In/decent black theology in South African poetry: Reimagining Jesus Christ, sexuality, race and HIV

Discussing two poems by South African writers, this chapter shows how poetry can be a means of religious creativity as well as theological critique and imagination in relation to sexuality and race. The first poem is ‘Bearing the Stigmata’, by the feminist academic and writer, Devarakshanam Betty Govinden, and the second is ‘Jesus Thesis’, by the queer performance artist and writer, Kopano Maroga. The imagery used in both poems could well provoke certain religious sensitivities, through the literary association of Jesus Christ with HIV and AIDS and with kinky queer sex, respectively. Locating the poems in South African traditions of poetics of resistance and black theology, this chapter employs Marcella Althaus-Reid’s notion of indecent theology to explore how the poems engage in a critique of white, colonialist and heteronormative Christianity while simultaneously reimagining the figure of Jesus Christ in ways that liberate and affirm sexually and racially stigmatized bodies. Arguing that indecency, like blasphemy, is in the eyes of the receiver and that the boundaries of in/decency are not fixed but dynamic, the analysis explores the different poetic and theological strategies – of subtle subversion and radical transgression – used to question social and religious norms and to negotiate potential accusations of blasphemy.