Re: Was Jesus gay? Probably

You REALLY need to drop your HATE and homophobia, and get some real help, ya poor thing.

 

I wish you the best, sad as your condition maybe.  God bless, and good luck.
On Friday, April 20, 2012 1:51:17 PM UTC-4, Tommy News 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-gay-probably?newsfeed=true

--
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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