----
yes ... and he's looking for a boyfriend
http://www.gayprisoners.net/nevada.html
On Apr 20, 12:51 pm, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Was Jesus gay? ProbablyI preached on Good Friday that Jesus's intimacy
> with John suggested he was gay as I felt deeply it had to be addressed
>
> Preaching on Good Friday on the last words of Jesus as he was being
> executed makes great spiritual demands on the preacher. The Jesuits
> began this tradition. Many Anglican churches adopted it. Faced with
> this privilege in New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, my second
> home, I was painfully aware of the context, a church deeply divided
> worldwide over issues of gender and sexuality. Suffering was my theme.
> I felt I could not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at
> the hands of the church, over many centuries.
>
> Was that divisive issue a subject for Good Friday? For the first time
> in my ministry I felt it had to be. Those last words of Jesus would
> not let me escape. "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he
> loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman behold your son!'
> Then he said to the disciple. 'Behold your mother!' And from that hour
> the disciple took her to his own home."
>
> That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm, loved in a
> special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three women but
> only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his execution. That
> man clearly had a unique place in the affection of Jesus. In all
> classic depictions of the Last Supper, a favourite subject of
> Christian art, John is next to Jesus, very often his head resting on
> Jesus's breast. Dying, Jesus asks John to look after his mother and
> asks his mother to accept John as her son. John takes Mary home. John
> becomes unmistakably part of Jesus's family.
>
> Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried. The idea that
> he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the stuff of
> fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the other
> hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong. But
> even gay rights campaigners in the church have been reluctant to
> suggest it. A significant exception was Hugh Montefiore, bishop of
> Birmingham and a convert from a prominent Jewish family. He dared to
> suggest that possibility and was met with disdain, as though he were
> simply out to shock.
>
> After much reflection and with certainly no wish to shock, I felt I
> was left with no option but to suggest, for the first time in half a
> century of my Anglican priesthood, that Jesus may well have been
> homosexual. Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have been
> truly human. To believe that would be heretical.
>
> Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of
> these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual option simply
> seems the most likely. The intimate relationship with the beloved
> disciple points in that direction. It would be so interpreted in any
> person today. Although there is no rabbinic tradition of celibacy,
> Jesus could well have chosen to refrain from sexual activity, whether
> he was gay or not. Many Christians will wish to assume it, but I see
> no theological need to. The physical expression of faithful love is
> godly. To suggest otherwise is to buy into a kind of puritanism that
> has long tainted the churches.
>
> All that, I felt deeply, had to be addressed on Good Friday. I saw it
> as an act of penitence for the suffering and persecution of homosexual
> people that still persists in many parts of the church. Few readers of
> this column are likely to be outraged any more than the liberal
> congregation to whom I was preaching, yet I am only too aware how
> hurtful these reflections will be to most theologically conservative
> or simply traditional Christians. The essential question for me is:
> what does love demand? For my critics it is more often: what does
> scripture say? In this case, both point in the same direction.
>
> Whether Jesus was gay or straight in no way affects who he was and
> what he means for the world today. Spiritually it is immaterial. What
> matters in this context is that there are many gay and lesbian
> followers of Jesus – ordained and lay – who, despite the church,
> remarkably and humbly remain its faithful members. Would the Christian
> churches in their many guises more openly accept, embrace and love
> them, there would be many more disciples.
>
> More:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/20/was-jesus-...
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
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> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
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