Vanderbilt Divinity School cohort blends religion and public policy to advance 'Queer Liberation'
Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School sponsors a program throughout the academic year that promotes 'Queer Liberation' through religion and politics.
The Queer Faith, Policy and Liberation Cohort is a 'collaborative learning experience designed for students and community members to develop tools for Queer Liberation.'
Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School sponsors a program throughout the academic year that promotes “Queer Liberation” through religion and politics.
According to its web page, the Queer Faith, Policy and Liberation Cohort is a “collaborative learning experience designed for students and community members to develop tools for Queer Liberation.”
The cohort exists for graduate students, who participate in five months of “meetings, workshops, and retreats” in order to “explore how religion and spirituality shape policy, models of organizing creating change, and the importance of culture change for queer liberation.”
The purpose of the cohort is to study how “faith and policy” affect LGBT-identifying people.
The program is oriented toward a “liberatory future,” which is achieved by focusing on “people, relationships, connection, and imagination.”
Rachel Heath, an assistant director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, helps run the program. According to her university biography, she focuses on the “intersections of theories of multiplicity, queer and feminist thought, affect theory, and interfaith praxis in U.S. contexts.”
Heath is also listed as having run a marathon “for Planned Parenthood.”
The description page for the Queer Faith, Policy and Liberation Cohort also provides recent partnerships with organizations outside the university. The program has featured lectures from SoulForce, the Tennessee Equality Project and the Faith Matters Network.
According to its website, SoulForce is composed of “Queer people reclaiming our spirits from weaponized religion.” The organization seeks to abolish what it calls “Christian Supremacy.”
Many colleges and universities incorporate religious aspects with LGBT ideology, as Campus Reform has previously reported.
The University of Southern California hosts a program called “Queerituality” that studies “intersections of queerness and spirituality.” Meanwhile, schools such as Wellesley College and the University of Richmond, offer students courses that study the Bible through a “Queer” lens.”
Campus Reform contacted Vanderbilt University and Rebecca Heath for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
