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Welcome Advent with a queer look at the virgin birth

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“Annunciation” by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin

Welcome Advent the queer way by considering the virgin birth with fresh eyes and ears.

Advent opens on a queer note today with a new musical Advent calendar created by Welsh musician Andrew Craig Williams. The theme of the lesbian virgin birth is also explored visually in contemporary artwork posted here today.

Williams' calendar features a new song every day from now through Christmas as a fundraiser for Shelter Cymru, a charity for the homeless in Wales. It starts today with the medieval song “Videte Miraculum” (“See the Miracle”) by Thomas Tallis. Williams adds a subtle contemporary queer flavor by having a lesbian do the Latin vocals, which translate into lines like, “A virgin has conceived though she knows not a man.”

Another “queered-up track” will be a “rainbow version” of “Some Children See Him” with new queer/straight lyrics by lesbian author Kittredge Cherry. (Yes, I myself wrote a new verse for the song and even sing on this recording!) More details will be posted here when it is officially released on Dec. 23.

Even mainstream performances of “Videte Miraculum” feature Latin lyrics that seem to invite a lesbian interpretation. Consider the lesbian implications of this English translation:

Behold the miracle of the mother of God:
a virgin has conceived though she knows not a man,
Mary, who stands laden with her noble burden;
knowing not that she is a wife,
she rejoices to be a mother.
She has conceived in her chaste womb
one who is beautiful beyond the sons of men,
and blessed for ever,
she has brought forth God and man for us.
(translation by Mick Swithinbank)



This version by the British choral group Stile Antico is available on video and on their album “Puer Natus Est: Tudor Music for Advent and Christmas.”

“The original is somehow sad. My version is celebratory!” Williams said. “My best friend Tamsin, a lesbian, is providing some vocals for me -- so it changes the story of the Immaculate Conception, or rather broadens it, to include lesbian procreation too. We see virgin births all the time these days -- children are born every day to parents who needed a little help to conceive, and many of those are lesbian parents.”

Tamsin does not sing on his version the track, but instead Williams asked her to vocalize what Mary felt. He sampled Tamsin's voice and digitally converted it into the main instrument of the piece, like an angelic, but wistful woodwind instrument. “I’ve also modernised the music, and added some glitchy beats,” he said. “It’s now very 21st Century!”



Williams is not only a music maker, but also a writer and artist. Jesus in Love has often featured his images, including his “Queer Resurrection” and “Jesus has Two Daddies.” He uses the pseudonym Fflwcs, which is Welsh slang for “rubbishy sweets that are bad for you.”

The Madonna and her female lover are portrayed by a real lesbian couple, seven months’ pregnant through artificial insemination in “Annunciation” (pictured above) from the “Ecce Homo” series by Swedish photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin and Becki Jayne Harrelson. The angel Gabriel comes in the form of their gay male friend, who floats in with a message from God—and a test tube for insemination.

Two lesbian mothers cuddle the Christ child in “Madonna, Lover and Son” (pictured below) by Atlanta painter Becki Jayne Harrelson. She puts her queer Holy Family into the same landscape as Da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Rocks.”

“Madonna, Lover and Son” by Becki Jayne Harrelson

Williams has a tradition of creating Christmas music for his friends and family every year, but this year he wanted to do more and help others by doing an entire Musical Advent Calendar as a fundraiser for Shelter Cymru, one of his favorite charities. He explains the project in his own words:

“Christmas means so many things to so many people, and though I'm not a believer, I love the story of the nativity (Kitt inspired me to find my own queer nativity). I love helping my queer brothers and sisters to see themselves reflected in the stories they love - everything from the Bible, to The Mabinogion (a collection of ancient Welsh folk tales),” he said.

Visit Williams’ Musical Advent Calendar page for a full schedule of his holiday music. New songs will be posted daily on his blog and Soundcloud page. Coming tomorrow: an instrumental called “We Three Queens.” Williams adds, “Just a silly title! But I wanted to make it ambiguous -- drag queens, wise women, witches - could have been anyone!”
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Related links:

Lesbian couple portrays Madonna (Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin)

Lesbian Madonna, lover and son affirm Christmas (Becki Jayne Harrelson)
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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts



Queer Christmas cards show gay and lesbian Nativity scenes

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Gay and lesbian Nativity scenes are on Christmas cards at the Jesus in Love Store (Photos by Kittredge Cherry)

Lesbian Nativity with Dog
Lesbian Nativity
Gay Nativity with Dog
What if the child of God was born to a lesbian or gay couple? Because, after all, LOVE makes a family, including the Holy Family.

If you're looking for a way to bring holiday cheer to your LGBTQ loved ones, try my Gay and Lesbian Nativity cards. They imagine that the child of God was born to a same-sex couple.

Right-wing religious bloggers attacked the cards, so you know that they must be good.

The cards are true to the spirit of Christmas: God’s child conceived in an extraordinary way. They show two Marys and two Josephs at the manger with the baby Jesus -- like putting two brides or two grooms on top of a wedding cake! Everyone should be able to see themselves in the Christmas story, including the growing number of LGBT parents and their children.

For more about how and why I made these the queer manger scenes, see my previous post “Gay and lesbian nativity scenes show love makes a family.” You can see them on video too.

My gay and lesbian Nativity Scenes are available as Christmas cards with five different images. Click to visit the card shop.

I hope to do other gay and lesbian Nativity scenes with racial diversity in the future. Until then, enjoy these images from the Queer Nativity project that I sponsored.

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Queer Nativity 1: Manger scene as gay adoption party

“Blaine and Patrick's Adoption Party 1” by Baub Alred

The image highlights the radical nature of Christ’s birth in two ways -- by presenting his parents as an inter-racial couple as well as a same-sex couple.

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Queer Nativity 5: Matthew and Joseph are pregnant

“Matthew and Joseph are Pregnant” by Andrew Craig Williams

Christmas is about a miraculous pregnancy: a baby born to a virgin. If God can do that, then why not make a man pregnant? Andrew Craig Williams envisions a man carrying the Christ child in his womb.
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LGBTQ Nativity 4: Queer Magi visit Mary, Josephine and Jesus

“Queer Nativity” by Marie-Louise Thurton

Three queer Magi bring gifts to Mary, Josephine and baby Jesus in a Nativity scene sculpted by Marie-Louise Thurton. Instead of the traditional three kings, her Magi are a drag king, a drag nun and a LGBTQ-rights activist.
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Related links:
Hate crime targets gay and lesbian Nativity scene at Claremont church

Gay Nativity scene in Columbia sparks outrage

Queer Nativity contest (7 artists)

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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

LGBT gift ideas: Queer saint icons, gay Jesus books

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Candle with Sergius and Bacchus icon by Robert Lentz

Want to give a Christmas present that expresses your spirituality? Looking for just the right gift for a LGBTQ loved one or ally? You don’t even have to be queer to love the innovative icons at TrinityStores.com.

And for the hard-to-please queer who already has everything, check out the Top 20 Gay Jesus books. Nobody has them all!

I use Trinity icons of same-sex couples and queer saints all year long as part of the LGBT Saints series here at Jesus in Love. They have cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, and framed prints with more than 850 images by world-class artists such as Robert Lentz and Lewis Williams. Nine favorites of Jesus in Love readers are shown here.  There are many more, from Joan of Arc to We-Wha of Zuni. Click the titles or click here to visit TrinityStores.com.

   Harvey Milk icon by Robert Lentz   Saints Perpetua and Felicity by Robert Lentz 


       Sts. Polyeuct and Nearchus by Robert Lentz   Sts. Brigid & Darlughdach by Robert Lentz   St. Boris and George by Robert Lentz 

       Jonathan & David by Robert Lentz   Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis by Lewis Williams   St. Wencelaus and Podiven by Lewis Williams
All icons from TrinityStores.com by Robert Lentz or Lewis Williams

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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Gay Israeli artist Adi Nes humanizes Bible stories

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“Untitled (David and Jonathan)” by Adi Nes

Gay Israeli artist Adi Nes gives shocking clarity to Biblical stories by using images of homoeroticism and homelessness to subvert stereotypes about people in the Bible.

His method brings alive same-sex pairs David-and-Jonathan and Ruth-and-Naomi as well as other Biblical figures. Based in Tel Aviv, Nes counteracts the usual heroic portrayals of Bible characters by photographing them as marginalized outcasts struggling to survive on the harsh streets of contemporary Israel.

Nes was born in 1966 in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat to immigrant Jewish parents from Iran and Kurdistan. His work has been exhibited around the world and is in museum collections in Jerusalem, New York, San Francisco, Washington, Montreal and other cities.

The triumph of David over Goliath is often used to symbolize Israel’s military victories over its enemies, but Nes chooses to depict David as a vulnerable youth with a crutch, leaning on another young man for love and support. Dirty and unkempt, they embrace beneath an industrial overpass covered by graffiti. They look battered, perhaps from a gay bashing. The tender moment suggests the Biblical scenes when “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David” or when “they kissed each other and wept together.” (For their full story, see my previous post David and Jonathan: Love between men in the Bible.)

“Untitled (Ruth and Naomi)” by Adi Nes

The hardships experienced by Ruth and Naomi are often overshadowed by their famous vow of love and their association with the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. Ruth is revered as a Jewish convert and an ancestor of Jesus. But Ruth and her Israelite mother-in-law were so poor that Ruth had to survive by picking up leftover grains of barley in the fields after harvest. Nes brings home the reality of their poverty by showing the pair scavenging onions from a contemporary street littered with trash after an open-air market. They are posed like the peasants in Millet’s “The Gleaners,” a painting well known for showing the dignity of society’s poorest members.

“Untitled (Ruth and Naomi)” by Adi Nes

The careworn faces of Ruth and her beloved Naomi become visible in a second portrait by Nes. Ruth’s vow to Naomi, which begins “Whither thou goest, I will go,” is often used in weddings. Nes shows that their love for each other is all they have as they sit together among discarded crates. For their full story, see my previous post (Ruth and Naomi: Love between women in the Bible.)

“Untitled (Christ)” by Adi Nes

In a similar way his close-up of the face of Jesus deflates any glorification of Christ and reclaims his humanity. The rest of the photos in Nes’ “Biblical Stories” series also reveal both the plight and the resilience of today’s homeless by casting them as figures from the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament). Other scenes include Abraham pushing his son Isaac in a shopping cart loaded with plastic bottles for recycling and an elderly Noah passed out naked near video vending machines. All appear to be homeless in the Jewish homeland, a promised land that failed to fulfill its promise.

Nes has explored issues of masculinity, homoeroticism and Israeli identity in his other work. Starting in the 1990s he re-envisioned male experience with his photo series on “Soldiers,” “Young Boys” and “Prisoners.” Pictures from these series and the Biblical Stories images are collected his comprehensive exhibition catalog.

“Untitled (The Last Supper)” by Adi Nes

Nes’ most famous image is “The Last Supper,” which is part of his Soldiers series. Young male soldiers are arranged like Jesus and his disciples Da Vinci’s Last Supper, sharing a meal with ominous awareness that some will die soon. In 2007 this photo sold at auction for $264,000.

“I think the main purpose of my exhibition -- of my work at all -- is issues of identity,” Nes told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “As a gay man in Israel, the issues of identity are the male identity and the Israel identity. That’s why I chose to first work with soldiers and then work with teenagers, because both soldiers and teenagers are [at] the age where their identity is being questioned.”
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Special thanks to Adi Nes for permission to use his photos on the Jesus in Love Blog and to Deryn Guest for the news tip.
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Related links:

Myth, militarism and gay identity: The photographs of Adi Nes” by Pat Sherman (Gay and Lesbian Times)

The Biblical Stories series is online at adines.com
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This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts


Patron saints for straight allies: Adele Starr of PFLAG and others

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Adele Starr (photo by Brian van der Brug, Los Angeles Times)

After her son came out in 1974, Adele Starr helped launch the group that became Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. She overcame her negative perceptions about homosexuality to become an unflagging champion for LGBT rights and PFLAG’s first national president. Starr died three years ago today on Dec. 10, 2010 at age 90.

Starr is included in the LGBT Saints series here for her courage and dedication in speaking up for her gay son and for all queer people.

Other possible “patron saints of straight allies” include PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford (1920-2013) and Mrs. Edith Allen (Mom) Perry (1916-1989), mother of Metropolitan Community Churches founder Troy Perry.  Among the living, many see role models in two prominent Episcopal / Anglican bishops who were both born in 1931: Desmond Tutu of South Africa and John Shelby Spong of New Jersey.

“St. Augustine and St. Monica”
by Ary Scheffer
(Wikimedia Commons)
As for the traditional saints, Saint Monica might fill the role because her beloved son, Saint Augustine of Hippo, was in love with another man. But she was not exactly an ally for queer rights. Monica encouraged her son’s conversion to Christianity, which led him to condemn homosexuality in writings that are still influential today. Some Catholic websites even list Monica as the “patron saint of disappointing children.” Saint Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia have been called the patron saints of gay men married to women because they both did missionary work while he wrote homoerotic poetry.

The life of Adele Starr provides clear contemporary inspiration for today. She was a mother of five living in Los Angeles, California, when her son Philip Starr came out to his parents in 1974. At that time many people still considered homosexuality to be a mental illness, and parents were often blamed for causing it. She was upset, so her son urged her to attend a support group that later evolved into PFLAG.

Two years later she started the Los Angeles chapter of PFLAG, loosely based on a group in New York. She hosted the first meeting in her home with 35 parents. The organization grew quickly and soon moved to the Methodist church in Westwood where it still meets almost 40 years later.

Starr spoke at the 1979 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Two years later she was elected as the first national PFLAG president, serving in the early years of the AIDS crisis until 1986.

Starr explained her motivations with powerful eloquence at PFLAG’s 10th anniversary conference: “We did it out of love and anger and a sense of injustice, and because we had to tell the world the truth about our children.”

PFLAG is now a Washington-based national non-profit organization with 200,000 members and supporters and more than 350 affiliates in the United States and abroad. It provides support, education and advocacy for LGBT people, their families, friends and allies.

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Related links:

Adele Starr dies at 90; unflagging gay-rights activist (Los Angeles Times)

PFLAG Mourns the Death of First-Ever PFLAG National President Adele Starr (PFLAG.org)

In memory of PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford (Jesus in Love)

Tribute to Mrs. Edith Allen (Mom) Perry, mother of MCC founder Rev. Troy Perry and thousands of people in Metropolitan Community Churches (revtroyperry.org)

Straight Parents, Gay Children: Keeping Families Together by Robert A. Bernstein

The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families, Revised and Expanded Edition by Amity Pierce Buxton.

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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts



Act now: Join the blasphemy debate on queer Nativity

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Join the big blasphemy debate about my queer Nativity scenes at Believe Out Loud today! They say it is offensive, blasphemous, ridiculous, stupid, and “makes equality look bad,” even though they are a LGBT-affirming Christian group.

There are 53 comments and more are coming fast and furious. The first comments ran 25-to-1 against the queer Nativity scene, but a few voices are beginning to speak for it. The hot debate is on the Believe Out Loud Facebook page at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/believeoutloud/posts/10151818031621769



A couple of sample comments:

Against:
"I am gay and Christian and I find this highly offensive. We all know it was Joseph and Mary why would anyone think it would be okay to change that? Let's just wipe out all important historical figures to reflect what we want while we are at it."

In favor:
The whole point of the incarnation is that God becomes one of us and is like us. It seems appropriate, then, that we allow people to imagine a Nativity in which the holy family reflects our own families.... I don't condemn you for your imaging of the Nativity. Let us do like Jesus and allow all to come be fed."

Believe Out Loud published my queer Nativity photos and essay today at this link:
Love Makes A Family: Queering The Nativity

Believe Out Loud is an online network empowering Christians to work for LGBT equality. Their Facebook page has 128,000 likes.

Queer Lady of Guadalupe: Artists re-imagine an icon

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“Coyolxauhqui Returns as Our Lady disguised as La Virgen de Guadalupe to defend the rights of Las Chicanas” by Alma Lopez

“Chulo De Guadalupe” by Tony de Carlo

Our Lady of Guadalupe brings a message of holy empowerment that speaks to LGBT people -- and angers Christian conservatives. Queer art based on Guadalupe is shown here for her feast day today (Dec. 12). She is an Aztec version of the Virgin Mary that appeared to Aztec peasant Juan Diego outside Mexico City on Dec. 12, 1531.

In Juan Diego’s vision, the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe spoke to Juan Diego in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, addressing him as if he were a prince. It was astonishing because Mexico had been conquered 10 years earlier by Spaniards who claimed to have the one true faith. An icon of her, looking just as Juan Diego described, was imprinted on his cloak as a miraculous sign. Our Lady of Guadalupe became a popular symbol of dignity and hope for the native people of Mexico, and by extension to indigenous people everywhere.

The hill where Juan Diego had his vision used to be the site of an ancient temple to the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin. Her temple was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors. Our Lady of Guadalupe (or in Spanish Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe) asked for a church to be built in her honor right there, among the conquered people. That shrine is now the most popular Catholic pilgrimage destination, receiving more than 6 million visitors per year.

Even standard icons of Guadalupe are subversive because they show the Virgin as a dark-skinned Mexican, challenging the Euro-centric images of her as a blue-eyed white lady. The foremothers of the Mexican Guadalupe include the Black Madonnas, especially the medieval Spanish Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremdaura, Spain.

Those who took the liberating vision a step further to create queer Guadalupe art include Tony De Carlo, Alex Donis, Alma Lopez, and Jim Ru.

“Our Lady” by Alma Lopez


"Our Lady of Controversy" cover
Erotically alive, feminist and lesbian versions of Our Lady of Guadalupe are a common theme in the art of Alma Lopez, a Chicana artist and activist born in Mexico and raised in California. A huge controversy erupted over her “Our Lady,” a digital print showing the Virgin of Guadalupe in a bikini made of roses, exalted by a bare-breasted butterfly. Lopez says she intended it as a tribute to Our Lady, “inspired by the experiences of many Chicanas and their complex relationship to La Virgen de Guadalupe.”

Encuentro (Encounter)
by Alma Lopez
Death threats, censorship efforts, and violent protests brought national and international attention to Lopez’ “Our Lady” over the years as artistic freedom clashed with freedom of religion. In one of the most recent conflicts, thousands of negative messages compromised the email system of an Irish university that dared to exhibit it in 2011. (For details, see my previous post Our Lady and Queer Saints art attacked as blasphemy - Show support now!).

“Lupe and Sirena in Love”
by Alma Lopez
In 2001 Catholic authorities tried to have Lopez’ “Our Lady” removed from an exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. The debate is covered in the new book “Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez’s ‘Irreverent Apparition.’” It was published in 2011 by University of Texas Press. The anthology is edited by Alma Lopez and Alicia Gaspar de Alba. The two women were married in 2008, during the brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in California.

“Our Lady” is erotic, but there is more overt lesbian content in some of the other images of Our Lady of Guadalupe that Lopez made. The Aztec moon goddess Coyolxauhqui has been interpreted as a lesbian deity by Chicanas such as writer-activist Cherrie Moraga. Lopez paints Coyolxauhqui, machete in hand, as Guadalupe in the image at the top of this post: “Coyolxauhqui Returns as Our Lady disguised as La Virgen de Guadalupe to defend the rights of Las Chicanas.” Her website, almalopez.net, includes images of a romance between Guadalupe and a mermaid in artwork such as “Lupe and Sirena in Love.”

Artist Tony de Carlo affirms the holiness of gay love with colorful, festive paintings of queer saints, Adam and Steve, same-sex marriage and much more. His genderbending “Chulo De Guadalupe” appears near the top of this post. In Mexican slang “chulo” refers to someone who is cute and, in some cases, sexy.

De Carlo is a native of Los Angeles, now living in Savannah, Georgia. His work is exhibited regularly in museums and galleries throughout the United States.For more on Tony De Carlo and his art, see my previous post: Gay saints, Adam and Steve, and marriage equality art affirm LGBT love: Tony De Carlo Interview.

“Mary Magdalene and Virgen de Guadalupe” (from “My Cathedral”) by Alex Donis

Alex Donis painted the Virgin of Guadalupe kissing Mary Magdalene as part of “My Cathedral,” a series that showed people of opposite viewpoints kissing in same-sex pairs. Donis was familiar with contradictions from his own “tri-cultural” identity: pop, queer, and Latino. Born to Guatemalan parents, he grew up in East Los Angeles.

His “My Cathedral” exhibit caused a frenzy when it opened in San Francisco in 1997. Heated arguments erupted in the gallery, followed by threatening phone calls and letters. Vandals smashed two of the artworks: Jesus kissing the Hindu god Rama, and guerilla leader Che Guevara kissing labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Most people overlooked his painting of Guadalupe kissing Mary Magdalene, but it remains a potent, beautiful expression of the union of sexuality and spirituality. It is included in my book “Art That Dares.”

"Virginia Guadalupe" by Jim Ru

Jim Ru painted a bearded drag queen version of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Titled “Virginia Guadalupe,” the painting was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.

This bold painting certainly gives new meaning to the title bestowed upon Guadalupe by Pope Pius XII: “Queen of Mexico.” If the Virgin Mary could appear to an Aztec as an Aztec, then why not show up to a queer as a queer?

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Related links:
Virgen de Guadalupe Contemporary Art (Feminist Texican)

Decolonizing Sexuality and Spirituality in Chicana Feminist and Queer Art by Laura E. Perez (Tikkun)

A Visit to Alma Lopez’ Studio: Finding lesbian saints, mermaids, revolutionaries and goddesses (Jesus in Love)
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Various icons of Our Lady of Guadalupe and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores



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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series and LGBT Holidays series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, heroes and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year in the Saints series. The Holidays series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to LGBT and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts



John of the Cross: Dark Night of a Gay Soul

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"St. John of the Cross" by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM, trinitystores.com

“The Dark Night of the Soul,” a spiritual classic with homoerotic overtones, was written by 16th-century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross, also known as San Juan de la Cruz. His feast day is today (Dec. 14).

Like other mystics, John of the Cross (1542-1591) used the metaphor of erotic love to describe his relationship with Christ. Since Jesus was born male, his poetry inevitably celebrates same-sex love. Hear how passionately John speaks about Christ in these verses translated by A.Z. Foreman:

O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
A lover and loved one moved in unison.


And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own.

(The whole poem is reprinted in the original Spanish and in English at the end of this post). John, a Carmelite friar who worked with Theresa of Avila, wrote these beautiful verses while imprisoned in a latrine for trying to reform the church.

“The Dark Night of the Soul” is open to various interpretations, but is usually considered to be a metaphor of the soul’s journey to union with God.

Detail from “Intimacy with Christ 3” by Richard Stott (for full image click here)

Gay writers explore the queer dimensions of the poem at the following links:

Richard Stott, a Methodist minister and art therapist in England, created three large paintings based on “The Dark Night of the Soul.” The triptych is called “Intimacy with Christ.”

Toby Johnson, ex-monk, gay spirituality author and activist, connects the Dark Night of the Soul with gay consciousness at TobyJohnson.com.

Terence Weldon explains why John of the Cross is important for LGBT people of faith at the Queer Spirituality Blog.

In the icon at the top of this post, Brother Robert Lentz shows John with the living flames that he described in this poetry. The inscription by his head puts his name in Arabic to honor the Arabic heritage that John received from his mother.

New Age singer Loreena McKennitt created a lovely musical version of “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Watch the video with Loreena’s singing accompanied by images from nature.



The Dark Night of the Soul
By John of the Cross

From: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, revised edition (1991). Copyright 1991 ICS Publications.

1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.


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Original Spanish
En una noche oscura
por San Juan de la Cruz

1. En una noche oscura,
con ansias, en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

2. a escuras y segura
por la secreta escala, disfrazada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
a escuras y encelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

3. en la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que naide me veía
ni yo miraba cisa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

4. Aquesta me guiaba
más cierto que la luz del mediodía
adonde me esperaba
quien yo bien me sabía
en parte donde naide parecía.

5. ¡Oh noche que guiaste!
¡oh noche amable más que la alborada!;
¡oh noche que juntaste,
Amado con amada,
amada en el Amado transformada!

6. En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

7. El aire del almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

8. Quedéme y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado
entre las azucenas olvidado.

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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

A Spanish version is available at:
San Juan de la Cruz: Noche Oscura del Alma Gay (Santos Queer)

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
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Icons of John of the Cross and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores





Lazarus: Jesus’ beloved disciple?

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“Raising of Lazarus,” 1905 (Wikimedia Commons)

Some believe that Lazarus of Bethany was the “beloved disciple” of Jesus -- and maybe even his gay lover. His feast day is today (Dec. 17).

Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus in a dramatic miracle told in John: 11. The Bible identifies him as a man living in the village of Bethany with his sisters Mary and Martha. Lazarus falls ill, and the sisters send a message to Jesus that “the one you love is sick.” By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been dead in his tomb for four days. Jesus weeps at the tomb, then calls, “Lazarus, come out!” To the amazement of all, Lazarus is restored to life.

Scholars theorize that Lazarus was also the unnamed “one whom Jesus loved,” also known as “the beloved disciple,” referenced at least five times in the Gospel of John. The term implies that Jesus was in love with him, and perhaps they shared the kind of intimacy that today would be called “gay.” Bible experts suggest that Lazarus was the unnamed naked man who ran away when Jesus was arrested in Mark 14:51-52. He may also have been the nameless “rich young ruler” who asks Jesus how to find eternal life in all three synoptic gospels.

Detail from “Stripped of Linen, Stripped of Lord” by Eric Martin, 2012

Gay artist Eric Martin devoted himself to learning about and depicting the nameless nude” who ran away when Jesus was arrested in “Stripped of Linen, Stripped of Lord” and other paintings. For more info, see my previous post “Seeking the ‘naked young man’ of Mark’s gospel.”

The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament by Theodore Jennings is a comprehensive book that explores the possibility of Lazarus as Jesus’ lover -- and all the other major queer theories about the beloved disciple.

Detail from
Betrayal of Christ
by Giuseppe Cesari, 1597
More queer ideas about Lazarus come from the controversial Secret Gospel of Mark, a recently discovered gospel that goes into homoerotic detail about Jesus’ relations with the “naked youth” who is often identified as Lazarus. The lost gospel was discovered in 1958 by Morton Smith, professor of ancient history at Columbia University, and described his his book The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark. Recently Secret Mark has been discredited as a possible hoax in books such as The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark by Stephen C. Carlson.

Maybe Lazarus’ unusual family also included lesbians. Rev. Nancy Wilson, moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches, raises this possibility in her brochure “Our Story Too:Reading the Bible with New Eyes,” which says:

“Jesus loved Lazarus, Mary and Martha. What drew Jesus to this very non-traditional family group of a bachelor brother living with two spinster sisters? Two barren women and a eunuch are Jesus’ adult family of choice. Are we to assume they were all celibate heterosexuals? What if Mary and Martha were not sisters but called each other ‘sister’ as did most lesbian couples throughout recorded history?”

Lazarus coming out of the tomb has been seen as a symbol for LGBT people coming out of the closet by many LGBT people of faith.

In my “Jesus in Love” novels, the beloved disciple is John, while Lazarus is a young gay friend. To honor Lazarus on his feast day, I will close with the scene from my novel “Jesus in Love: At the Cross” where Jesus raises him from the dead:


I had counted on getting instructions from the Holy Spirit as soon as I reached the tomb, but no word came. The finality of the tomb scared me. When people healed in my presence, it was their own faith that made them whole—but that wasn’t happening now. Lazarus had crossed the line and no matter how much faith he had, his soul seemed severed from his corpse.

I crouched on the earth in sorrow and supplication. The crowd around me began to murmur. “Look how much he loved him!”

Then came the inevitable naysayers. “Nah—if he really loved him, he would have kept him from dying.”

The tears that I had been holding back overflowed. I blocked out the sounds and sights around me and felt the grief that seemed to be tearing a hole in my divine heart. The impact of my tears on the earth set up a tiny vibration. I tuned into it and recognized the husky whisper of the Holy Spirit. I was surprised that I couldn’t distinguish Her words, but then I realized that She wasn’t talking to me.

Lazarus’ soul was listening intently. I was able to decipher part of the Holy Spirit’s message to him: “Arise, my darling, my beauty, and come away.”

I sighed as I let my friend go. “Okay, take him wherever You will,” I prayed.

Suddenly part of Lazarus’ soul reconnected with the physical world, like a boat dropping anchor. I knew what it meant.

I dashed to the tomb and tried to roll the stone away, but it was too heavy for me. “Let him out!” I shouted, pounding on the stone. I directed my fury against death itself, which took my beloved cousin, but wasn’t going to get away with Lazarus, too.

Martha came up behind me, speaking gently. “Rabbi, there’s already a stench. He died four days ago.”

“Love is as strong as death,” I replied, gritting my teeth as I strained hard against the stone. “Stronger!”

Then John stepped up and positioned himself to push along with me. He placed his long, gnarled fingers next to my younger ones on the stony surface. I turned to look in his eyes. We were reconciled in a single glance. Moving as one, we heaved the stone aside and unsealed the tomb.

The cave gaped open, revealing a darkness as opaque as soot. There was indeed a stink—and a rustling sound, too.

“Lazarus, come out!” I called.

Everyone gasped as a slim figure wrapped in grave clothes hobbled out of the tomb. Strips of linen cloth prevented him from moving his arms and legs much, and his face was covered by a linen scarf. It puffed in and out slightly with each breath. The wind blew the stench away, leaving the air fresh.

I touched Lazarus’ shoulder gently. “It’s me, Jesus,” I said as I began to unfasten his headscarf.

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The full image of “Stripped of Linen, Stripped of Lord” can be seen at this link. Warning: adult content / full frontal nudity.

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Related links:



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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Queer cheer for Christmas: Make the Yuletide gay

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“Make the Yuletide gay,” urges a popular Christmas song. In that spirit, click the headlines below to find queer cheer from past Christmas highlights at the Jesus in Love Blog.

Gay baby Jesus comes out on Christmas billboard

A gay baby Jesus with a rainbow halo lit up a billboard for a church in New Zealand.



Gay Nativity scene in Columbia sparks outrage

A gay Nativity display in Columbia was condemned by the atholic Church as “sacrilege” while thousands criticized it on social media.



3 kings or 3 queens?

Reimagining the three kings as queer or female gives fresh meaning to story of the Magi. Biblical scholarship suggests that the Magi were eunuchs -- people who today would be called gay or transgender.



Gay and lesbian nativity scenes show love makes a family

What if the child of God was born to a lesbian or gay couple? Because, after all, LOVE makes a family.



Conservatives attack my lesbian and gay Nativity scenes

Nasty accusations of blasphemy were hurled when conservative bloggers discovered my gay and lesbian Nativity scenes. “Love..is NOT the criteria for making a ‘Family,’” said one critic.



Good (gay?) King Wenceslas 

There’s good reason to believe that Good King Wenceslas was gay. Yes, the king in the Christmas carol. Many details in the carol are pious fiction, but historical research documents the love between the king and his page Podiven.



Queer Nativity project

Seven people from 3 countries sent images for the 2011 Queer Nativity project at the Jesus in Love Blog. They present Christ's birth in an amazing variety of liberating, loving new ways.



Christina Rossetti: Queer writer of Christmas carols and lesbian poetry

Christina Rossetti was a 19th-century English poet and “queer virgin” whose work includes the Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.”



Hate crime targets gay and lesbian
Nativity scene at California church


Vandals knocked over the same-sex couples in a manger scene at a church in Claremont, California in 2011. Police investigated the attack as a hate crime.



Lesbian couple portrays Madonna (Photo by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin)

The Madonna and her female lover are portrayed by a real lesbian couple, seven months’ pregnant through artificial insemination in “Annunciation” by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin.




Lesbian Madonna, lover and son affirm Christmas (Painting by Becki Jayne Harrelson)

Two lesbian mothers cuddle the Christ child in “Madonna, Lover and Son” by Becki Jayne Harrelson.




Transwoman Jesus tells Christmas story

Jesus’ angelic birth highlights the holiness of EVERY birth in the following scene from the controversial new play “Jesus, Queen of Heaven” by transsexual Jo Clfford.




Conservatives blast inclusive Christmas card

Conservatives attack an Episcopal bishop’s gender-bending Christmas card because it shows a multi-racial trio of female Magi visiting the baby Jesus and his mother (“Epiphany” by Janet McKenzie).





Inclusive Christmas tree: Anti-gay DVDs become ornaments

DVDs against same-sex marriage are being recycled now as decorations for the inclusive Christmas tree of Minnesota artist Lucinda Naylor.



Can you imagine? A gay Nativity scene

Video and commentary on Amsterdam’s 2008 gay Nativity scene with live actors.




Animals symbolize peace at Christmas, so the Jesus in Love Blog gladly dedicates a special post to animals.
Alternative Christmas art shown

Nine artists mix Christmas imagery with a progressive vision of GLBT rights, racial and gender justice, and a world without war, poverty or pollution

Nursing Madonna honors body, spirit and women

A nursing Madonna affirms the goodness of the human body, although some are shocked by her bare breasts.

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New:

Celebrate the season of giving with a gift to my Christmas offering for Jesus in Love.

2013 blasphemy debate on queer Nativity at Believe Out Loud

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Top image credit: “Rainbow Star” by Andrew Craig Williams, a queer artist in Wales.
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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

A very lesbian Christmas...

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A lesbian couple cares for the baby Jesus in a heartwarming personal story from one woman’s Christmas journey. It is reprinted with permission from the blog "Reflections from my place."

A very lesbian Christmas...

When I was a child this used to hang on our wall during the Christmas season. I grew up thinking that it was two women around a child, then I realized when I was around 18 that it is probably supposed to be Mary, Joseph and Jesus. It was only several years later When my Mom was going through her old Christmas, things and giving them away, I asked if I could have the women with baby Jesus. You see, because I've always seen them as women around Jesus it only makes sense that I eventually started to think they were lesbian women and now that is why I like it.

After all, it doesn't fit any of my sense of style or decor. It is a bit too midwestern crafty for my particular taste but theologically is is beautiful... it makes sense to me that the incarnation if it happened today might emerge from a lesbian couple. Jesus' whole ministry is about uplifting the poor, being available to those who are marginalized, and calling out the kingdom of God to those in power to uplift the powerless. Somehow the fact that it doesn't fit my interior design style is all the more appropriate, even with a theology of liberation there is still something here that is uncomfortable- now that is the Gospel!

Honestly, I love this lesbian couple who is caring for baby Jesus. I love that they that they are my image of the incarnation. They remind me to shed the romance of the birth narrative and honor the vulnerability in society, the lack of legal marital status, the challenge of whom to share their honest selves with this This is part of what the incarnation is. This is part of what I love about Christmas.

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The author describes herself as “a liberal Christian minister… partnered to a man, and parenting two little ones.” She lives in Vashon Island, Washington and her pen name is One and Doll.

Ruth and Naomi: Biblical women who loved each other

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“Ruth’s Wise Choice,” 1907 Bible card by the Providence Lithograph Company (Wikimedia Commons)

Love between women is honored in the lives of Biblical figures Ruth and Naomi. Some churches observe their feast day today (Dec. 20).

Ruth’s famous vows to Naomi are often used in weddings -- heterosexual as well as same-sex marriages. Few people realize that these beautiful promises were originally spoken by one woman to another:

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
(Ruth 1:16-17)

The old-fashioned King James translation, still beloved by many, begins, “Whither thou goest, I will go…”

Contemporary Christian singer-songwriter Marsha Stevens of Florida used their vow as the basis for the song she wrote for her legal wedding to Cindy Pino: “Wherever You Go.” She sings about how Cindy grew up feeling alone as “a guest at every wedding, an extra place at meals,” with nobody recognizing her lesbian relationships as family. But the mood shifts after a chorus with Ruth’s vow to Naomi :

Now we stand on sacred ground, our families near,
Law allows these holy vows, your home is here.

“Wherever You Go” is available for listening and download at BALM (Born Again Lesbian Music) Ministries: http://balmministries.net/track/323379/wherever-you-go

The openly lesbian interpretation dates back at least to 1937, when the novel “Pity for Women” by Helen Anderson was published. The two main characters, Ann and Judith, recite Ruth's famous vow to show their commitment as a lesbian couple.

In the Bible Ruth was born to a pagan family and married the Jewish man Boaz. In Judaism she is honored as a convert. Ruth is an ancestor of Jesus Christ, listed in his genealogy in the gospel of Matthew. It reports mostly a male lineage, and Ruth is one of only four women who are included.

Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth and Orpah. After their husbands died, Naomi urged both of them to remarry. But Ruth refused, declaring her love in words that have extra meaning for LGBT people because they were spoken between women.

Enjoy a selection of Bible illustrations that celebrate the love between these two women of spirit. If you look closely, it sometimes seems that they are about to kiss.

Ruth and Naomi from ChristianImageSource.com



The previous two images are details from larger scenes that show Orpah leaving while Ruth stays with Naomi.

Ruth clings to Naomi (ChristianImageSource.com)

“Naomi and Her Daughters-in-Law” from Doré's English Bible, 1866 (Wikimedia Commons)

Ruth and Naomi’s love has been illustrated by many artists, including the great English Romantic painter William Blake.

“Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab” by William Blake, 1795 (Wikimedia Commons)

The hardships experienced by Ruth and Naomi are often overshadowed by their famous vow of love and their association with the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. Ruth is revered as a Jewish convert and an ancestor of Jesus. But Ruth and her Israelite mother-in-law were so poor that Ruth had to survive by picking up leftover grains of barley in the fields after harvest. Gay Israeli artist Adi Nes brings home the reality of their poverty by showing the pair scavenging onions from a contemporary street littered with trash after an open-air market. They are posed like the peasants in Millet’s “The Gleaners,” a painting well known for showing the dignity of society’s poorest members.

“Untitled (Ruth and Naomi)” by Adi Nes

The careworn faces of Ruth and her beloved Naomi become visible in a second portrait by Nes. Ruth’s vow to Naomi, which begins “Whither thou goest, I will go,” is often used in weddings. Nes shows that their love for each other is all they have as they sit together among discarded crates. For more about Adi Nes, see my previous post "Adi Nes: Gay Israeli artist humanizes Bible stories."

“Untitled (Ruth and Naomi)” by Adi Nes

The painting below, “Whither Thou Goest” by Trudie Barreras, was commissioned in 2004 by Rev. Paul Graetz, pastor of First Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta, for a sermon series that he was doing on the Book of Ruth.

“Whither Thou Goest” by Trudie Barreras, 2004
Acrylic, 18” x 14.” Collection of First Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta, GA.

A billboard featuring Ruth and Naomi is part of the Would Jesus Discriminate project sponsored by Metropolitan Community Churches. It states boldly, “Ruth loved Naomi as Adam loved Eve. Genesis 2:24. Ruth 1:14.” The website WouldJesusDiscriminte.org gives a detailed explanation.


Ruth and Naomi billboard from from WouldJesusDiscriminte.com and WouldJesusDiscriminte.org

For more info on the billboards, see our previous post, “Billboards show gay-friendly Jesus.”

Were Ruth and Naomi lesbians? The same Hebrew word (dabaq) is used to describe Adam’s feelings for Eve and Ruth’s feelings for Naomi. In Genesis 2:24 it says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” The way that Adam “cleaved” to Eve is the way that Ruth “clung” to Naomi. Countless couples have validated this interpretation by using their vows as a model for how spouses should love each other.

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For more on Ruth and Naomi, visit the following links:

Lesbianism and the Book of Ruth: Representing Naomi and Ruth in Literature and Film by J. Lortie (Yahoo Contributor Network)

Queering the Church: Ruth and Naomi

Pharsea’s World: Homosexuality and Tradition: Ruth and Naomi

Stroppy Rabbit Blog: Naomi and Ruth in art

Conjubilant with Song Blog: “Song of Ruth” hymn by Fanny Crosby, 1875

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Special thanks to CJ Barker for the news tip.
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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Christmas offering: Give for Jesus In Love

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Kittredge Cherry with Christmas tree (photo by Audrey)

I am collecting a Christmas / Year-End offering to support my work at Jesus in Love for LGBT spirituality and the arts. Give now by clicking the “GoFundMe” button below or visiting my donate page.


Thank you! And thanks to the seven people who already gave a combined $150 so far this year. You can read their names and messages on my donate page.

By supporting Jesus in Love, you bring hope, stand up for artistic and religious freedom, and free people to experience the divine in new ways. I am passionately committed to Jesus in Love because it grew out of my own personal journey. Jesus in Love is my gift to the world. What do you feel called to give in return?

Since I launched JesusInLove.org in 2005, it has grown to include the popular Jesus in Love Blog and e-newsletter. A year ago I added a Spanish-language blog (Santos Queer) with translations of my LGBT Saints series.

All-time page views at the Jesus in Love Blog surpassed half a million this year, with 63,000 visits and 127,000 page views in the past 12 months. The Jesus in Love Newsletter recently grew beyond 900 subscribers, with more than 100 new people signing up in 2013. Santos Queer already hit 17,000 page views and some articles get more readers in Spanish than in the original English.

Meanwhile my articles on LGBT spirituality kept on compelling people to think about God in new ways, with conservatives still accusing me of blasphemy for it. Numbers alone can’t express the impact of Jesus in Love on people’s lives. Listen to the voices of readers:

“Jesus in Love is the most radically progressive and life affirming Christian LGBT site on the Internet that I have ever seen. I find its message both inspiring and empowering.”
— Ernesto Borges Torres, gay Buddhist

“Great, courageous website in the true spirit of Jesus... Your site has often helped me feel lighter, made me smile and helped me feel loved by God. Thank you Kitt!”
-- Michael

“I live in Russia, in Moscow. I am very glad to read your blog ‘Jesus in Love.’ Among all LGBT-Christian sites it is the best.”
— Russian woman

“It is really refreshing to hear from someone who isn’t trying to fit inside of some institutional, religion-sourced and oppressive shoebox but speaks of liberation and acceptance.”
— Enrico Gomez, gay Mexican Catholic / Buddhist

I still need $927 for the annual budget. Expenses for Jesus in Love include Internet access, website design and hosting, newsletter service, computer maintenance, bank fees, office supplies and overhead.

Many thanks to EVERYONE who has given their time, talent and resources. Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Some children see Him queer or gay: New Christmas carol released

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Rainbow Version of “Some Children See Him” album cover by Andrew Craig Williams

A Rainbow Version of the Christmas carol “Some Children See Him” was released today. It has a new straight/queer stanza added to the standard multiracial lyrics.

“Some Children See Him” is a delightfully liberating song about how children imagine the baby Jesus looking like them. It has a verse for every race -- so why not a verse for every sexual orientation?

Here are the new lines that I wrote:

Some children see him straight as they
Playing like most boys play
Some children see him straight as they
Straight but not narrow.
Some children see him queer or gay
Because some kids are born that way
Some children see him queer or gay
The rainbow child of God.

I am even one of the singers on the new track. Our band is called “Kitt and Andy and the Splott Queer Community Singers.” You can listen to and download the song on its Soundcloud page or use this widget:



My co-leader Andrew Craig Williams is a queer artist and music maker in Wales. He and many of his queer friends live in an area of Cardiff called Splott. He makes music under the pseudonym Fflwcs, which is Welsh slang for “rubbishy sweets that are bad for you.”

Andy often provides queer Christian art for the Jesus in Love Blog. When he asked me to suggest songs for his Musical Advent Calendar, I offered to write some queer lines for “Some Children See Him.”

He was immediately enthusiastic and started organizing a group to sing it. I thought he would record everyone singing together in Splott, so I was flabbergasted when he asked, “Is there any way you could record you and Audrey singing?”

I live in Los Angeles, home of the recording industry, so it turned out that there was a way -- with the help of a mystery co-producer behind the scenes in true Hollywood tradition. My life partner Audrey and I are raw amateurs when it comes to singing, so it was rather embarrassing when we got the star treatment at the professional recording studio of a friend, who shall be known here only as Three-Turtle Man. But somehow it made sense because it was all for the cause of showing God’s unconditional love.

The church has often excluded LGBT people from Christmas festivities, so we all made our best efforts in the spirit of Christ who was born in lowly circumstances to embody God’s wildly inclusive love for all.

The Musical Advent Calendar is a fundraiser for Shelter Cymru, a charity for the homeless in Wales. Donations can be made at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/andywills.

Andy mixed both our voices into the final version along with heavenly synths, piano, strings, and maybe a bell or two. We are a truly international group, with singers from Wales, England and America.

“Our singers hail from American, Welsh, English, and Scottish descent,” Andy said. “How’s that for multicultural!! A wide range of beliefs too; people from Anglican, Catholic, MCC, pagan, and atheist backgrounds. Wowsers!!”

If you like our Rainbow Version of “Some Children See Him,” please consider making a donation for Jesus in Love, my project supporting LGBT spirituality and the arts, at http://www.gofundme.com/5mugns.

Of course our unsophisticated singing isn’t going to outsell the famous James Taylor version. He croons the traditional lyrics on the following video with a wonderful variety of images showing Jesus from many racial and ethnic groups.



The original lyrics are great, including these words in the final verse:

The children in each different place
will see the baby Jesus' face
like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
and filled with holy light.

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This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others. More queer Christ images are compiled in my book Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Christmas chant honors Christ the bridegroom: Cum ortus fuerit sol de Caelo

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Face of Christ
from St. John’s Anglican Church, Ashfield, Australia (Wikimedia Commons)

An ancient Gregorian chant compares sunrise on Christmas morning to Christ coming out of his bedroom to join in mystical marriage with people who love him:

“When the sun shall have risen in the heavens, ye shall see the King of Kings coming from the Father, as a Bridegroom from his bride-chamber.” *

The erotic, even homoerotic, words translate a Latin liturgical antiphon for First Vespers on Christmas Day: “Cum ortus fuerit sol de Caelo, videbitis Regem regum procedentem a Patre, tanquam sponsum de thalamo suo.”


“To start the Christmas season, the Church uses an image of the Son emerging from the marital bliss of the Godhead's bridal suite. It has God himself in a same-sex marriage! And in case we missed the antiphon, it is repeated in the liturgy the following day,” says Kevin Elphick, a Franciscan scholar and a supervisor on a suicide prevention hotline in New York.

The text is apparently a Christian adaptation of Psalm 19: 4-5: “In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.”

Elphick points out that nuptial intimacy among the Persons of the Trinity might seem surprising, but is part of a long tradition about the Trinity. Sixteenth-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross expressed it well in his “Romance sobre el Evangelio,” where he describes the Trinity as Lover, Beloved and Love. Medieval Belgian theologian William of Saint-Thierry calls the Holy Spirit the “Kiss” and “Embrace” of the first two Persons of the Trinity. Medieval Dutch mystic Hadewijch of Brabant names the mutual unity of all three Persons as their common “Kiss” in her writings.

Episcopalian priest Robert Farrar Capon described the Holy Spirit as the magical marital “Bed” of the Trinity his book “Health, Money, and Love.” He writes: “Once before all time, there was a Lover, a Beloved, and a magical Bed in which they played out the unity of their love. The joy of the two of them in that Bed was complete: there was nothing besides their love, and there was nothing they needed to make their happiness more perfect.” His use of the word “Bed” parallels the “bridal chamber” in the ancient Christmas antiphon.

The Latin uses the word “thalamo” for the bridal chamber. Elphick reports that the Latin Vulgate Bible uses the same word in the marital chamber context in Psalm 18:6 and Joel 2:16. The word is related to the bedroom in both Latin and Greek (thálamos).

The chant is especially suitable for sunrise on Christmas morning because it draws on another ancient tradition connecting Christ with the sun. The lines in Psalm 19 about the sun being like a bridegroom were popular with early Christians. They associated it with the early Christian custom of praying while facing east, the direction of Christ’s ascension and second coming.  The star that led the Magi to the baby Jesus also rose in the east.

The text and plainsong melody of the chant are anonymous, but it was put into more elaborate musical settings by Renaissance composers whose names are known: Flemish composer Nicholas Gombert (c1490 - 1561) and English composer Thomas Tallis (c1505 - 1585). Gombert’s version is performed by the Tallis Singers on the album “Nicolas Gombert: Magnificats 1-4.” The Tallis version is on the album “Christmas Vespers at Westminster Cathedral.” (However the English text introducing the Westminster album conveniently deletes the erotic part of “Cum ortis”!)

Gombert, who was master of the children’s choir at the imperial chapel, was convicted of sexual contact with a boy in his care and was sentenced to hard labor in the galleys in 1540. It is said that during his years of punishment he wrote eight Magnificat settings, including the “Cum ortus fuerit” chant, as an offering to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The emperor was so moved by Gombert’s music that he pardoned the composer and granted him and early release.

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* The chant is translated into contemporary English in “An Introduction to Gregorian Chant, Volume 1” by Richard L. Crocker:
When the sun has risen in the sky,
you will see the king of kings proceeding from the Father,
like a bridegroom out of his chamber.

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This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts


Merry Christmas from Kittredge Cherry and Jesus in Love

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And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth.

-- John 1:14


Kittredge Cherry and the Jesus in Love Blog
wish you and your loved ones
a most beautiful Christmas!

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Image credit: “Merry Christmas EVERYBODY” by David Hayward (http://patheos.com/blogs/nakedpastor)

John the Evangelist: Beloved Disciple of Jesus

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“John the Apostle resting on the bosom of Christ,” Swabia/Lake Constance, early 14th century. Photo by Andreas Praefcke. (Wikimedia Commons)


“Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by Laurie Gudim

John the Evangelist is commonly considered to be Jesus’ “Beloved Disciple” -- and possibly his lover. His feast day is today (Dec. 27).

The love between Jesus and John has been celebrated by artists since medieval times. And the idea that they were homosexual lovers has been causing controversy at least since the 16th century.

John was an apostle of Jesus and is the presumed author of the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation and the Epistles of John. The Bible describes their warm relationship in depth. John left his life as a fisherman to follow Jesus, who nicknamed him “son of thunder.” John participated in many of the main events in Christ’s ministry. He was one of the three who witnessed the raising of Jairus' daughter, the transfiguration and Jesus' agony in Gethsemane.

The unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved” is referenced five times in the gospel of John (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:22, 21:7, 20). Church tradition identifies him as John himself. He reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, resting his head on Jesus’ chest. He was the only male disciple present at the crucifixion. From the cross, Jesus entrusted the Beloved Disciple and his mother Mary into each other’s care. There is even a medieval European tradition that John and Jesus were the bridal couple at the Cana wedding feast.

The idea that Jesus and his Beloved Disciple had a sexual relationship dates back at least to the early 16th century, when English playwright Christopher Marlowe was tried for blasphemy on the charge of claiming that “St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma.” In 1550 Francesco Calcagno, a citizen of Venice, was investigated by the Inquisition for making the heretical claim that “St. John was Christ’s catamite,” which means a boy or young man in a pederastic sexual relationship with an older man.

Many modern scholars have expressed belief that Jesus and his Beloved Disciple shared a an erotic physical relationship. They include Hugh Montefiore, Robert Williams, Sjef van Tilborg, John McNeill, Rollan McCleary, Robert E. Goss and James Neill. A thorough analysis is included in “The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament” by Theodore Jennings, Biblical theology professor at Chicago Theological Seminary. He finds the evidence “inconclusive” as to whether the beloved disciple was John, but it leaves no doubt that Jesus had a male lover.

“A close reading of the texts in which the beloved disciple appears supports the hypothesis that the relationship between him and Jesus may be understood as that of lovers. As it happens, both Jesus and the beloved are male, meaning that their relationship may be said to be, in modern terms, a ‘homosexual’ relationship,” Jennings writes (p. 34).

An entire chapter is dedicated to John as the bride of Christ in the 2013 book “Saintly Brides and Bridegrooms: The Mystic Marriage in Renaissance Art” by Carolyn D. Muir, art professor at the University of Hong Kong.

After Jesus died, John went on to build a close, loving relationship with his younger disciple and scribe, Prochorus, bishop of Nicomedia. Tradition says that John was the only one of Christ's original 12 apostles to live to old age, and the only one not killed for his faith. He died in Ephesus around 100 AD.

Over the centuries many artworks have illustrated the deep love between Jesus and his Beloved Disciple. One of the newest is the 2012 icon “Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by Laurie Gudim near the top of this post. Based in Colorado, Gudim is an artist, Jungian psychotherapist and progressive Episcopalian.

Her work uses a motif dating back at least to the 13th century. The long artistic tradition depicts John as the Beloved Disciple resting his head on the breast of Jesus. It can be seen in an early 13th-century stained glass window at the Cathedral of St. Etienne at Bourges and in “Christus Johannes Gruppe” (Christ John Group) by the unknown Master of Oberschwaben. This sculpture spent many centuries in an Augustinian convent in Inzigkofen, a town in the region of Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany.  A museum in Berlin acquired in it the early 20th century, and it is now housed in the Bode Museum of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

“Christus Johannes Gruppe” (Christ John Group) by the unknown Master of Oberschwaben, oak sculpture, 1320.

The loving embrace between John and Christ was a popular subject during the early 1300s in Swabia, the region of Germany on the Swiss border near Bodenese (Lake Constance). Prolific artists created many versions. Today one of them is housed in the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio.

Another fine early sculpture in this style is "St. John Resting on Jesus' Chest," circa 1320, which can be seen online at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp and the Web Gallery of Art. It was sculpted by Master Heinrich of Constance for the the Dominican convent of St. Catherine's valley in Switzerland. These were devotional images intended to help viewers deepen their connection to Christ.

In Germany the image is so important and iconic that it has even been made into a postage stamp. The subject is known as "Christus Johannes Gruppe" (Christ John Group) or Johannesminne (John Love), with minne being a Middle High German word for erotic-emotional love. Many of these images were actually created for women, not men, to contemplate. Most if not all of the Johannesminne statues were created for Dominican convents and nunneries. Wikimedia Commons displays a set of 10 statues of “John Love” (Johannesminne) in Germany at this link.

1967 German Stamp with "Christ-John Group" (Wikimedia Commons)

A modern interpretation of the subject is “Christ the Bridegroom,” by Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar known for his innovative icons. Author-priest Henri Nouwen, famous but struggling with a secret gay identity, commissioned it in 1983. He asked for an icon that symbolized the act of offering his own sexuality and affection to Christ. Research and reflection led Lentz to paint Christ being embraced by his beloved disciple John, based on an icon from medieval Crete.

Christ the Bridegroom, Br. Robert Lentz, OFM, © 1985.

“Henri used it to come to grips with his own homosexuality,” Lentz said in an interview for my book “Art That Dares,” which includes this icon and the story behind it. “I was told he carried it with him everywhere and it was one of the most precious things in his life.” Nouwen’s goal was celibacy and he did not come out publicly as gay before his death in 1996. The icon takes the Biblical theme of Christ as bridegroom and joins it to the medieval motif of Christ with John. The resulting image expresses their intimate friendship with exquisite subtlety.

The intimate bond between the two men is emphasized in “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” by the French painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858).

“One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” by Ary Scheffer

Atlanta artist Becki Jayne Harrelson painted another especially loving version of Jesus and the Beloved at the center of her “Last Supper.” Unlike the classic icons of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple, her painting shows the two men gazing at each other and holding hands. She is a contemporary lesbian artist who uses LGBT people as models in her religious art. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, she uses art to express her passion for justice. Her story is also told in “Art That Dares.”

Detail from Study for The Last Supper
by Becki Jayne Harrelson

Another icon celebrating the love between Jesus and the beloved disciple was painted by Jim Ru (below). It was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.

“Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by Jim Ru

In recent years some artists have adapted the classic iconography to other racial and ethnic groups. For example, John Giuliani's “Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” shows the figures in the native dress of the Aymara Indians, descendants of the Incas who still live in the Andean regions of Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Giuliani is an Italian-American artist and Catholic priest who is known for making Christian icons with Native American symbols. He studied icon painting under a master in the Russian Orthodox style, but chose to expand the concept of holiness to include Native Americans, the original inhabitants of the Americas.

“Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by John Giuliani, 1996

One more picture of Jesus and his beloved must be mentioned, even though permission was not granted to display it here on the Jesus in Love Blog (yet). It is well worthwhile to click the title to see this stunningly beautiful photo of Jesus and his Beloved Disciple as black Africans:

“Every Moment Counts” (from “Ecstatic Antibodies”) by Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Fani-Kayode (1955-1989) was a Nigerian photographer who explored themes of sexual and cultural difference, homoerotic desire, spirituality and the black male body, often in collaboration with his late partner Alex Hirst. Their last joint work was "Every Moment Counts" from 1989. In it a beloved disciple leans against black Christ figure who wears pearls over his dreadlocks as he gazes toward heaven. “The hero points the way forward for the lost boys of the world - the young street-dreads, the nightclub-chickens, the junkies and the doomed,” Hirst explains on their website.

A poem that addresses the homoerotic love between Jesus and John as is “Sweet Saint John was a Dancer” by a poet who wants to be known only as Joe. It begins:

on the shore of old Capernaum
a lovely boy not fit for fishing
or carpentry, or marrying.
They tell he left his empty boat
for the sake of the bold young fellow
who looked at him that April morn
and said, my love, come follow.

The whole poem is posted at Queering the Church in a post titled: “The Third Dance of Christmas: A Fiddle Dance for St. John’s Day.”

I also wrote about John as the beloved disciple in my novels “Jesus in Love” and “At the Cross.” In honor of John’s feast day, I post this scene from “Jesus in Love: A Novel.” Jesus, the narrator, remembers the day he met John:

I became distracted by the not unwelcome presence of somebody standing close behind me, closer than necessary in the loosely packed crowd. I sensed that it was John, and spun around to see him planted there like a tall cedar tree. He leaned against me, eyes flashing. “I can’t wait for the Messiah to come. I’ve seen him in visions.”

“Really? Tell me what you remember.” It was exciting to find someone who was aware of God’s efforts to communicate.

“The Messiah is like a gentle lamb who sits on a throne with a rainbow around it. And yet his eyes flame with fire, and a sharp sword comes out of his mouth to strike down evildoers.”

“The truth is large,” I said.

“Are you saying my vision isn’t true?” he challenged.

“No, I’m not saying that. I expect that you will see more.”

When John smiled, his faced crinkled into a fascinating landscape of wrinkles. His eyes felt black and mysterious like the midnight sky as they roamed over me. “Do you want a prayer partner tonight?” he asked.

If anyone else had asked, I would have said no, but I looked again at John’s handsome, bejeweled soul and his long, sinewy body.

“Sure,” I agreed impulsively.

Only then did I notice that the Baptist had finished preaching. John steered me toward the caves where the Baptist and his inner circle of disciples lived. Lower-ranking disciples were ready with water vessels and towels to assist everyone with ritual purification before we ate a spartan meal of locusts and wild honey. One of them approached me.

“Wash up, and we’ll get together after supper,” John said as we parted.


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Related links:

Dec. 27: John the (Queer) Evangelist (Queering the Church Blog)

Pharsea’s World: Homosexuality and Tradition: Jesus, John and Lazarus

Disciple whom Jesus loved (Wikipedia)

St John the Evangelist and Prochorus” (Queer Saints and Martyrs)

Jesus’ Gay Wedding at Cana (Queering the Church)

San Juan el Evangelista: Discípulo Amado de Jesús (Santos Queer)

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Special thanks to Ann Fontaine for the introduction to Laurie Gudim.

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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

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Icons of Christ the Bridegroom, John the Evangelist and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores



David and Jonathan: Love between men in the Bible

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David and Jonathan window (detail) fromSt. Mark's Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1882

Love between men is celebrated in the Bible with the story of David and Jonathan. They lived about 3,000 years ago, but they still inspire LGBT people of faith -- and many others. David’s feast day is today (Dec. 29).

The two men met when David was a ruddy young shepherd.  Jonathan, a courageous warrior, had returned victorious from battle.  Jonathan was the eldest son of Saul, Israel’s first king. David was taken to see King Saul right after beheading the Philistine giant Goliath. Scholars estimate that David was about 18 and Jonathan was at least 10 years older.

Jonathan fell in love at first sight of the handsome young hero. As the Bible says, “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.” Their story gets more chapters in the Bible than any other human love story.

David, the second king of Israel, was an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet. He is credited with composing many of the psalms in the Bible. The gospel genealogies list David as an ancestor of Jesus.

The modern idea of sexual orientation didn’t exist in Biblical times, but the powerful love story of Jonathan and David in 1 and 2 Samuel suggests that same-sex couples are affirmed and blessed by God.

Artists throughout the ages have tried to capture the drama and passion of their story, beginning with the moment that David and Jonathan met.  A beautiful romantic version of their first meeting appears on their stained-glass window at St. Mark's Portobello, a Scottish Episcopal church in Edinburgh. The inscription states, “The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David” (1 Samuel 18:1).

David and Jonathan window fromSt. Mark's Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1882

Created in 1882, the window has a dedication at the bottom: “In loving memory of George Frederick Paterson of Castle Huntly who died at Portobello, 30th Sept. 1890, aged 33.” All that is known about Paterson is that he was in the army and unmarried. The window was paid for by "a friend."

“Jonathan Greeting David, after David killed Goliath” by Gottfried Bernhard Goez, 1708-1774 (Wikimedia Commons)

Soon after David and Jonathan met, the two men expressed their commitment by making a covenant with each other. The dramatic moment is described in 1 Samuel 18:3-4: “Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.”

Ryan Grant Long, a young gay artist based in Wisconsin, emphasizes the homoeroticism of the gesture as Jonathan strips off his robe and wraps it around David with a kiss on the neck in the image at the top of this post. For more about Long, see my previous post Artist paints history's gay couples.

“David and Jonathan” by Ryan Grant Long

A more traditional view is presented by 16th-century Italian painter Cima da Conegliano. In both images David is still carrying the head of Goliath as he bonds with his new friend Jonathan, hinting at the union of violence and eroticism.

“David and Jonathan” by Italian painter Cima da Conegliano, 1505-1510 (Wikimedia Commons)
“Jonathan Made
a Covenant with David”
by Trudie Barreras
Collection of
First Metropolitan
Community Church
of Atlanta

In contrast Atlanta artist Trudie Barreras shows the new friends both putting aside their armor to make a covenant with each other (left).

The Bible chronicles the ups and downs of David and Jonathan’s relationship over the next 15 years, including tears and kisses. King Saul is jealous of David's popularity and keeps trying to kill him, while his son Jonathan rescues his friend in various ways. An 18th-century German “friendship medal” (below) captures another highlight as Jonathan pledges to David, “I will do the desires of your heart” (“Ich will die thun was dein Herz begehrt”) from 1 Samuel 20:4.

German friendship medal of Jonathan and David by Philipp Heinrich Müller, c.1710 (Wikimedia Commons)

Other artists focus on a dramatic moment that came later when Jonathan met David at a pile (or "ezel") of stone to warn him that Saul intended to kill him. An 1860 woodcut by German artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld illustrates that tearful farewell scene from 1 Samuel 20: 41-42:

"Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most. Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’”

“David and Jonathan” woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (Wikimedia Commons)

Detail from "David and Jonathan
at the Stone Ezel"
by Edward Hicks
Another version of the farewell scene was painted by American folk artist and Quaker minister Edward Hicks in 1847.  In both paintings a boy can be seen carrying away their weapons.  In the lower right Hicks places a scene of the Good Samaritan rescuing a downtrodden man.  Interestingly, the Jonathan and David window at St. Mark's Portobello is also paired with a window showing the Good Samaritan.

"David and Jonathan at the Stone Ezel" by Edward Hicks, 1947

David and Jonathan became so close that it looked like someday they would rule Israel together. But that day never came because Jonathan was killed in battle. David mourned deeply for him with a famous lament.

There are many translations of 2 Samuel 1:26, each one expressing how the love between Jonathan and David was “greater than,” “more wonderful than,” “deeper than” or otherwise “surpassing the love of women.”

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
you were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
more wonderful than that of women.

The love between the two men is honored in a golden icon by Brother Robert Lentz. Unlike most images of Jonathan and David, the Lentz icon shows Christ above blessing their relationship. It is one of 10 Lentz icons that sparked a controversy in 2005 when conservative Roman Catholic leaders accused Lentz of glorifying sin.

Jonathan and David by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM
www.trinitystores.com

Contemporary gay Israeli artist Adi Nes gives shocking clarity to David and Jonathan by using images of homoeroticism and homelessness to subvert stereotypes about people in the Bible. The triumph of David over Goliath is often used to symbolize Israel’s military victories over its enemies, but Nes chooses to depict David as a vulnerable youth with a crutch, leaning on another young man for love and support. Dirty and unkempt, they embrace beneath an industrial overpass covered by graffiti. They look battered, perhaps from a gay bashing. The tender moment suggests the scenes when “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David” or when “they kissed each other and wept together.” (For more about Adi Nes, see my previous post “Gay Israeli artist Adi Nes humanizes Bible stories. “

“Untitled (David and Jonathan)” by Adi Nes

Gay-positive Bible scholars have written extensively about the relationship between David and Jonathan. The classic book on the subject is “Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times” by Thomas Horner.

Jonathan and David embrace.
Manuscript illustration, circa 1300
La Somme le roy
The love between the two men is celebrated is also celebrated in literature, including the poem “The Meeting of David and Jonathan” by 19th-century English poet John Addington Symonds. He is known as an early advocate of male love (homosexuality) and wrote many poems inspired by his own homosexual affairs. In “The Meeting of David and Jonathan” he writes:

There by an ancient holm-oak huge and tough,
Clasping the firm rock with gnarled roots and rough,
He stayed their steps; and in his arms of strength
Took David, and for sore love found at length
Solace in speech, and pressure, and the breath
Wherewith the mouth of yearning winnoweth
Hearts overcharged for utterance. In that kiss
Soul unto soul was knit and bliss to bliss.

The full poem appears in “Many Moods: A Volume of Verse” by Symonds.

It’s impossible to know whether David and Jonathan expressed their love sexually. Some consider David to be bisexual, since the Hebrew scriptures also recount how he committed adultery with Bathsheba and later made her one of his eight wives. There is no doubt that many people today do honor David and Jonathan as gay saints.

Their story is used by contemporary LGBT Christians to counteract conservatives who claim that the Bible condemns homosexuality. The “David loved Jonathan” billboard below is part of the Would Jesus Discriminate project sponsored by Metropolitan Community Churches. It states boldly, “David loved Jonathan more than women. II Samuel 1:26.” For more info on the billboards, see our previous post, “Billboards show gay-friendly Jesus.”

David loved Jonathan billboard from GLBT Christian billboards from WouldJesusDiscriminte.com and WouldJesusDiscriminte.org

The love between Jonathan and David provides a foretaste of the love between a soul and God. As 16th-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross wrote in “The Spiritual Canticle”:

“The love Jonathan bore David was so intimate, it knitted his soul to David’s. If the love of one man for another was that strong, what will be the tie caused by the soul’'s love for God, the Bridegroom; especially since God here is the principal Lover...”

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Related links:

David and Jonathan: Why did God focus on their intimate partnership? (GayChristian101)

Homosexuality and Tradition: David and Jonathan (Pharsea’s World)

Subjects of the visual arts: David and Jonathan (glbtq.com)

David the Prophet and Jonathan, His Lover (Queer Saints and Martyrs - And Others)

David y Jonatán: El amor entre hombres en la Biblia (Santos Queer)

Bible story of David and Jonathan’s first meeting: 1 Samuel 18

Bible story of Jonathan’s death: 2 Samuel 1

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Special thanks to Ruth Innes for the photo and info on the stained-glass window at St. Mark's Portobello.

Special thanks to Mitch Gould, curator of LeavesOfGrass.org, for introducing me to David and Jonathan at the Stone Ezel by Edward Hicks.  It is part of their project on LGBT Quaker history.

Special thanks to Kevin Elphick for pointing out the quote from John of the Cross.

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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
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Icons of Jonathan and David and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores




Happy new year! Welcome 2014 with rainbow candles

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"Rainbow Reflections" by Kittredge Cherry

One queer way to welcome the new year is by lighting rainbow candles for Bridge of Light, a winter holiday honoring LGBT culture.

People celebrate Bridge of Light by lighting six candles, one for each color of the rainbow flag, on New Year’s Eve -- or from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, one candle per day.

Each candle stands for a spiritual principle and its expression in the lives and history of LGBTQ people. The candles are intended to provide a starting point for individual and group meditations on these principles:

1. Red - The Root of Spirit (Community)
2. Orange - The Fire of Spirit (Eros, sexuality, passion)
3. Yellow - The Core of Spirit (Self-esteem, courage)
4. Green - The Heart of Spirit (Love)
5. Blue - The Voice of Spirit (Justice, self-expression)
6. Purple - The Eye of Spirit (Wisdom)
7. All Candles - The Crown of Spirit (Spirituality)

Together these colors form a rainbow, a time-honored symbol of a bridge between two worlds: heaven and earth, East and West, male and female, queer and non-queer.

The principles are beautifully expressed in a new benediction prayer written for Bridge of Light by Yewtree (Yvonne Aburrow) of the Dance of the Elements Blog:

Let us embody the values of the rainbow flag of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Red is the root of spirit, found in beloved community,
Orange is for Eros, the fire of spirit, the experience of erotic connection,
Yellow is for self-esteem, the strong core of spirit,
Green is for love, the heart of spirit, the verdant growth of the soul,
Blue is for self-expression, the voice of spirit, calling out for justice,
Purple is the eye of spirit, which sees inwardly with the eye of wisdom.
And all the colours together form the crown of spirit, the experience of spirituality.

For more info, see my previous post on Bridge of Light.

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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to LGBT and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

RIP: Father Robert Nugent, co-founder of LGBT Catholic group New Ways Ministry

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In memory of
Father Robert Nugent

Co-founder of New Ways Ministry, priest silenced for work with lesbian and gay Catholics

July 31, 1937 - Jan. 1, 2014


white candle Pictures, Images and Photos




I light a memorial candle for Father Robert Nugent, who died Jan. 1, 2014 at age 76.

Nugent was a Roman Catholic priest who was silenced for his work with lesbian and gay people. He co-founded New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBT people in church and society.

In 1971 Nugent met Sister Jeannine Gramick.  She was doing pastoral work with lesbian and gay Catholics who were rejected by the church for their sexual orientation. He joined her and in 1977 they co-founded New Ways Ministry as a national resource and advocacy center for lesbian and gay Catholics, pastoral leaders, and family members. For decades the pair traveled nationwide promoting a more inclusive church and facing disapproval from many church leaders.

New Ways Ministry executive director Francis DeBernardo described Nugent’s impact in the announcement of his death at the organization’s blog:

“When few priests would do more than whisper about homosexuality, Father Nugent was meeting with lesbian and gay people and encouraging them to claim their rightful place in the Catholic Church. During a time of intense homophobia in both church and society, he exhibited uncommon courage and foresight in welcoming and affirming the goodness of God’s lesbian and gay children.”

In 1999-2000 the Vatican condemned New Ways Ministry, ordered Nugent to stop pastoral ministry within the lesbian and gay community, and directed him to ceased speaking and writing about LGBT rights. He continued to express God’s love for queer people privately and in small groups until the end of his life.

Nugent is also the author or coeditor of several books including “A Challenge to Love: Gay and Lesbian Catholics in the Church” and “Building Bridges: Gay and Lesbian Reality and the Catholic Church.”

As far as I’m concerned, any Catholic priest who dared to advocate for lesbian and gay people way back in the early 1970s is already a saint -- especially if he was outspoken enough to be silenced by the Vatican.

Now the pioneering prophet known as Father Bob makes the transition from earthly life to eternal life, where he can become our newest advocate among the saints.

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Related links:

Fr. Bob Nugent, silenced for his work with gay Catholics, dies at 76 (National Catholic Reporter)

Reflecting on the Life and Ministry of Father Robert Nugent (Bondings 2.0, blog of New Ways Ministry)

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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

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