Seminary leader: Anti-LGBTQ+ politics are a "distraction" from the Gospel's true mission - LGBTQ Nation

Union Theological Seminary in New York City is the oldest independent seminary in the United States and a center of progressive Christian scholarship. It is closely linked to Columbia University and is known as the birthplace of Black Theology. It also has roots in the study of sexual ethics, which is described as a precursor to Queer Theology. Su Yon Pak, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at UTS, connects current culture-war attacks on LGBTQ+ identities to a power grab by groups historically centered in the church. She frames the far-right focus on gender and sexuality as a distraction from Christianity’s mission to care for “the least of these.” Her perspective is reinforced by personal experience counseling a church-going Christian family member after coming out.

"Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York City's Upper West Side is the oldest independent seminary in the United States, as well as a well-known citadel of progressive Christian scholarship. Long affiliated with Columbia University, the school is the birthplace of Black Theology and an early center of the study of sexual ethics, a foundation for Queer Theology."

"As MAGA Republicans under a banner of Christian Nationalism attack LGBTQ+ identities nationwide, Su Yon Pak, UTS' Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, joined LGBTQ Nation to talk about how the far-right's use of gender and sexuality in the culture wars is a power grab by those traditionally centered in the church, and a "distraction" from Christianity's true mission: to care for "the least of these.""

"For Pak, the argument is personal. Following our conversation, she had dinner with a family member whom she and her wife had counseled on coming out to her religiously conservative parents. The young woman, a church-going Christian herself, said she had subsequently found "a new lease on life" and was eager to introduce them to her new girlfriend."

"You're right. We have been the birthplace of Black Theology. Also, the precursor to Queer Theology is sexual ethics, which we are also a birthplace of. Beverly Harrison [a Presbyterian feminist theologian and longtime faculty member at UTS] really articulated what it means to bring in sexuality and sexual energy into understanding God, and how we then move through"

Read at LGBTQ Nation