{"id":30697,"date":"2026-01-30T12:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=30697"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:02:40","slug":"duke-divinity-course-encourages-finding-queerness-in-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/01\/duke-divinity-course-encourages-finding-queerness-in-theology","title":{"rendered":"Duke Divinity Course Encourages Finding \u201cQueerness\u201d in Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Adobe Stock | Right: zimmytws \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A course at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina is raising some eyebrows as it links theology and queerness. The course, entitled \u201cFrom Baptismal Font to Queer Theology<\/a>,\u201d requests that its students posit questions like \u201cIs queer driven by identity politics, an umbrella term for sexual identity, gender identity, antinormativity politics, social locations, or is queer descriptive of something entirely different?\u201d The course also asks its students to consider \u201cwhether or not theology can be queered?\u201d<\/p>\n

The school states that its mission is \u201cto engage in spiritually disciplined and academically rigorous education in service and witness to the Triune God in the midst of the church, the academy, and the world.\u201d It describes its vision as \u201cthat is neither narrow nor homogeneous, but one that is deeply rooted in critical engagement with Scripture and honors a range of theological traditions in conversation with a plurality of historical, geographic, and social settings.\u201d The university has been under fire before for linking queerness and theology. In 2022<\/a>, the school conducted a mission service with the campus\u2019s pride student organization. A video of the event showed participants praising the \u201cgreat queer one\u201d and referring to God as \u201cdrag queen, and transman, and gender fluid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another course the university offers is entitled \u201cQueering the Old Testament.\u201d The course \u201cexplores ways to interpret the Old Testament that acknowledge the diversity of gender expressions.\u201d The university was founded in 1926 at what the university called \u201can inauspicious time.\u201d \u201cNational attention had been riveted on the fundamentalist wing of Southern Christianity during the recent Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee. A survey of Methodist clergy in the South revealed that 53 per cent had a high school education or less, 11 per cent had a college education, and only 4 per cent had training both in college and a theological seminary,\u201d the university noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many universities that began with religious foundations have come under scrutiny for what conservatives call \u201cwoke\u201d ideology.\u201d Several Catholic universities like Loyola University in Chicago have come under fire for offering student health plans that cover abortions. Biola University<\/a> in California was criticized by Christian commentators Alisa Childers and Krista Bontrager (AKA Theology Mom) for some of its policies, including its statement on gender and sexuality which states, \u201cStudents desiring to live in Biola-owned housing will be placed based on their sex at birth. However, as issues connected to sexuality and gender are complex and layered, we will walk with students on an individual basis who identify as transgender or experience dissonance with their biological sex and gender in order to provide helpful support, to arrive at decisions around facilities use, and to offer appropriate accountability.\u201d The university has since tried to back pedal from the blowback. While Duke has not responded to inquiries on the course, social media pushed back. \u201cQueer theology is heresy and apostasy and everyone should know this signals where we are on the prophetic timetable,\u201d wrote one user<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A course at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina is raising some eyebrows as it links theology and queerness. The course, entitled \u201cFrom Baptismal Font to Queer Theology,\u201d requests that its students posit questions like \u201cIs queer driven by identity politics, an umbrella term for sexual identity, gender identity, antinormativity politics, social locations, or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":30700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDuke Divinity Course Encourages Finding \u201cQueerness\u201d in Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Duke Divinity School faces backlash over courses linking queer theory and theology, with critics calling the approach heretical.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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