Ex-Gay Leader Suggests That Gay Religious Leaders Say Jesus Was Gay

Great Debates
1

The opening portion of an article by Tim Wilkins of Cross Ministries in Wake Forest, NC, is reproduced below. The full article is located on this thread at the Pizza Parlor and is supposed to be taken from this news site (but wouldn’t open for me when I tried to link to it).

(Note: I regret quoting this much but the article didn’t seem to admit of good snipping prior to the point I cut it at.)

Mr. Wilkins’ operations have a website at www.crossministry.org

One article I found there on what gay people need to do (in Mr. Wilkins’ opinion) to be saved is http://www.crossministry.org./Gays_Need_to_Change.htm

I’d be most interested in what people here have to say about any of the areas covered in the article (which brought together several interesting topics, albeit done in an incoherent anti-Mel White rant).

2

I’ve heard that before. There was an e-mail petition about people all up in arms about a supposed movie depicting Jesus as being gay.
Would this be related?

Personally, I’d put my money on Paul perhaps being gay-which might explain his bitterness.

3

The movie would be Corpus Christi (and you can imagine what Wildest Bill had to say about that, since he’s from Corpus Christi, TX! ;)).

I don’t know if there’s a connection; Michie’s indefatigable search for religion-related news dug this up and she posted it over there.

Spong has quite a bit of closely-reasoned Biblical exegesis on Paul as a probable closeted gay man with major scruples about his sexuality and his faith. (Does that sound at all familiar to you?) I’ll see if I can find the cite and post it tomorrow.

4

i thought it was a musical? Gay Jesus on Parade…

Wasn’t Jesus interested in Mary Magdalene (according to Last Temptation, and others, like Dogma)

Next thing you know, Jesus will be a NAMBLA member “suffer the little children…”

5

It’s just a matter of people wanting Jesus to be as much like them as possible. though to me it seems to fly in the face of every point that he ever made, it’s just like the argument that Jesus was black. First of all it doesn’t matter, being like Jesus has nothing to do with what you look like or your sexual preference, imo. Jesus may or may not have been gay, but as it’s such a complete irrelevancy to the issue and there is no evidence of it at all it’s pretty irrespnsible for a church leader to preach that.

Erek

6

meh. i thought the whole dealie with jesus being celibate was that he was fully human, but was never a “man”.

i would find it hard, as a woman, to relate to and accept the messiah as a sexually active MAN. straight or gay, don’t give a rats ass. a fully human but somewhat asexual christ is something i’m comfortable with. god rejecting women by being so completely a MAN…not so somfortable.

7

sorry. it’s 1 am. i’m not coherent or thinking too brightly, but you get my meaning.

8

Cite? I woul like to see the evidence for any of this.

Strikes me as projection. There is no indication that Jesus even knew what the Rich Young Ruler’s name was. Nor that He ever had sex with anyone.

Why are people so sceptical about everything else in the Gospels, and so gullible on stuff that isn’t even there?

Pour epate les bourgeouisie, I suppose. Yes, Jesus was sympathetic to outcasts. He healed lepers, but I would doubt that He was Himself a leper until someone could show why that was plausible.
Regards,
Shodan

9

I have to say, what evidence is there about Jesus’ sexuality one way or the other? It’s certainly not in the Gospels, or any of the epistles, and, sorry, but there really isn’t that much about Jesus outside of the New Testament (unless there’s some really controversial passage in Josephus I’m not aware of).

I don’t really see how one can begin to argue the matter. “Jesus was gay.” “No, he wasn’t.” “Was too!” “Was not!”

10

Why, OF COURSE! THAT’S IT!! He healed lepers precisely because He WASN’T a leper. And the proof that He was gay is manifest in the fact that He never cured anybody of homosexuality!

[/sarcasm]

11

Shodan, fair question. My best guess is that a lot of people (or rather, a lot of sources which influence people) base themselves on the extraneous gospels that never became canon, i.e., the Gospel of Thomas. They’ve got some “nice” passages that seem pretty in sync with the canonical gospels…

…which include stories about a 5-year old Jesus smiting another kid who wouldn’t play with him…

…and people assume they’re just as good as the canon, so they’re acceptable. The recurring accusation you hear is that “Well, of course the Catholic church didn’t include these in the Bible–it’s got things they don’t want people to hear!”

…oy.

My theory. I don’t know if any of the non-canonicals have any “evidence” that Christ was gay, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where some of this comes from. Everything else tends to be just speculation.

12

Yeah, Spong was where I read that about Paul. There’s a theory to that Paul may have been molested as a child.

13

And this theory is based on what, exactly? Does anyone have any first hand information about Paul’s life, besides what’s in Acts and what’s in the epistles attributed to Paul? (And modern scholars don’t even believe Paul wrote all of the epistles which are traditionally attributed to him.)

14

So how come they’re allowed to say this:

–when the rest of us aren’t allowed to say this? The rest of us aren’t allowed to say, “Oh, look at that 30-something guy, who isn’t married, who hangs around with 12 other guys, and who has close relationships with other guys? Oh–he must be GAAAAYYYY!!”

:rolleyes:

15

Duck Duck Goose -

Your point is well taken.

More than that, one could mention Jesus’ close relationships with Mary Magdalene, Martha, and the other women in the Gospel narratives, and conclude that He is heterosexual.

The rumors of Jesus’ being gay have been flying around for a while. Part of it is fueled by a addition to the Gospel of Mark that a researcher claimed to have found some years ago.

http://www.salon.com/feature/1998/04/cov_10feature.html Salon did an article on it.

The evidence for the authenticity of the alleged fragment is quite weak. The guy who claimed to have discovered it was himself gay, and, as might be the case here, wanted to justify himself. No one else except the ‘discoverer’ has ever seen the document.

It seems to me unlikely that someone would conclude that Christ is gay unless he were basing this on something other than the evidence.

FWIW. Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Shodan

16

This is a whole other debate, but I tend to think–and ridiculous stories like this one to my mind confirm–that the idea of being “gay” is wholly a twentieth-century construct. In Jesus’ time, and in times up to the Victorian era, there were simply men who fooled around with other men–or men who fooled around with teenage boys–to varying degrees. Then, as now, only a very small minority stuck to boys exclusively (and, granted, maybe only a small minority would have preferred to stick with women exclusively). Building an identity around these choices is not a concept that Jesus’ followers, or Plato, or Alexander, would have understood. And as for asserting that one was predestined to stick with a single choice from birth, I suspect that they would have found that laughable.

17

What this leads up to is a more general conclusion I’ve had in mind for a while now: “Gay” is a political label, not a biological one, that should be exclusively associated with the late 20th-early 21st centuries. In this case, asserting that Jesus was “gay” strikes me as akin to various political tracts I’ve heard of that previously claimed that He was a communist or a capitalist. From a Christian standpoint, I think that attempts to shoehorn Christ into a political mold of man’s making is a poisonous distraction from who and what he was and what he offers us. You don’t have to be a Christian, but if you are a Christian, I think you ought to keep this in mind.

18

Would it matter?

I mean, obviously, those from the “Jesus was gay” (shouldn’t that be “Jesus is gay,” btw, or would those human aspects no longer apply after his ascension?) have a political purpose in asserting so. Political in the broadest sense of the word.

But let’s say that evidence came to light – real, relatively unassailable evidence that Jesus’ sexual preference as a human being was for men. Not that he ever acted on it, or acted sexually at all as an adult human being, but that he was attracted to men. Given that some portion of the human race appears to be born with that inclination, and that Jesus was fully human, it’s not entirely ludicrous to think so. Even if one believes that homosexual attraction alone, without action, is sinful, my understanding is that the Christian position is that Jesus the man experienced and struggled with temptation to sin.

Would it make a difference to anyone? Would anyone here who considers themself Christian adjust their faith one iota? Stop believing in Jesus because he was a homo? If you have to stop and think about the answer at all, or think you might, then you have insight into exactly why some people might hijack Jesus to push their political agenda. Because of people who think it would make a difference in their faith if Jesus was gay.

19

What, something like a scripture in Jesus’ own handwriting, “Phinehas, you are so hot, meet me at the bathhouse after dinner”? Shades of the Weekly World News! :smiley:

Jerry Falwell would have an apoplexy. :smiley:

And when he recovered–he’d simply refuse to believe it.

20

I’m with** MEBuckner and DDG ** on this one. If the Straight Dope’s resident atheist and Christian fundy can agree that there is no evidence of Jesus’ sexual orientation in the bible or otherwise, then I must be in the correct camp.