Last Updated on September 28, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott was a trailblazing feminist Bible scholar and queer theologian whose 13 books liberated countless LGBTQ lives. She died peacefully in her home in New Jersey on Sept. 25, 2020, at age 88.
Mollenkott shook the religious world with her groundbreaking 1978 book “Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?” and won a Lambda Literary Award in 2001 for “Omnigender: A Trans-religious Approach.”
She was a great soul who used her own struggles with gender nonconformity and sexual orientation to educate and empower others. A giant of the 20th century, she was way ahead of her time yet down-to-earth, writing about the Bible in a style that was scholarly yet accessible.
Raised evangelical, she attempted suicide as a teenager under religious pressure to change her “evil” lesbian nature and went on to graduate from and teach at ultra-conservative Bob Jones University. But over the years expanded her theology until she was able to rejoice, “Hallelujah, I’m queer!”
Virginia Mollenkott
Bob Jones III, president of her alma mater, was outraged when she and Letha Dawson Scanzoni coauthored “Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?” He declared Mollenkott unwelcome and “a demon.”
Her enormous impact was summed up by Queer Theology: “If you’ve ever read anything about ‘what the Bible says about homosexuality,’ you can trace it back to her.”
Mollenkott didn’t just write about the Bible — she even helped translate it! She served as stylistic consultant for the New International Version of the Bible, and the National Council of Churches appointed her to its Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee.
She won a Lambda Literary Award in 2001 for “Omnigender: A Trans-religious Approach.” The book looks at people who do not fit within the traditional binary concept of gender: intersexual, trans-sexual, or otherwise-gendered individuals. The omnigendered model applied to scripture and church history, addressing the question, “How can the church that is called to bear God’s message of reconciliation scorn or reject people of any sexual orientation or gender identity?”
Mollenkott crossed borders of LGBTQ identities
Mollenkott’s sense of self kept breaking rules and transgressing boundaries even in the LGBTQ community, where she navigated between lesbian and transgender identities. “By the time I crossed the border of accepting myself as a masculine woman and therefore transgender as well as lesbian, I was in my mid-sixties and had already crossed enough borders that this one was easy for me,” she explained in her article ‘Transwomen, Lesbians, and the Border Police’” on Transfaithonline.org.
“I am bi-gender — mentally and emotionally male as well as female,” she declared when she told her life story on video at the Religion and the Feminist Movement Conference at Harvard Divinity School in 2002.
Her book “Transgender Journeys,” co-authored with Vanessa Sheridan, was groundbreaking when it was originally published in 2003.
Mollenkott was raised evangelical
Mollenkott was born Jan. 28, 1932, in Philadelphia and raised in the Plymouth Brethren, a conservative evangelical church. She earned a master’s degree from Temple University and a doctorate in English literature from New York University, specializing in the study of John Milton.
She married fellow Bob Jones University student Fred Mollenkott in 1954 and they stayed together for 17 years. When they divorced, she retained custody of their son, Paul.
She was a monumental figure in Christian feminism. In addition to teaching, Mollenkott was a founding member and annual speaker for the influential Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus, an international group advocating gender equality in the church. She gave hundreds of lectures on LGBTQ and feminist theologies at churches, seminaries, conferences and universities nationwide.
Her partner in life from 1980 to 1996 was financial planner Debra L. Morrison. Later Mollenkott lived as domestic partners with high school science teacher Judith Suzannah Tilton (1936-2018) until a Supreme Court ruling allowed them to legally marry in 2013. Tilton preceded her in death two years ago.
“Now she’s dancing with Suzannah,” Morrison is quoted as saying. She and Mollenkott’s son were among the family and friends who surrounded Virginia for her transition to eternal life.
Virginia Mollenkott: Friend who called me “sister in Christ”
I first encountered Virginia through her books “Women, Men and the Bible” and “The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female.” Her insights on Biblical women and the divine feminine were exactly what I needed back then. Raised secular, I decided to get baptized as a young adult because I experienced the reality of God, but I still struggled with the way men dominated churches. I was able to move forward on my path with Christ because Virginia taught me that God is like a mother eagle, a mother hen, a bakerwoman, Dame Wisdom and much more.
I was thrilled to meet Virginia in person in 1987 when she gave a guest sermon at my home church, Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. I had just become student clergy there and was in my first semester of seminary at Pacific School of Religion.
Christian feminists at the 1993 Reimaginging conference are, from left: Lori Dick, Virginia Mollenkott, Susan Thistlewaite, Nancy Wilson and Kittredge Cherry.
Virginia was as unpretentious yet learned as her books, with a friendly butch manner. She cheerfully autographed my copy of “Women, Men and the Bible” with a message that I still treasure: “To Kit Cherry, my sister in Christ, Virginia R. Mollenkott, 10/11/1987.”
Eventually Virginia became a colleague and friend who supported my books and web projects for the rest of her life. When I launched my Jesusinlove.org website, she cheered me on with an email saying, “It is really impressive — a powerful ministry. You go, girl!”
Virginia Mollenkott wrote a personal message for Kittredge Cherry in 1987 when she autographed her book autographed her book “Women, Men and the Bible”
A now-classic photo captures the joyful camaraderie that Virginia shared with Christian feminist colleagues, including myself. It shows us at the 1993 global “Re-Imagining” theology conference.
Mollenkott preached, “Hallelujah, I’m queer!”
Mollenkott preached at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco on Oct. 11, 1987, during the second March on Washington for LGBTQ rights. I recently listened to the cassette tape of the first sermon that I heard Virginia preach. I wrote the following summary and transcribed some of her best quotes. Even I was surprised at how timeless her message was. Her ideas remain just as relevant and revolutionary today.
Her topic was a lesbian feminist analysis of God as shepherd. Music director Bob Crocker set the stage by singing “Shepherd of My Heart” before she stepped to the pulpit.
Virginia began by saying that she often speaks to mainline churches, so “it’s a relief to be with queer people.”
“The message I keep trying to give to the mainline churches of the United States is that you are denying yourselves the FEEL of grace, of unconditional love, by cutting off certain people from the flow of that grace.”
She struggled with coming out as a lesbian, but in this sermon she proclaimed, “Hallelujah, I’m queer! And I wouldn’t change it now if I could. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for me.”
She also said:
“I don’t deny that Jesus was male, but I do deny that his maleness was normative for human salvation…. Jesus himself never emphasized his maleness.” He referred to himself as a mother hen and as the female Wisdom/Sophia. He did female tasks such as foot washing. There’s no reason why we can’t refer to the Christ as She as well as He.”
Mollenkott reviewed how people today don’t like being compared to sheep and “the offensiveness of being led by any shepherd, male or female.”
She said that God within can be followed with integrity, but not the patriarchal God who stands above and apart.
“When I’m following the guidance of the Good Shepherd who speaks to me within the depths of my own being, I will know that the thousands who are starving each day because their governments choose to spend money on the arms race rather than on food, I’ll know that their death diminishes me and I’ll do everything I can to alleviate their suffering and to change the systems that discount their value.
“When I’m following the Good Shepherd who has other sheep not of the fold that I am in, I’ll realize I can’t look down on ANY other creature as being of less value than myself, nor can I be careless about the exclusion of any other human being from the good basics of life. I’ll know, for instance, that a church that excludes qualified people from ordination because they love someone of their own sex is a church that offends the Good Shepherd… and I’ll do my best to change those church policies.”
During the sermon, her experience as an English literature professor showed because she made excellent use of classic poetry, paraphrasing John Donne’s “No person is an island” and William Blake: “When the doors of human perception are cleansed, we will see everything as it is: Holy, holy, holy.”
More of Mollenkott’s sermons and speeches are available on videos, such as her acceptance speech for the first Mother Eagle Award at the 2017 Gay Christian Network Conference.
Mollenkott appears with a rainbow halo against a bright lavender background in the 2021 portrait at the top of this post. The color lavender, which blends traditionally feminine pink and masculine blue, has long been associated with queer people. It was created by North Carolina artist Jeremy Whitner, a gay Christian mystic and ordained minister with the Disciples of Christ. He has a master of divinity degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary. Whitner painted the first version spontaneously on the day that he learned of her passing, and created this new and improved portrait for the first anniversary of her passing.
Her friends established a memorial fund in her name in collaboration with the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network. The fund endows the newly-named Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Award, an annual award for outstanding papers on LGBTQ+ religious history.
Quotes by Virginia Mollenkott
“Sophia is able to remain peaceful, to laugh and play like a happy child, even in the midst of a suffering world – not because she is heartless, but because she knows that everyone is home-free the moment they relinquish their fatal attraction to the external appearance of things. The Sophia of God says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”
– from “Sensuous Spirituality: Out from Fundamentalism”
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Note on pronouns: This article follows uses she/her/hers pronouns for Mollenkott, based on standard usage and Mollenkott’s own identification as “a masculine woman.”
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Related link:
ViriginaMollenkott.com (official website)
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Top image credit:
“Virginia Ramey Mollenkott: Trans Christian Feminist Theologian” by Jeremy Steven Whitner, 2021.
This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in October 2020, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Sept. 28, 2024.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
I had the joy of giving her communion at MCC New York back in the 1970s. I was student clergy then, and she bean to tear up. She said it was the first time she was given communion by a woman. I was humbled, and ran down to hug her when she told the story at MCC General Conference. I’m not sure what the MCC hierarchy thought, because I certainly was a very unimportant pastor of a Southern MCC.
What an amazing experience! Thank you for telling about giving communion to Virginia. As for “what the MCC hierarchy thought,” I know that you were well respected at the Fellowship headquarters when I worked there in the 1990s.