Queer spirituality: a grounded theopoiesis on human 'Becoming' as a journey of 'freedom-for-love'

Metzgner, Sheryl Ann Marie ORCID: 0000-0003-4186-5476 (2025). Queer spirituality: a grounded theopoiesis on human 'Becoming' as a journey of 'freedom-for-love'. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This research explores the phenomenon of human spirituality as human ‘Becoming’, in persons who embrace their identity as LGBTQ. The thesis argues that the personal narratives of these non-heteronormative individuals attest to signs of Divinity, through ‘movements’ of spirituality in their quotidian lives. These ‘movements’ epitomize a theme of ‘freedom-for- love’, a Way of living in kenotic assurance leading to ‘re-creation’.

This ethnography employs a qualitative grounded theory methodology with residents of rural and urban British Columbia, Canada, and introduces a novel, poetic interview method of mystagogic accompaniment. Narrative data from eighteen mystagogic interviews with six non-binary persons, and eleven supplementary interviews with family members and allies, reveal spirituality as a phenomenon involving ten ‘movements’, evident in three groupings of categories: 1) beginning; 2) homesteading; and 3) re-creation. Grounded theopoiesis is the term which coins the constructed theory.

This research makes three distinct, and original contributions. It: 1) expands the field of constructive theology into the realm of human ‘Becoming’, based on non-heteronormative lives; 2) employs mystagogic accompaniment as a poetic qualitative interview method; and 3) applies Catherine Keller’s process theology regarding tehom (chaos), as a framework to model theopoetic interdisciplinary epistemological collaborations in a project of theological construction which features these subjects: mystagogy; theopoetics; Queer and ‘indecent’ theology; process theology; metaphoric theology; Lacanian psychoanalysis; psychology; and the philosophy of religion.

Finally, the conclusions of this study challenge the religious rhetoric which denies the spirituality of persons identifying as LGBTQ.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):