Theology is a human endeavor to understand and explain what can be neither understood fully nor explained thoroughly. Conversations on theological method do not usually draw standing room only crowds. But many will engage with Hanna Reichel’s queer postmodern approach. The author claims, or at least hopes, it is more adequate, they dare say “better,” than what has come before. Using design theory, they play with the idea of theology as constructive design. The book is a worthy project, though aimed at a highly specialized audience of theologians.
Hanna Reichel frames their analysis in three moments:
1. How (not) to get along (primus usus legis)
2. How (not) to lose hope (secundus usus legis)
3. How (not) to do better (tertius usus legis)
In the first moment, the author chooses their pillars, Karl Barth for systematic theology and Marcella Althaus-Reid for constructive theology. They deconstruct the work of both of these seemingly strange bedfellows, giving each its due and marking the shortcomings of each. Finding both lacking, albeit differently, in their approaches to claims about ultimate meaning and value that characterize theology, the author goes in search of grace. They despair of method as a solution to anything, though acknowledge the importance of both rigor and fluidity, praxis and analysis, all of which benefit from some framework commonly called method.
In the second moment, “queer grace” comes into focus in the search for “a better way.” System building, according to Reichel, is “where the theologian heroically advances the truth of God to the point of mastering, controlling, and overriding it” (82). Likewise, praxis, even with robust intersectional approaches, carries no assurance of a comprehensive program.
“Queer grace appears in God’s excessive reality” (115) for reasons as old as theology itself. The claim to “queer holiness” (116), like so many similar theological insights, is a factor of faith for those who live with certain forms of religious consciousness. How it works beyond the Jesus story and whether other religious traditions have parallel approaches are issues that are not raised in this explicitly Protestant discussion of method. Earlier explainers of theological method such as Bernard J. Lonergan in Method in Theology (Herder and Herder, 1973) with his neo-Thomistic approach, and Juan Luis Segundo in his liberationist model in The Liberation of Theology (Orbis Book, 1976), might find this approach exotic. But if, as Reichel claims, “no single methodological paradigm can do justice to reality” (246), then multiple methods in conversation are a must. This book is an example of that.
In the third moment, the author employs ideas from architectural design theory, especially how things function, how they are built, and what purposes they serve. They also turn to queer theory, including reflections on cruising and promiscuity among other concepts. Resulting insights are offered in the service of a “better” theology. There are plenty of open questions to ascertain what might be even “better” in the future.
The volume presupposes more than a nodding acquaintance with both Barth and Althaus-Reid. Despite its contemporary vibe, it is laced with language that may make another generation of theological students fear theology the way premed students fear organic chemistry. Words such as “systmaticity,” “hamatological,” and “interdigitate” need more explanation if even the most interested of readers is to follow the arguments.
