Abstract This article presents a scoping review of fifty-four social science studies on the intersection of religious and sexual identities among gay Christian men. Although research consistently portrays LGBTQ + Christians as active agents rather than passive subjects of religious doctrine, few studies explicitly engage with theories of agency. Drawing on debates in feminist scholarship on women in conservative religious contexts, this article reinterprets existing findings through four forms of agency: resistant, empowerment, instrumental, and compliant. Applying this framework broadens understandings of gay Christian agency beyond individualist and resistance-centered interpretations by highlighting how agency is negotiated within specific religious and social contexts. It further shows that compliance may involve actively reworking religion rather than merely adapting to it. Overall, the article offers a more nuanced understanding of the diverse ways gay believers negotiate religious and sexual identities and contributes to theorizing agency in the study of gay Christians.
Abstract The article examines the theoretical gap between goddess feminism and liberal feminism. Through a discussion of postcolonial perspectives on goddess feminism, the article advances a decolonial approach that seeks to foster a coalition between these two ideologically contrasting voices within feminism. In doing so, it postulates a politically viscous, gender-sensitive, and intersectional view of feminism. The argument draws on existing scholarship on goddess feminism and the Sabarimala pilgrimage, along with liberal feminist interventions into the Sabarimala controversy concerning menstrual pollution and the ban on women of reproductive age entering the temple. This is supplemented by the first author’s personal observations of growing up amidst the popular culture of pilgrimage to the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, in parallel with immersive experiences of engagement with feminist activism. The article first lays out the postcolonial problematisation of goddess feminism, followed by an outline of the Sabarimala controversy. Subsequently, through a literature review on the Sabarimala pilgrimage, the argument reveals gaps in earlier discussions related to women’s subjectivities, and ambivalent goddess imageries such as Maalikappurathamma. In conclusion, the article offers a decolonial interpretation of the goddess Maalikappurathamma as feminist figuration.
