Holy Queer Answers
Black Gay Christianity
Black gay Christianity is not new. Black gay Christians have always existed in the Black church, even when they were unnamed, hidden, used, silenced, or forced to survive in the margins.
Holy Queer Answers
Black gay Christianity is not new. Black gay Christians have always existed in the Black church, even when they were unnamed, hidden, used, silenced, or forced to survive in the margins.
From Holy Queer
Holy Queer tells the truth about the complexity of Black gay Christian life. For many Black gay people, the church was both the place that formed them and the place that wounded them.
The book remembers the Black church as home, music, family, dignity, formation, and sacred community. But it also names the pain of being tolerated for gifts while rejected for identity.
Black gay Christianity lives inside that tension. It is the choir director and the preacher. The child on the pew and the adult still trying to reconcile faith with shame. The person who loves God but has been taught that God cannot fully love them back. Holy Queer refuses that lie.
What Holy Queer Proclaims
Holy Queer proclaims that Black gay Christians are not guests in the church.
They are part of its body, memory, labor, beauty, and future.
Black gay Christians were never outside the church.
They were often holding it together.
Critical Acclaim
"This powerful and insightful book exemplifies a deep Black prophetic Christian witness that will touch souls, change minds, and transform the lives of all of us..."
— Cornel West
"Holy Queer is beautiful, haunting, disruptive, prophetic, and healing... fashioned in the brave-as-hell style of bell hooks..."
— Gary Dorrien
Named one of Religion News Service's Top Religion & Spirituality Books of 2023.
A Black queer gospel by Rev. Karmen Michael Smith. A Black queer gospel for those who still believe God is larger than the shame they inherited.