In August 2019, Adriaan van Klinken, a Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds. released his book titled “Kenyan Christian Queer.” The focus of the book was to interrogate, complicate and nuance popular narratives that cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible.
About the book, Damaris Parsitau wrote in The Conversation, “The mark of a great book is often its ability to provoke robust debates and force readers to confront uncomfortable content. Kenyan, Christian, Queer provides a way to imagine a future continent where members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community can exercise their rights to dignity, voice, agency, space and health without fear of stigma, harassment and worse.”
The Kenyan Christian Queer project has now taken the ambitious mission a step further.
The author recently announced plans to release a documentary with the same title. The documentary seeks to answer the same question posed in the book: “Is it possible to be Christian and gay?”
The documentary shines a light on the first LGBT/LGBT+ affirming church in Kenya, The Cosmopolitan Affirming Community. The Cosmopolitan Affirming Community (CAC), which we have visited and written about as part of our reportage across Africa, seeks to promote an inclusive and progressive form of Christianity in a rather conservative society.
Watch the trailer for the documentary below:
