“Why Are You Doing This?”

Chapter Three maps out the stakes of desires for MCC Toronto and the UFMCC movement to go “global,” given Christianity’s colonial history. While an emphasis on “saving the world” threatens to repeat colonial missiology, a politics of affect focused on “saving ourselves,” I suggest might proffer a more radical alternative.

Pastor–Diva–Citizen

Chapter Two evaluates the public ministry of longtime pastor Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes, focusing on police brutality and the state funeral of beloved progressive politician Jack Layton. While Hawkes’ angry, radical days appear over, I argue against romanticizing the radical past – or getting too glum about the neoliberal present.

Too Diverse?

Chapter One traces debates on race and gender church leadership, asking why racialized and radicalized leaders stay involved despite racist microaggressions and celebration of police. I argue that people affectively apprehend the church’s potential to be and do more, and use their ministries to serve more radical, capacious ethico-political goals.

Loving an Unfinished World

The Conclusion reflects on the stakes of critiquing liberal politics/religion when the resurgence of cultural nationalism tempts some to embrace liberalism as a last best hope. I insist that learning from the critical and reparative practices of those who live the contradictions of liberalism most intimately proffers radical, capacious alternatives.

From Identity to Precarity

Chapter Four engages with the everyday geographies of asylum-seekers who participate in the church refugee program. I argue that the imperative to “prove” LGBTQ identity renders asylum-seekers precarious queers, regardless of “true” identity. Thus the church’s approach to the program, which prioritizes vulnerability over identity, proffers a radical intervention.

Repairing Bad Objects

The Introduction outlines the prospect of an “improper” queer citizenship. It points to a queer church (where queer damage is revisited) in a city hailed for its racial and sexual diversity as a key site for understanding how people affectively work through the contradictions of liberal citizenship.