WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.210 --> 00:00:08.440 Rachael Weasley: Okay, I'm very excited now to welcome to Day's speaker, Doctor Jada Calloway. 2 00:00:08.510 --> 00:00:18.310 Rachael Weasley: She received her Ph. D. From the Religion Department at Columbia University in the subfield. Religion of History of Religion in late antiquity. 3 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:28.670 Rachael Weasley: Currently Dr. Calloway works in the Shoe Library at Illinois College as an information literacy instructor and student research support specialist. 4 00:00:29.190 --> 00:00:36.829 Rachael Weasley: Her current and future research is in the area of transgender approaches to the Bible, particularly the New Testament. 5 00:00:37.160 --> 00:00:44.479 Rachael Weasley: and her next projects are trans readings of Hebrews, 11 and 12, Galatians, 3, 28, 6 00:00:44.680 --> 00:00:46.839 Rachael Weasley: and the Holy Spirit. 7 00:00:47.260 --> 00:00:49.790 Rachael Weasley: So take it away, Dr. Galloway. 8 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.840 Jaeda Calaway: Thank you so much. So 9 00:00:54.270 --> 00:00:57.100 Jaeda Calaway: thank you for having me chat with you today. 10 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:06.840 Jaeda Calaway: There aren't that many transgender Bible scholars out there? But there's more than me. I'm not the first, and hopefully not the last. 11 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:11.030 Jaeda Calaway: So let me tell you a mystery. 12 00:01:11.440 --> 00:01:14.080 Jaeda Calaway: In the spring of 2,002 13 00:01:14.350 --> 00:01:25.580 Jaeda Calaway: I sat in my sexuality and Christianity class as an undergraduate at Illinois, Wesleyan University, which my professor explained that when Jesus said in the resurrection. 14 00:01:25.690 --> 00:01:30.059 Jaeda Calaway: we would be equal to the angels in Matthew 2230. 15 00:01:30.330 --> 00:01:32.549 Jaeda Calaway: That meant we would all be male. 16 00:01:34.580 --> 00:01:46.000 Jaeda Calaway: though assigned male at birth. I've had a persistent sense of being somehow female since I was 5. I would pray every night for God to turn me into a girl by the next morning, since I was 10, 17 00:01:47.070 --> 00:01:59.410 Jaeda Calaway: the constant whisper in the back of my head, telling me I was a woman, never went away as a teenager. I decided to suppress this. I was going to hide who I was, and try to muffle that voice for ever. 18 00:01:59.910 --> 00:02:04.280 Jaeda Calaway: Nonetheless, I had hoped I would get to be a woman in the afterlife 19 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:19.660 Jaeda Calaway: sitting there, and the age of 21. As I listened to my Professor, explain that in ancient Jewish and Christian literature angels were always figured masculine, and therefore Jesus, saying, implied a masculine afterlife for everybody. 20 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:22.120 Jaeda Calaway: My heart sink 21 00:02:23.260 --> 00:02:32.290 Jaeda Calaway: more than anything. I wanted to be a woman. even if deferred until the resurrection. At that moment I thought I never would be 22 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:35.470 Jaeda Calaway: here today. 23 00:02:36.370 --> 00:02:42.849 Jaeda Calaway: years later, right? I offer a transgender touch across time 24 00:02:43.160 --> 00:02:48.600 Jaeda Calaway: to Paul's rich evocation of resurrection in First Corinthians 15. 25 00:02:48.610 --> 00:02:54.820 Jaeda Calaway: As I undergo a social and embodied gender metamorphosis 26 00:02:55.310 --> 00:02:59.270 Jaeda Calaway: I have been publicly transitioning for a little over 2 years. 27 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:05.629 Jaeda Calaway: I am liminality embodied, partially transitioned a gooey chrysalis 28 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:24.200 Jaeda Calaway: transition reflects my desire. This impulse I've had my entire life to become to rearrange my own flesh into something greater. In reading Paul's account of resurrection from a trans. Perspective, I do not speak for all trans. People, whether binary or non binary. 29 00:03:24.370 --> 00:03:36.899 Jaeda Calaway: I do not speak for all trans. Women. I speak for what resonates with me on a deep and visceral level. When I told my parents that I always wanted to be their daughter. 30 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:41.260 Jaeda Calaway: they asked me how this impacted, how I read the Bible 31 00:03:41.630 --> 00:03:46.370 Jaeda Calaway: as one does when you come out of the closet. That's seriously one of their first questions. 32 00:03:46.910 --> 00:03:53.239 Jaeda Calaway: I told them. It resonates with me more now as I transition than it used to 33 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:59.420 Jaeda Calaway: as a Bible scholar who is closeted. It had become mostly an intellectual puzzle for me. 34 00:03:59.570 --> 00:04:05.299 Jaeda Calaway: but now it had become electrified, alive, even alluring. 35 00:04:05.980 --> 00:04:15.340 Jaeda Calaway: My father said, that needs sits to him. because how could the spirit speak to me when I was suppressing my own spirit? 36 00:04:17.089 --> 00:04:21.449 Jaeda Calaway: Trans. Approaches to Biblical materials have been occurring for at least 20 years. 37 00:04:21.620 --> 00:04:32.819 Jaeda Calaway: partly inaugurated by a man trans. Man named Justin Sabiya Tannas, in his book, Transgender Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, originally published in 2,001 38 00:04:33.080 --> 00:04:35.749 Jaeda Calaway: re-published in 2018. 39 00:04:36.110 --> 00:04:47.560 Jaeda Calaway: But only in the past few years have people taken trans approaches to Biblical materials more seriously citrine trans. Folks in the reading rather than marginalizing our experiences. 40 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:57.900 Jaeda Calaway: Starting with Sebia Tantus, most trans approaches have searched for those who do not fit the sex binary of male and female, particularly ancient eunuchs. 41 00:04:58.330 --> 00:05:05.290 Jaeda Calaway: This sometimes refers to what we think of as eunuchs. Someone assigned mail at birth, who had their testicles removed in a coercive manner. 42 00:05:05.530 --> 00:05:24.089 Jaeda Calaway: Such figures show up, for example, in Isaiah 56, one through 6, where unix are welcomed into the sacred community, and their name would never be cut off. or in Acts 8, 26, through 40, with the Ethiopian unit, who is reading the scroll of Isaiah just 13 chapters earlier. 43 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.240 becomes an early convert to following Jesus. 44 00:05:27.550 --> 00:05:35.010 Jaeda Calaway: I wonder, as they read the Isaiah scroll if the Ethiopian unic noted Isaiah's pro unic attitude. 45 00:05:35.450 --> 00:05:45.260 Jaeda Calaway: I wonder if Philip, who interacted with him, also picked up that God's sacred people and sacred spaces include those who do not fit the gender binary. 46 00:05:46.540 --> 00:06:00.020 Jaeda Calaway: Other ancient materials that speak of eunuchs speak of them from birth, which could include what we call intersex conditions. Jesus also says, there are those who become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. In Matthew, 1912. 47 00:06:00.390 --> 00:06:07.429 Jaeda Calaway: We know of other ancient religious figures who voluntarily underwent bottom surgery for the sake of their own Deity. 48 00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:16.920 Jaeda Calaway: The benefit of speaking about Unix is that citrus, those in the Biblical narratives who are physically beyond male and female. 49 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:29.120 Jaeda Calaway: It shows that even the Biblical texts attest to those who exist beyond the gender binary. The drawback to speaking about unix is, it brings the focus primarily on genitals. 50 00:06:29.170 --> 00:06:38.290 Jaeda Calaway: Most trans people think cisgender. People think about transgender people's genitals too much already. So I look elsewhere. 51 00:06:39.320 --> 00:06:42.490 Jaeda Calaway: Others, more recently in the past, say. 52 00:06:42.860 --> 00:06:53.750 Jaeda Calaway: since about 2015, have looked for gender, nonconforming behavior and expressions beyond what we'd expected for someone assigned either male or assigned female at birth. 53 00:06:53.780 --> 00:07:05.850 Jaeda Calaway: For this a long list of Biblical figures who blend. Masculine and feminine qualities abound, breaking, breaking gender expectations from Genesis onward. Isaac, Joseph 54 00:07:05.930 --> 00:07:07.970 Jaeda Calaway: Dina Deborah. 55 00:07:08.140 --> 00:07:09.390 Jaeda Calaway: Yeah. L. 56 00:07:09.490 --> 00:07:15.040 Jaeda Calaway: Jezebel, Mordecai, Jesus and others 57 00:07:15.140 --> 00:07:28.409 Jaeda Calaway: let me briefly, mention Joseph Joseph is known for his dream interpretations in his really awesome coat. While we call this the coat of many colors. In Hebrew the term Kotoni Passum is a very rare word. 58 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:42.720 Jaeda Calaway: It only shows up in one other place in the Bible, in second Samuel 13, to refer to Tamar's dress, the daughter of King David. The text states that it is the typical garment of the daughters of the king. 59 00:07:43.790 --> 00:07:46.219 Jaeda Calaway: that is, it's a princess dress, hon. 60 00:07:48.710 --> 00:08:02.750 Jaeda Calaway: I am doing something different beyond unix engendered nonconformity. Instead, I look at passages that can resonate with aspects of trans experiences, including coming out as revelation, transformation, and becoming. 61 00:08:02.760 --> 00:08:15.409 Jaeda Calaway: I call these transgender touches across time. They're not excluding earlier approaches, but I'm looking for a more comprehensive framework than picking up Biblical figure here or there. 62 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:23.119 Jaeda Calaway: So when I first thought about how I would announce the Biblical studies world that I was. Trans. 63 00:08:24.390 --> 00:08:32.390 Jaeda Calaway: I turned to first Corinthians 15. And Paul's discussion of the transformation into one's glorified body. 64 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:43.759 Jaeda Calaway: I gave this talk at the annual meeting of the Society Biblical Literature in Denver. In 2021 half the room got up and left. 65 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:52.379 Jaeda Calaway: Paul is a strange place to start. since Romans one and first Corinthians 6, 9 have been used for queer bashing. 66 00:08:53.000 --> 00:09:06.809 Jaeda Calaway: but I find his letters to be a reservoir of imagery and language that can resonate with trans experience in particular, throughout his letters, the manner in which he describes joining the community and being transformed into Christ. 67 00:09:06.980 --> 00:09:11.659 Jaeda Calaway: resonates with transgender experience of social and medical transitioning. 68 00:09:13.030 --> 00:09:22.499 Jaeda Calaway: So gender transition for those who don't know is a complicated set of overlapping practices that are not all the same for all trans folks. 69 00:09:22.530 --> 00:09:37.269 Jaeda Calaway: while we sometimes refer to pre transition, transition and post transition as a sort of shorthand. There are multiple kinds of transition that do not line up the same way for all trans folks. Our timelines are not straight. 70 00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:49.960 Jaeda Calaway: They are wibbly, wobbly, intersecting lines often turn back on themselves. Social transitioning can include coming out of the closet, changing your name and pronouns in your daily life, changing how you dress. 71 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:55.700 Jaeda Calaway: Legal transition involves changing your name and gender government documents, deeds, and titles. 72 00:09:56.580 --> 00:10:06.600 Jaeda Calaway: Medical transition involves using hormones to alter secondary sex characteristics. Surgical transition means getting various surgeries, and there are many kinds of surgeries one can get. 73 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:10.249 Jaeda Calaway: not just the surgery. 74 00:10:10.340 --> 00:10:19.680 Jaeda Calaway: not everybody undergoes every kind of transition, and we might do them in different orders. I started my social transition months before I started HRT. 75 00:10:19.800 --> 00:10:23.829 Jaeda Calaway: Some people start hormones before they even tell you by their trans 76 00:10:24.530 --> 00:10:31.140 Jaeda Calaway: right. Others will never seek surgical intervention either for lack of interest 77 00:10:31.290 --> 00:10:36.679 Jaeda Calaway: lack of money or increasingly legislation. 78 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.590 Jaeda Calaway: So I want to start with social transitioning. 79 00:10:42.300 --> 00:10:54.670 Jaeda Calaway: Biggest scholars have referred to Paul's own joining of the Jesus movement in his attempt to get others to join as conversion. My own Ph. D. Advisor, was one of these folks, wrote a book called Paul the Convert. 80 00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:07.529 Jaeda Calaway: I personally avoid this word. Many queer people are triggered by it, due to the associations with the form of torture are still legal in many places called conversion therapy. so I'm going to jettison it up. 81 00:11:08.670 --> 00:11:19.710 Jaeda Calaway: Others have used the terminology of a prophetic call, and Paul even refers to his own experience as a call sort of in the tradition of Jeremiah in one Corinthians, one 82 00:11:20.280 --> 00:11:25.830 Jaeda Calaway: Justin Sabiatanas, who I introduced earlier, has referred to being transgender as a prophetic calling as well. 83 00:11:26.850 --> 00:11:34.150 Jaeda Calaway: Joy, ladeen, a trans Jewish woman compared to being trans. To the call of a prophet in her case, Jonah. 84 00:11:35.710 --> 00:11:38.919 Jaeda Calaway: rejecting it, you know, anyway. 85 00:11:39.390 --> 00:11:45.569 Jaeda Calaway: Colleague. Sorry about that. Is a tug at your heart to do something, but it precedes the act. 86 00:11:45.710 --> 00:12:05.620 Jaeda Calaway: I have felt the call to transition my entire life. But the transition itself was something beyond that call. So what if we thought of joining the Jesus movement as a social transition. A social transition is a radical reorientation to one's environment. As one changes, everyone else changes how they interact with you. 87 00:12:06.450 --> 00:12:08.960 Jaeda Calaway: It is a re-socialization. 88 00:12:09.380 --> 00:12:23.080 Jaeda Calaway: Every trans person has experienced this research socialization as they move away from the gender assigned at birth to their authentic selves. The first time I said out loud, I was trans. And someone was in the room with me. In this case, my spouse. 89 00:12:23.320 --> 00:12:26.640 Jaeda Calaway: the earth felt like it moved under my feet. 90 00:12:27.180 --> 00:12:29.319 Jaeda Calaway: People treat me differently now 91 00:12:29.730 --> 00:12:43.699 Jaeda Calaway: from appearing straight to appearing queer from appearing male to appearing female. Some stare at me as they see a mixture of masculine and feminine elements. My clothing, demeanor, body, shape, facial features, and of course my voice 92 00:12:45.780 --> 00:12:51.889 Jaeda Calaway: my relationships with many, but not all Cis hat. Men have become strained and awkward 93 00:12:51.980 --> 00:12:58.929 Jaeda Calaway: male colleagues, who used to be very friendly with me no longer look at me in the eye. Some pretend I'm not there. 94 00:12:59.860 --> 00:13:08.400 Jaeda Calaway: My interactions with most, but not all other women, queer and trans people have strengthened as if an invisible barrier has melted away. 95 00:13:08.510 --> 00:13:16.240 Jaeda Calaway: Trans. Students ask my advice on how to navigate transitioning, while a full load of courses. 96 00:13:16.640 --> 00:13:19.049 Jaeda Calaway: I receive advice from them as well. 97 00:13:21.180 --> 00:13:26.030 Jaeda Calaway: Others come up to me in public, having clocked me and asked me my pronouns. 98 00:13:26.630 --> 00:13:39.340 Jaeda Calaway: I have welcomed this newly embodied way of moving through spaces, interacting with others in their varied embodiments. As I come out I change, but the world around me changes, too, requiring a new shape. 99 00:13:40.230 --> 00:13:44.769 Jaeda Calaway: Paul also uses a different word other than call or conversion. 100 00:13:45.270 --> 00:13:47.860 Jaeda Calaway: He refers to excuse me. 101 00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:53.559 Jaeda Calaway: need it provides. refers to resocialization as morphosis. 102 00:13:56.250 --> 00:14:01.629 Jaeda Calaway: The same word used in ancient Greek to describe the process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. 103 00:14:02.190 --> 00:14:17.679 Jaeda Calaway: Here are a few passages, Romans 12. 2. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed metamorphosed stuff by the renewal of your mind, so that you may examine what is the will of God, the good, the preferred, and the perfect 104 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:25.720 Jaeda Calaway: Galatians. 4, 19. My little children, with whom again I am in labor pains until Christ be formed, Morphothe in you. 105 00:14:26.410 --> 00:14:28.430 Jaeda Calaway: Philippians, 3, 10, through 11. 106 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:38.039 Jaeda Calaway: I know him in the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings. Co-forbing Sue, Morphosdamas, and his death. 107 00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:58.979 Jaeda Calaway: The Romans. Passage is entirely social, and orientation when resists conformity to the patterns of this age. By the time we get to Philippians the language blurs between social and physical processes ultimately to be in Christ as a social re enter social reent orientation and an embodied becoming. 108 00:15:00.780 --> 00:15:04.589 Jaeda Calaway: Paul also uses amorphosis language for both 109 00:15:04.680 --> 00:15:12.559 Jaeda Calaway: social and embody transformations, just as trans. People use transition for both social and embodied transformations 110 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:18.370 Jaeda Calaway: embody transitioning. When I look at first Corinthians 15, 111 00:15:20.990 --> 00:15:27.369 Jaeda Calaway: Paul encases his discussion of taining, of a tanning. a glorified body, and death 112 00:15:28.160 --> 00:15:31.289 Jaeda Calaway: for resurrection. Death is a prerequisite. 113 00:15:31.790 --> 00:15:40.959 Jaeda Calaway: Just before talking about the transformative quality of resurrection, he switches between literal and figurative death. Daily I die. 114 00:15:42.780 --> 00:15:54.760 Jaeda Calaway: Paul. Elsewhere blurs differences between literal and figurative death through baptism participating in Christ's death, so one can also likewise experience Christ's conquest of death and Christ's resurrection. 115 00:15:55.430 --> 00:15:59.609 Jaeda Calaway: Literal and figurative death is a daily part of trans experience. 116 00:16:00.940 --> 00:16:09.330 Jaeda Calaway: This past week my feeds have been full of news of next Benedict being bullied and beaten in a school bathroom in Oklahoma, and dying a day later. 117 00:16:10.450 --> 00:16:13.359 Jaeda Calaway: November twentieth. My birthday 118 00:16:13.810 --> 00:16:20.720 Jaeda Calaway: is the transgender day of remembrance. We reflect upon the victims of transphobic violence. From the previous year. 119 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:26.429 Jaeda Calaway: the week before I publicly publicly came out of the closet in the fall of 2021. 120 00:16:26.910 --> 00:16:34.119 Jaeda Calaway: I was working the reference desk in the library, and I was reading the obituaries of all the Trans. Folks who had been murdered that year. 121 00:16:35.710 --> 00:16:42.109 Jaeda Calaway: I held back tears as I was surrounded by colleagues and students who knew nothing of my personal turmoil. 122 00:16:42.390 --> 00:16:51.849 Jaeda Calaway: I came back to my work area in the back and noticed that my colleague was staying later than usual. It was a Friday, because she was going to a party. 123 00:16:52.010 --> 00:16:58.719 Jaeda Calaway: I plopped down in a seat next to her, pulled out my iphone and showed her a picture of me and femme. 124 00:16:59.410 --> 00:17:03.380 Jaeda Calaway: and I said if I were going to that party I would look like this. 125 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:08.190 Jaeda Calaway: The act of coming out is an apocalypse 126 00:17:08.460 --> 00:17:17.420 Jaeda Calaway: and unhiding. It leads to a reorientation of social relationships and modes of embodiment. At that moment my colleague 127 00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:20.819 Jaeda Calaway: no longer saw me as a man, but as a woman. 128 00:17:21.710 --> 00:17:25.509 Jaeda Calaway: I died to my male persona a little bit. 129 00:17:25.940 --> 00:17:30.049 Jaeda Calaway: I came out fully at work at next week I came out in a 130 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.120 Jaeda Calaway: It was an announcement 131 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:37.870 Jaeda Calaway: in the minutes of of a staff meeting. 132 00:17:38.120 --> 00:17:41.119 Jaeda Calaway: and I have lived my life as a woman ever since. 133 00:17:41.900 --> 00:17:53.369 Jaeda Calaway: The next thing I knew I was called into the Dean of Faculty's office. She had come up with a list of things to make my institutional transition smoother. I came out to my parents in January 2022, 134 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:58.060 Jaeda Calaway: shaking like a leaf in the wind. I read a letter I wrote to them. 135 00:17:59.090 --> 00:18:03.789 Jaeda Calaway: written within 3 days. My dad was calling me Jada rather than my birth name. 136 00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:14.149 Jaeda Calaway: I told my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces in the late of February of 2022. At that moment the last remaining social thread holding me back was cut. 137 00:18:15.310 --> 00:18:22.139 Jaeda Calaway: I legally changed my name to Jada on November third, 2022. That's my name day, as we call it. 138 00:18:22.450 --> 00:18:26.609 Jaeda Calaway: Many trans. People refer to their pre-transition name as their dead name. 139 00:18:27.610 --> 00:18:33.299 Jaeda Calaway: Gina rises as I slough off the persona I cultivated for decades, and I am renewed. 140 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:40.080 Jaeda Calaway: Death has been swallowed in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your steam. 141 00:18:41.340 --> 00:18:50.129 Jaeda Calaway: Yet in the midst of my life-saving soul, saving series of symbolic deaths, literal death still surrounds us as much as when I first came out. 142 00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:53.570 Jaeda Calaway: my heart breaks daily 143 00:18:54.280 --> 00:19:01.759 Jaeda Calaway: as transphobic violence increases in the form of physical physical violence, anti-trans, legislation, and harassment. 144 00:19:02.210 --> 00:19:04.640 Jaeda Calaway: Death still has a sting for us. 145 00:19:05.350 --> 00:19:13.960 Jaeda Calaway: Nonetheless, I died daily to my previous male persona, and am transformed. Becoming who I already always was. To begin with. 146 00:19:14.040 --> 00:19:20.150 Jaeda Calaway: Jada, who had been hidden hidden. is now revealed in a new gender Apocalypse. 147 00:19:21.750 --> 00:19:29.400 Jaeda Calaway: My embodied gender, gender revelation resonates with Paul's transformative language and imagery. 148 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:40.729 Jaeda Calaway: In addition to the passages mentioned, Paul says in Philippians 3 21, that Christ will transform the body of our humiliation, so that it may be conformed to more fun 149 00:19:40.840 --> 00:19:42.910 Jaeda Calaway: to the body of His glory. 150 00:19:44.040 --> 00:19:47.130 Jaeda Calaway: Morphosis is emphatically embodied. 151 00:19:47.210 --> 00:19:52.870 Jaeda Calaway: Well, Paul uses more focus vocabulary elsewhere. He doesn't use it. In First Corinthians 15. 152 00:19:53.300 --> 00:19:55.890 Jaeda Calaway: He resorts to transformative imagery. 153 00:19:57.620 --> 00:20:07.649 Jaeda Calaway: Through these images one is sown and one is raised. and becomes when it shall even be changed. He writes towards the end of the passage. 154 00:20:07.770 --> 00:20:24.039 Jaeda Calaway: look, I will tell you a mystery. All of us will not sleep, but all of us will be changed in an atom. and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will blast, and the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 155 00:20:24.530 --> 00:20:28.539 Jaeda Calaway: he says, in an instant moment. It's literally an at him 156 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:36.789 Jaeda Calaway: is the twigling of an eye, yet his imagery of sewing and raising indicates a process. 157 00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:44.570 The disjunction between terminology and imagery creates a ripple in Paul's text, and that's where I Bible scholar get happy. 158 00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:50.130 Jaeda Calaway: The word translated as moment is atomas, it means uncutable. 159 00:20:50.830 --> 00:20:57.209 Jaeda Calaway: This word intensifies times, immediacy, irreducibility, and infinite smallness. 160 00:20:57.370 --> 00:21:08.080 Jaeda Calaway: Time cannot get any smaller, faster, or briefer to update pulse terminology to modern terminology. It is a quantum event 161 00:21:10.130 --> 00:21:20.210 Jaeda Calaway: by contrast. His agricultural imagery dilates time. It slows things down to a seasonal level of sowing, watering, growing, and harvesting. 162 00:21:20.670 --> 00:21:24.400 Jaeda Calaway: Paul portrays such a slow transformation elsewhere. 163 00:21:24.550 --> 00:21:43.100 Jaeda Calaway: In Philippians 3. The term sumorphosis indicates a continual process. Second, Corinthians, 3. 18. Likewise lays out a gradual transformation. Paul writes, all of us with unveiled face, bearing the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory. 164 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:57.550 Jaeda Calaway: A gradual transformation reverberates through Paul's letters, returning to one Corinthians 15. This physical transformation contracts and expands time at the same time. 165 00:21:57.570 --> 00:22:00.149 Jaeda Calaway: It's like an eternity in a moment. 166 00:22:01.710 --> 00:22:06.450 Jaeda Calaway: So why, for one perspective would it be an instant if from another, a slow process. 167 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:10.129 Jaeda Calaway: one possibility is the difference is determined by death 168 00:22:11.010 --> 00:22:15.430 Jaeda Calaway: to the living it appears instantaneous. We are changed. 169 00:22:15.770 --> 00:22:18.449 Jaeda Calaway: but the dead are raised in perishable. 170 00:22:19.500 --> 00:22:25.969 Jaeda Calaway: while Cis people are likely drawn to Paul's first-person plural, we of the living trans. People are marked by death. 171 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:33.489 Jaeda Calaway: having socially died to our pre-transition self, while finally arising at last to life right now. 172 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:45.769 Jaeda Calaway: Secondly, the paradox may be resolved with the process of transformation, beginning with joining the community and making Christ your Lord. But the instant being the final step of the resurrection. 173 00:22:46.360 --> 00:22:59.690 Jaeda Calaway: or it could be the opposite in a moment of change at baptism leads to a process processual transformation to God's image. The slippage between literal and metaphorical death, though, is probably what it has opened. This ripple 174 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:09.059 Jaeda Calaway: when looking at first Corinthians, 1542 to 49. Hall develops his imagery through a series of binaries 175 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:18.460 Jaeda Calaway: between what is sown speratai and what is raised Aguaratai so actually rhymes all the way throughout 176 00:23:18.620 --> 00:23:35.669 Jaeda Calaway: what is so imperishable in dishonor, weak physical a soulish body to be very literal here, earthly and dusty, but it will be raised, imperishable, glorious, powerful, a spiritual body in heavenly and sparkly. 177 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:45.330 Jaeda Calaway: There is a discontinuity between the fleshly and glorified bodies. What is raised is not the same as what is sown, though it derives from it 178 00:23:45.950 --> 00:24:08.839 Jaeda Calaway: as terms of flesh, blood, glory, soul, spirit, and body come in and out of the equation. In Paul's passages, embodiment itself, whether fleshly or glorious, and sold or spirited, weaves throughout the passage, providing a baseline, into which all beings return and find renewed expression. 179 00:24:10.380 --> 00:24:14.040 Jaeda Calaway: The ultimate expression is a shiny body. 180 00:24:15.750 --> 00:24:28.889 Jaeda Calaway: After I came out of the closet on campus. The chair of my old department gave me a gift, and she'll worn it tonight. I forgot to. It was this pink sparkly scarf. She said she got it because of sparkly like I am now. 181 00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:49.440 Jaeda Calaway: My Dean of faculty told me that while Jared's eyes looked absent, Jada's eyes radiate. And yes, I did just dead name myself. This observation is common among trans people. If a trans person is willing to show a pre transition photo alongside a current photo, other trans. People look first at the eyes. 182 00:24:50.930 --> 00:24:57.630 Jaeda Calaway: the deadness of the pre-transition photograph and the fire and life in the current photograph 183 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:05.679 Jaeda Calaway: between the frame of death and the center of transformation. Paul places the term glory. 184 00:25:05.800 --> 00:25:21.479 Jaeda Calaway: Although Paul uses a series of images based upon sowing and reaping in the resurrection, one does not reap what one sews, but something greater. You do not sow the body that is to be, but God gives it a body as he has chosen. 185 00:25:21.570 --> 00:25:28.589 Jaeda Calaway: shifting from bodies. Pulse starts speaking of various kinds of flesh, and then he switches from flesh to different kinds of glory. 186 00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:43.339 Jaeda Calaway: though still maintaining a embodied connection all the way through glory starts accumulating many connotations throughout the entire letter of first Corinthians earlier, the letter resembles what we would think of as honor. 187 00:25:44.250 --> 00:25:51.380 Jaeda Calaway: but by the time you get to Chapter 15. With all the astral imagery, glory starts to mean something like brightness. 188 00:25:52.540 --> 00:25:55.020 Jaeda Calaway: It is sparkly and shiny. 189 00:25:56.680 --> 00:26:02.940 Jaeda Calaway: Paul uses the word glory in terms of heavenly bodies, and then shifts it to characterize the resurrection body. 190 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:15.580 Jaeda Calaway: Throughout his writings Paul has associated Christ with the divine glory, as seen in Ezekiel, chapter one. When Ezekiel sees the glory of the likeness of, or the image of, the likeness of, the glory of the Lord. 191 00:26:17.180 --> 00:26:29.650 Jaeda Calaway: Paul also speaks of being transformed into the image of Christ and the image of God. And this happens by being transformed into Christ's image, embodying Christ's glittery glory. 192 00:26:30.650 --> 00:26:36.480 Jaeda Calaway: This all happens, according to First Corinthians, 1549. For those who are in Christ. 193 00:26:39.770 --> 00:26:48.130 Jaeda Calaway: This transgender resonance I'm giving you today is not exactly about faith or hope, though it includes those things. 194 00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:50.270 Jaeda Calaway: This is about attraction. 195 00:26:51.620 --> 00:26:53.960 Jaeda Calaway: Reading certain text strikes a chord 196 00:26:54.080 --> 00:27:03.090 Jaeda Calaway: that chord causes something to vibrate in me, due to my accumulated, embodied experiences which include my transgender embodiment. 197 00:27:03.550 --> 00:27:09.370 Jaeda Calaway: It does not strike all my chords. nor do all biblical passages strike my chords equally. 198 00:27:10.450 --> 00:27:13.010 Jaeda Calaway: Other passages make me very uncomfortable. 199 00:27:13.090 --> 00:27:19.379 Jaeda Calaway: but I should explore why. especially James. 1, 22 to 24 200 00:27:19.610 --> 00:27:21.189 Jaeda Calaway: drives me nuts. 201 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:31.219 Jaeda Calaway: Most passages create varying combination of resonance and dissonance, attracting and repelling, as all artful work does. 202 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:46.260 Jaeda Calaway: There is an undercurrent of transness to Paul, but it is a problematic one for me, I'll admit, as I read Paul as a trans. Woman. His androocentrism elicits dissonance from me. 203 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:59.270 Jaeda Calaway: Paul cannot himself imagine a transition from male to female as a movement to glorious first Corinthians 11. 7. Makes abundantly clear to me. But that is what it is for me. 204 00:27:59.310 --> 00:28:06.060 Jaeda Calaway: There is a partial touch across time, a resonance between the social and physical transitions that emerge 205 00:28:06.140 --> 00:28:13.299 Jaeda Calaway: from Paul's interactions with different people in the Corinthian community, and that I am living 206 00:28:13.910 --> 00:28:16.850 Jaeda Calaway: first Corinthians 15 is a ripple. 207 00:28:16.970 --> 00:28:18.919 Jaeda Calaway: and the spacetime fabric 208 00:28:19.370 --> 00:28:41.259 Jaeda Calaway: like an open heaven, queerly dilating our otherwise regular temporalities and opening up possibilities of transformation. It is a revelation that allows me to unfold myself to myself and to others in a new apocalyptic moment. My transition is not an atomoi for me it is a fight. 209 00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:44.600 Jaeda Calaway: it is multiple sewings and raisings. 210 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:48.529 Jaeda Calaway: I don't just die daily. I choose life daily 211 00:28:49.850 --> 00:28:53.709 Jaeda Calaway: I have been sown. I am stretching out to rise. 212 00:28:54.760 --> 00:29:02.720 Jaeda Calaway: and I can return to my 21 year old self, sitting in my sexuality and Christianity class at Illinois, Wesleyan, and say, Don't worry. 213 00:29:02.940 --> 00:29:04.760 Jaeda Calaway: You're going to make it. 214 00:29:05.660 --> 00:29:12.859 Jaeda Calaway: You will become the woman you always knew you were. You have been sown male at birth, and you will rise a woman. 215 00:29:13.260 --> 00:29:15.430 Jaeda Calaway: and you will shine. 216 00:29:16.890 --> 00:29:25.519 Jaeda Calaway: Thank you for allowing me to join you today, and I hope that some of what I said resonates with me also resonates with you.