PANA Institute for Leadership Development

Concurrent Session C1 / BauerSouth, Room 34 / Saturday.2009.Aug.8 / 11:00 AM

Alan Robert Young, Starr King School for the Ministry:  youngnotjung@gmail.com

This paper presents preliminary findings of my ongoing research project that explores the theological articulations of queer individuals who died of HIV between 1988 and1998. It focuses on the obituaries published in the San Francisco Bay Area Reporter in that period. The overarching project explores the progression of theological development as great numbers of individuals who died of HIV were often turned away from their families as well as from their religious institutions of origin. Nevertheless, these obituaries demonstrate, through narrative and poetic articulations, cogent theological perspectives through which many "so-called" mainline religious institutions can continue to draw lessons in order to enrich their own theological pedagogies.

One of themain goals of my research is related to the representations of Asian and PacificIslanders in the obituaries of the San Francisco Bay Area Reporter. My findings reveal that so-called "Queer Culture" has attempted to emasculate Asian "Gay" Males. Interestingly enough, it is often the case that when there is anobituary published for someone of this heritage, it usually highlights theirlife through the lens of a "Drag Persona". Among the total number of deaths from HIV in that period, the lack of obituaries of openly queer Asian individuals who were not "Drag identified" support my analysis.

This presentation will outline the progression of poetics through the course of the epidemic by exploring the theological concepts of eschatology and the ecclesiology. Exploring these concepts implies to explicitly draw attention to the documentation patterns of Asian-identified individuals in their obituaries as they change over time. In doing so, I hope to provoke discussion and further research into the mechanisms of oppressions experienced by queer Asian individuals as they experienced and succumbed to sequels of HIV. Relating the ways that queer Asian individuals are portrayed along with the ways that Christian denominations understood eschatology and ecclesiology amidst their situations reveals mechanisms of oppression. By analyzing their connectivenness we can envisage liberation that promotes freeing the memory of these individuals, who may be abandoned by religious organizations but not by the divine. In doing so, our social institutions could obtain insights into the ways we (often unknowingly) participate in oppression while providing deepe runderstanding of theological concepts. In this sense, the lives and memory of those who suffered the strong effects of the HIV Pandemic between 1988 and 1998 would enrich both ministerial and academic leaders.