The Queer Church of Venus is a non-theistic Church with a primarily online presence. We do not aim merely to be inclusive or affirming of queer lives. We strive for something more radical: We center queer lives. This centering means that, yes, we are an inclusive and affirming Church. But that inclusion flows outward from that center. We are inclusive and affirming of our non-queer siblings because our queer experience of the world teaches us that belonging, dignity, and love are not privileges to be earned.
Although no few words could possibly capture the full spirit of our Church, we do hold to several core values: naturalism, humanism, epistemic humility, ecological awareness, belonging, egalitarianism, and what we fondly refer to as ‘magnificent ordinariness.’
But if we are non-theistic, in what sense are we a religion? Doesn’t religion require you to believe in the supernatural or in superstition? And wouldn’t that contradict our humanist commitment to proportioning belief to evidence?
Not at all! We are fully committed to skepticism, curiosity, and proportionate belief. We do not cling to superstition. We do, however, embrace myth. Our myths are not about defying reality, but rather illuminating it. They are stories rooted in the physical world, crafted to orient us toward hope, courage, and connection.
Most mythoi look backward. They tell us origin stories about how we arrived at this moment. We are used to speaking about mythos as “a Universe,” as in “the Marvel Universe,” “the D.C. Universe,” “the world of Star Trek,” and so forth. And religious mythos does not typically depart from this script. The main difference between “the Jesus Universe,” and “the Marvel Universe” is that the latter knows it is fiction whereas the former claims historicity.
So how does our mythos fit into that picture? Do we believe that it is “real”? That’s a difficult question to answer because our mythos is oriented in the future, not the past. So our mythos makes no historical claims. It is, rather, focused on the world that is still possible, the world of the future. We are in the process of crafting our mythos by telling stories that are set in a fictional sci-fi universe. To the casual reader, it might appear, then, that our church mythos is “RuPaul’s Drag Racemeets Star Trek.” So, of course, there is the sense in which we are very well aware that our mythos is fiction. But it’s notjust fiction. Our stories are not merely entertainment. They are hope and fable; they teach us how to live in the here and now, and they give us a glimpse of the world that might yet be, of a world transformed by empathy, curiosity, and radical belonging. So there is also a sense in which our mythos is not fictional. We might think of it rather as a fictional dramatization of one possible future that embodies our values and aspirations.
Our “Venus” then is not a goddess. She is literally the morning star, Earth’s twin, the beacon that has long enchanted human hearts. She is our symbol of hope, a reminder that there are still new worlds to be made, even in ourselves. And so we dream. And we work for the day when we might truly call her home.