The Spiritual Salad Bar: Religious Organizations as Resources for Queer Women

Scholar after scholar, from the 1970s to recent years, has observed, commented on, or even puzzled over the sometimes extreme dearth of women in Jewish and Christian congregations that serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people.   Religious leaders, too – mostly male – have expressed concern over this demographic divide, and have sometimes experimented with new services and styles in the hope of attracting more women, but generally with little success.  To date, the repeated question from both scholars and religious leaders has been, “Why are so many women staying away?” 

This paper, as part of my current book project, changes the terms of the inquiry.  It asks instead, “What are lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women doing religiously, and why?”  Working from an ethnographic study of the queer “spiritual marketplace” in Los Angeles, this paper explores the contributions that queer women’s stories can make to four different analytical approaches to the relationship between individuals and congregations.  These approaches include: the interactions of religious individualism and congregationalism; the connections between gender and religious attendance; the connections between religion and disempowerment; and the broader study of religion in LGBT communities.

 Melissa M. Wilcox is Assistant Professor of Religion and Director of Gender Studies at Whitman College.  Author of Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity, and Community and co-editor (with David W. Machacek) of Sexuality and the World’s Religions, she is currently working on a book entitled Spirituality and Sex in the City: Queer Religiosities in Practice and Theory.