Anglican priest claims Jesus was probably gay in Good Friday sermon

An obvious choice for a sermon topic on Good Friday: I don’t know why no-one had thought of it before. It must be because the Anglican Church is not obsessed with homosexuality – no, really, it isn’t. If it were, it would have made the obvious connection that Jesus married the apostle John in a secret ceremony just before the last supper. And it hasn’t; not yet.

From here:

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.

Anglicans in the Ottawa Pride Parade 2011

Following the first chap in the leather skirt we have: Integrity Ottawa; St. Michael and all Angels and the “new” St. Alban’s.

Directly to the rear was a paramedic’s van, presumably in consideration of the average age of the Anglicans preceding it.

 

Coincidentally, having run out of ideas of their own, an Anglican charity is offering a reward of £1,000 to the person who comes up with the most convincing reason to remain an Anglican.

Anyone?

 

St. Christopher’s to fly a rainbow flag

When I became a Christian in 1978, I enthusiastically shared my faith with a friend and co-worker. To my great surprise, after a few weeks he also acknowledged Christ as his Lord as Saviour.

I encouraged him to attend a church, so he went to talk to the rector of St. Christopher’s Anglican Church in Burlington. My friend told me that the rector convinced him that he was taking Christianity too seriously, that his initial enthusiasm would only lead to problems and that he should slow down. My friend did attend St. Christopher’s for a while but then, with the rector’s help, gradually drifted away from his faith altogether.

Not to worry, though, because St. Christopher’s is still concentrating on what is really important: it is  flying a rainbow flag in support of Halton Pride.

From the Niagara Anglican (not online yet):

A rainbow graced the skies over Bur lington as this article was being written, In the Bible, the rainbow is the sign of God’s mercy to Noah and humankind after the ‘great flood’ (Genesis 9:12-16).

To mark ‘Halton Pride’ at the beginning of June, the Rainbow Flag will fly proudly over St. Christopher’s Church, Burlington, in recognition of the contribution of the LGBTQ community is making in society.

In 1978, Gilbert Baker of San Francisco, designed the first Rainbow Flag to show the diversity of the gay community. Since then the Rainbow Flag has become the, sign for the LGBTQ community worldwide.

Today the six colours of the Rainbow Flag symbolize life (red), healing (orange), sunlight . (yellow), nature (green), harmony (blue) and spirit (Purple).

St. Christopher’s will also have a booth at Halton Pride on June 4, 2011 from 11 am to 4pm in Central Park (New Street and Drury Lane), Burlington.

Perhaps my friend would have fared better had he been gay.