Berkylvania
02-06-2004, 18:31
A noted Methodist minister and theologian, Rev. Theodore Jennings, Jr., a professor at the Chicago Theological Seminary, recently published a book titled The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament. Evidently, Rev. Jennings claims to be able to show the Gospel in a new light which indicates the New Testament's support for same sex relations. In particular, Rev. Jennings points to a refences in John about "the disciple Jesus loved" and claims this is actually an implication that St. John was Jesus' boyfriend. Furthermore, Jennings aserts that the servernt of the centurion who was healed by Jesus was actually the centurion's homosexual lover and Jesus did not condemn the relationship.
Leon Satterfield, in an editorial piece in the Lincoln Journal-Star, wrote that, if one takes into account Robert Frost's concept of God as "The Celestial Trickster", it would make perfect sense. God creates a 90% majority guaranteed to revile and persecute a 10% minority based on an arbitrary difference. Then, just because he's a tricky cuss, God makes "his only begotten son" one of those 10% in order to see how we deal with them. As Satterfield said in his op ed piece:
When Judgment Day comes around and we find out who's who and who we've so scornfully relegated to second-class citizenship, would that be a Great Big Joke on us or what? Would we be amused? Would Pat Robertson?
Obviously, many Christians were not amused.
While I haven't been able to find this book of Rev. Jennings yet, I was wondering if anyone on this forum had read it?
This isn't the only one putting forth this theory. Dr. Morton Smith, a world renowned Bible scholar at Columbia University alleges that there is irrefutable evidence that Jesus was at least bisexual. According to Professor Smith, a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monestary in 1958 indicates that Jesus had a homosexual relationship with a young man he raised from the dead. Ghastly puns aside, the fragment allegedly shows that the full text of Mark 10, between verses 34 and 35, should include the following:
And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.
Goodness. Evidently not only was Jesus potentially homosexual, he was very good at it and named it "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God." And to think, The Magic Kingdom on has "Gay Day" once a year.
Dr. Rollan McCleary of the University of Queensland, Australia, has spent the last three years researching "gay spirituality" and claims that his research has shown that Jesus was gay, the "Beloved Disciple" was gay and that Judas was quite possibly a Mary in his book Signs for a Messiah. Furthermore, he claims that the Christian church was built on "gay principles" (whatever those are...apparently good taste in clothes, slavish devotion to working out and a profound and misunderstood love for Barbara Striessand, Judy Garland, throw pillows and track lighting). Signs, as a work, doesn't seek to "prove" the sexuality of Jesus, but instead to offer an intimate portrait of Jesus as a man and address the issues surrounding his actual birth date. The book also doesn't imply that Jesus had frequent "bang the disciple" circuit parties, but simply that he was homosexual in orientation and that orientation affected his outlook and teachings. Mind you, he's also using astrology and Jesus' chart as source material, however his justification is that astrology was most probably what the Wise Men knew back in the day and therefore is a perfectly rational rule.
Additionally, revisionist queer theologians have been arguing for years that the Septuagint uses the terms agape, meaning ideal love and compassion, and eros interchangably.
The Vatican, Southern Baptists and evangelical Anglicans have all denounced the research by McCleary, Smith and Jennings as "heretical".
However, the fact that these are not crackpot tin-hat theorists, but well respected (at least, prior to these works) members of theological society makes me wonder (well, except for Dr. McCleary, who if you go to his website at www.rollanmccleary.com, seems, shall we say, a bit interesting). We all know that the Church willfully removed a huge portion of the young life of Jesus. What else might they have "sanitized"? And why won't these religious groups even have a dialogue about these findings?
Leon Satterfield, in an editorial piece in the Lincoln Journal-Star, wrote that, if one takes into account Robert Frost's concept of God as "The Celestial Trickster", it would make perfect sense. God creates a 90% majority guaranteed to revile and persecute a 10% minority based on an arbitrary difference. Then, just because he's a tricky cuss, God makes "his only begotten son" one of those 10% in order to see how we deal with them. As Satterfield said in his op ed piece:
When Judgment Day comes around and we find out who's who and who we've so scornfully relegated to second-class citizenship, would that be a Great Big Joke on us or what? Would we be amused? Would Pat Robertson?
Obviously, many Christians were not amused.
While I haven't been able to find this book of Rev. Jennings yet, I was wondering if anyone on this forum had read it?
This isn't the only one putting forth this theory. Dr. Morton Smith, a world renowned Bible scholar at Columbia University alleges that there is irrefutable evidence that Jesus was at least bisexual. According to Professor Smith, a fragment of manuscript he found at the Mar Saba monestary in 1958 indicates that Jesus had a homosexual relationship with a young man he raised from the dead. Ghastly puns aside, the fragment allegedly shows that the full text of Mark 10, between verses 34 and 35, should include the following:
And the youth, looking upon him (Jesus), loved him and beseeched that he might remain with him. And going out of the tomb, they went into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus instructed him and, at evening, the youth came to him wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.
Goodness. Evidently not only was Jesus potentially homosexual, he was very good at it and named it "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God." And to think, The Magic Kingdom on has "Gay Day" once a year.
Dr. Rollan McCleary of the University of Queensland, Australia, has spent the last three years researching "gay spirituality" and claims that his research has shown that Jesus was gay, the "Beloved Disciple" was gay and that Judas was quite possibly a Mary in his book Signs for a Messiah. Furthermore, he claims that the Christian church was built on "gay principles" (whatever those are...apparently good taste in clothes, slavish devotion to working out and a profound and misunderstood love for Barbara Striessand, Judy Garland, throw pillows and track lighting). Signs, as a work, doesn't seek to "prove" the sexuality of Jesus, but instead to offer an intimate portrait of Jesus as a man and address the issues surrounding his actual birth date. The book also doesn't imply that Jesus had frequent "bang the disciple" circuit parties, but simply that he was homosexual in orientation and that orientation affected his outlook and teachings. Mind you, he's also using astrology and Jesus' chart as source material, however his justification is that astrology was most probably what the Wise Men knew back in the day and therefore is a perfectly rational rule.
Additionally, revisionist queer theologians have been arguing for years that the Septuagint uses the terms agape, meaning ideal love and compassion, and eros interchangably.
The Vatican, Southern Baptists and evangelical Anglicans have all denounced the research by McCleary, Smith and Jennings as "heretical".
However, the fact that these are not crackpot tin-hat theorists, but well respected (at least, prior to these works) members of theological society makes me wonder (well, except for Dr. McCleary, who if you go to his website at www.rollanmccleary.com, seems, shall we say, a bit interesting). We all know that the Church willfully removed a huge portion of the young life of Jesus. What else might they have "sanitized"? And why won't these religious groups even have a dialogue about these findings?