This book has centred around stories. Because, in the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘stories matter’. In the quotation that serves as epigraph to the Introduction, Adichie captures the multiple possibilities, both negative and positive, opened up by storytelling and story sharing. Against the ‘single story’ of ‘African homophobia’, as well as ‘religious homophobia’, this book has foregrounded the stories through which Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees narrate their life experiences, struggles, and hopes. Moreover, it has explored how their stories resonate with biblical stories, and how the latter can be creatively appropriated to signify their lives. The process of storytelling, of which this book has offered an account, and the stories that resulted from it, can be described as both sacred and queer. These stories are queer, in the sense that they boldly narrate non-normative sexualities and gender expressions, construe alternative forms of kinship and belonging, reflect precarious lives that are in transit, and demonstrate vulnerability, courage, and resilience. They are sacred, in that they narratively claim human dignity, effectively countering popular narratives and biblical interpretations that dehumanise or victimise LGBTQ+ lives and cast them as sinful. Moreover, this dignity is grounded in the belief in God’s affirming love and is affirmed through the reading of canonised sacred scripture.

The main methodological contribution of this book is its appropriation of the Bible for the process of sacred queer storytelling by Ugandan LGBTQ+ refugees. Although it has been acknowledged that the Bible in contemporary Africa ‘forms part of the problem because it is a site of struggle [in which] the debate on homosexuality is being fought’, this book suggests that it can be part of the solution, too. This suggestion is not based on the simple premise that sacred queer storytelling with the help of the Bible will solve the problem of the politics of homosexuality in African societies – these politics are far too complex and multifaceted for simple solutions. However, if the Bible is indeed ‘a site of struggle’, it is pertinent for this site not to be left to conservative religious leaders and other public opinion makers, who mobilise the authority of the Bible as a weapon for anti-LGBTQ+ politics.