavy crossbar, to a pole, stipes, which was permanently driven into the ground at Golgotha.
DeleteI saw the short version of this, finishing with “read more ...” and thought “Do I really want to?”
ReplyDeleteHowever, here is eine kleine Gedanke: If LGBT+++ folks want to be regarded as normal, what induces them to display publicly in such a grotesque* way?
*to put it mildly.
Indeed. One also wonders how those men who have had hormone therapy and surgery to "transition" and want to live peaceful, unassuming lives as a "woman, feel about this grotesque, sexualised parody of womanhood.
Delete@Neanderthal,
DeleteSome people want a new 'normal' (or think they do); some people never much liked Christian/traditional values.
@HJ,
Yes. I used to know a 'trans-woman' who had gone through all the surgical procedures and was a gentle person who I'm surely wouldn't have wanted to be part of all this stridency.
This news is two weeks old but I thought I'd post it just in case anyone else here, like me, missed it at the time. George Bell House in Chichester is going to get its name back, after a seven-year interval.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-66362173
@Ray Sunshine,
DeleteGreat news! I didn't know that in 2021 Justin Welby had said that he no longer considered there to be a 'significant cloud' over Bishop George Bell's name. I suppose that an apology about the rottenness of the process engaged in when reaching the earlier conclusion is too much to expect from high churchmen.