Intros, Intros

So. This is the blog entry where I explain why I'm blogging in the first place--the blog about the blog. The metablog, if you will.

Here's a quick rundown: In my professional, non-blogging life, I'm a professor of theatre history/theory and women's/gender studies. I research and write about what may generally be called "social change performance" (aka activist, political, or committed theatre).

What do I mean? Well, like many theatre and performance scholars, I use a broad definition of performance (what my friend Scott calls "little-t theatre"). Rather than looking (only) at plays written for and staged in auditoriums, I investigate a range of practices in which an individual or group mounts a display and/or action with communicative intent.

Of these, I focus on performances where the intent involves a desire to alter the attitudes, consciousness, or actions of their audience. A pro-life demonstration, for instance, uses various kinds of actions and displays (signs, slogans, pictures, bodies) to communicate their message ("abortion is wrong"). Ditto a pro-choice march, a gay rights parade, an anti-war sit-in, a pro-family rally, or even a lone speaker on a soapbox. All of these and more use the tools of theatre (e.g., props, costumes, staging, narrative forms) to communicate a point of view persuasively.

Of all the activist performances that catch my interest, however, I'm most drawn to the productions of conservative evangelical Christians. In my work, I've written and/or presented on about evangelical "Hell Houses," the Rev. Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps, the anti-evolution "Creation Museum," and the "ex-gay" (or "reparative therapy") movement. I'm even writing a book about these and other facets of evangelical Christian outreach as analyzed through the lens of social change performance.

Now, I'm neither conservative nor evangelical--quite the contrary (more on my beliefs in future posts). Suffice it to say that as a gay, liberal, United Methodist academic, I'd be considered hellbound, heretical, reprobate, or worse by many of the producers of these performances.

But there's my interest--the productions I study aim to communicate mindsets (or worldviews, to use a favorite evangelical term) so utterly different from my own that I wonder sometimes how we co-exist in the same society. That curiosity--how is it we're able to coexist?--moves me.

In fact, the more I study evangelicals, the more I realize how deeply invested they themselves are in that same question. Evangelicals (and I'll be qualifying that generic label in future posts) have a surprsingly varied, elaborate set of tools for imaging, living with, and reaching out to others who do not share their worldview. Indeed, I often think that some conservative evangelicals are better at thinking about/through other worldviews than progressives like myself are.

Why the blog, though? As a scholar, my job involves investigating evangelical mindsets--who they are, what they believe, where they come from, how they relate to other movements. More than that, it's my job to represent those mindsets in my work as truthfully as I can. This means, among other things, maintaining a relatively neutral stance regarding evangelicals' theology or practices. It is not my job as a scholar to declare Fred Phelps immoral, deride "gay cure" ministries as harmful, or castigate Hell Houses as theologically incoherent.

The thing is, I'm not just a scholar. I'm also a Christian ("Gay United Methodist" is my label of choice when it comes to faith.). I understand this to mean that I have a duty to use what scholarly/analytic gifts I have to bear witness to the Gospel truth as I experience it (more on that later). In many, many ways, much of the rhetoric that runs through and out of evangelical performances jars with the Good News I study and try to live as a Christian. I need a way to think through and express exactly where my evangelical siblings and I diverge and why.

Thus this blog. I want to do more than just analyze the worldviews (there are many) of various conservative evangelicals. I want to respond to them as a gay/progressive/Methodist/etc. Christian. To that end, I'll blog about performances, podcasts, blog posts, and other bits of conservative evangelical rhetoric (and/or others' responses to this rhetoric).

I hope, if you're reading this, you find my ruminations thought-provoking, even helpful.

Thanks for reading,

JF