Survivalist Sexuality-Faith Strategies in Biblical Meaning-Makings: Non-Heteronormative Malaysian Christian Men and Negotiations of Sexual Self-Affirmation

Abstract

This article is a socio-theological investigation into the diverse ways in which non-heteronormative Christian men in Malaysia negotiate with biblical passages to affirm their sexual identifyings, sexual expressions and sense of faith. Such a socio-theological investigation also acts as a critical questioning of official and unofficial attitudes towards non-heteronormative men—and perhaps even towards other non-heteronormative subjects—by Christian communities and churches in and beyond Malaysia. As a qualitative research paper, this article deploys a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology to analyse the selected narratives of four non-heteronormative Christian men. Various sociological, sexuality, religious and theological studies, particularly Archie C. C. Lee’s concept of cross-textual biblical hermeneutics, are also conscripted to frame, articulate and fortify the narrative analyses. Findings indicate that negotiations of the scriptures for self-affirmation among non-heteronormative men are manifested from three perspectives: (i) substituted affirmation; (ii) conditional affirmation; and (iii) ambiguous affirmation.