From Tension to Reconciliation. A Look at the History and Rituals of the French Organization David & Jonathan

By studying the case of the French organization David & Jonathan (D&J) in Paris, the chapter shows how the reconciliation of Christianity and homosexuality operates in France. Reconciliation refers to how D&J manages to hold together homosexuality and the religiosity and allows us to go beyond the idea of incompatibility. Reconciliation is rst understood at the organizational level from the point of view of identity politics, to show that reconciliation operates through the progressive integration of D&J into the Parisian LGBT community and the reinforcement of its integration into the Parisian Christian community. Secondly, reconciliation is understood at the level of rituals, from the point of view of individual community belonging. Thee literature on individual identity tension among homosexual Christians is abundant, but scarce from an ethnographical perspective. Thee second section fills this gap by analyzing religious rituals and argues that D&J’s rituals foster reconciliation through an individual feeling of belonging to two communities, religious and homosexual.