Emotion Language and Social Power: Homosexuality and Narratives of Pain in Church

Abstract

This paper examines the narratives of pain in two religious groups to explore how the everyday concept of emotional pain can work to obscure differences between opposing sides. It shows how these narratives can effectively help to reproduce social hierarchies, even as actors seek to challenge them. Specifically, by examining church debates about homosexuality, it shows how putatively heterosexual actors on both sides use languages of pain to justify welcoming gays into the church, albeit on very different terms, while creating particular feeling rules for gay men and lesbians (Hochschild 1979(Hochschild , 1983. By comparing these two sides we see how narratives of pain (and the shared assumptions behind them) effectively help to reproduce the sexual hierarchy some members seek to subvert.

Beyond the Dichotomy: Six Religious Views of Homosexuality

“…Finally, this argument can make gay and lesbian pain the price of admission to the community. If pain is the reason to welcome LGBT people into the community, then LGBT people who are not particularly pained may seem not to belong (Moon, 2005b).…”

Difficult Dialogues: The Technologies and Limits of Reconciliation

“…The more recent is a qualitative study of American Jews' understandings and experiences of anti-Semitism and how it relates to politics, particularly around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 1 I compare some of the findings from this study with findings that emerged in my earlier ethnographic research on debates about homosexuality within the United Methodist Church (Moon 2004(Moon , 2005a(Moon , 2005b. In the broader study of American Jews and their understandings and experiences of anti-Semitism, I used voice-recorded intensive interviews with a snowball sample of thirty-two respondents, ranging from one hour to three-and-one-half hours.…”

“…This knowledge comes from the relating that happens in the lifeworld, so their knowledge cannot be explained to their opponents in any satisfactorily objective-seeming terms. Those who believe homosexuality is sinful, on the other hand, see homosexuality and all it symbolizes to them (selfishness, carnality, politics, chaos, and the like; see Moon 2004) as firmly entrenched in the formal world-what evangelicals consider the fallen, human world. They cannot enter intersubjectivity with inclusionists because their prior understanding of homosexuality and what it symbolizes does not permit entrance into the realm of relating into their moral community.…”

Sunsets and Solidarity: Overcoming Sacramental Shame in Conservative Christian Churches to Forge a Queer Vision of Love and Justice

“…Feminist philosophers and sociologists have noted how people experience social belonging and threats through emotions (Bartky 1990;Scheff 2000;Moon 2004;Wolkomir 2006;Gould 2009;Shotwell 2011;Creek 2013;Ahmed 2015). Sociologists have examined how (mostly) lesbian and gay people and their allies in conservative Christian groups respond to these groups' feeling rules and manage their emotions to ensure continued acceptance (Wolkomir 2006;Creek 2013).…”

“…Sociologists have examined how (mostly) lesbian and gay people and their allies in conservative Christian groups respond to these groups' feeling rules and manage their emotions to ensure continued acceptance (Wolkomir 2006;Creek 2013). They also note the way shame and sympathy work to maintain heterosexuals' authority and superiority in such situations (Moon 2005;Cragun, Williams, and Sumerau 2015). However, they have been slow to consider the substance at the intersections of religion with gender and sexuality (Avishai, Jafar, and Rinaldo 2015), avoiding the visceral emotions inspired at this juncture.…”