Was Jesus Gay?

[barts]

Writing in The Guardian, Paul Oestreicher, a chaplain at the University of Sussex, asks Was Jesus Gay? He answers, "Probably".

Oestreicher writes,

Preaching on Good Friday on the last words of Jesus as he was being executed makes great spiritual demands on the preacher. ...

I was painfully aware of the context, a church deeply divided worldwide over issues of gender and sexuality. Suffering was my theme. I felt I could not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at the hands of the church, over many centuries.

Was that divisive issue a subject for Good Friday? For the first time in my ministry I felt it had to be. Those last words of Jesus would not let me escape. "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple. 'Behold your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home."

That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm, loved in a special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three women but only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his execution. That man clearly had a unique place in the affection of Jesus. ...

The evidence ... that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong. ...

After much reflection and with certainly no wish to shock, I felt I was left with no option but to suggest, for the first time in half a century of my Anglican priesthood, that Jesus may well have been homosexual. Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have been truly human. To believe that would be heretical.

Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual option simply seems the most likely. The intimate relationship with the beloved disciple points in that direction. It would be so interpreted in any person today. ...

I am only too aware how hurtful these reflections will be to most theologically conservative or simply traditional Christians. The essential question for me is: what does love demand? For my critics it is more often: what does scripture say? In this case, both point in the same direction.

Whether Jesus was gay or straight in no way affects who he was and what he means for the world today. Spiritually it is immaterial. What matters in this context is that there are many gay and lesbian followers of Jesus – ordained and lay – who, despite the church, remarkably and humbly remain its faithful members.

In my view, Oestreicher makes a convincing case. Jesus was gay. To deny that or to condemn gays, therefore, is to deny and condemn Jesus.

[Jack]

Evangelical and conservative Christians are offended by such speculations due to their negative attitudes toward homosexuals. To suggest that Jesus might have been a member of a caste they despise is heretical. Those without such bigoted sentiments are less likely to be offended by the suggestion that Jesus and likely his disciples were gay.

An honest, objective reading of the New Testament easily leads to the conclusion that Jesus as portrayed in the gospels could very well have been gay.

He never married and evidently had no openly romantic relationship with any woman, he spent the majority of his time in the company of other men, he dared to show sympathy for women and children in a misogynistic, paternal society. He is portrayed as gentle, peaceful and soft-spoken. He encouraged caring for the poor and the outcasts of society. In nearly every way he's described in the New Testament he is indistinguishable from a gay man.

It's also reasonable to view Paul as homosexual, though of a more militant and less passive sort. He advised men not to marry and said some rather rude things about marriage and women.

[Angry Citizen]

He never married and evidently had no openly romantic relationship with any woman, he spent the majority of his time in the company of other men, he dared to show sympathy for women and children in a misogynistic, paternal society. He is portrayed as gentle, peaceful and soft-spoken. He encouraged caring for the poor and the outcasts of society. In nearly every way he's described in the New Testament he is indistinguishable from a gay man.

Pardon me..?

This kind of generalization is just as disgusting as right-wing portrayals of homosexuals as hypersexual deviants. That he never married may have been an indication of asexuality - Newton did the same thing, IIRC. Spending time with other men in an era such as that was the norm, not the exception. showing sympathy for women and children is NOT - repeat, NOOOOTTTTTT - a trait homosexuals hold in their repertoire, and certainly neither is being gentle/soft-spoken/peaceful.

Color me annoyed.

[Jack]

showing sympathy for women and children is NOT - repeat, NOOOOTTTTTT - a trait homosexuals hold in their repertoire, and certainly neither is being gentle/soft-spoken/peaceful.

I'd say that depends on which gays you know and how much time you've spent in the gay community. I'm basing my opinion on about 30 years experience.

[lsbskins1]

Although I will say, as always, that no grouping of humans is universally anything, they are also not universally NOT something either. I mean, aside from the obvious, like left handed people being universally left handed...

I know gentle gay men and gay men who are so aggressive they have been banned from bars for fighting. I know gay men who love women but aren't so fond of children and gay men who don't really like being in the company of females but love kids. I know conservative and liberal gays. I know very religious gays and gays who would burst into flames if they crossed the threshold of a church (okay, not literally). Gay men might be many things "on average", like "on average" they help clean up after dinner rather than leaving it to the women folk.

As to Jesus being gay...this falls into the category of one of the "average" responses I see from the gay community. Many in the gay community seize on these types of arguments because they think it makes them more "normalized". If Jesus and Da Vinci and Newton were gay then damn it!, it is okay for them to be gay. I usually take it all with a grain of salt.

***maybe I should say "makes us more normalized", being that I am a lesbian****

[iolo]

It's a big thing with us, but was it then, if it were given no physical expression? I think attitudes to homosexuality are beginning to stand in for politics myself, and that it's a pity. No-one should be bullied for what is natural to him/her, but there are a lot of other issues.

[hensatri]

Jesus' sexuality is never particularly well explored. There is the infamous "foot washing" scene, and of course all of the above mentioned traits that Jesus seemed to hold.

All of that said, I feel it is unlikely that he was Gay. Well let me amend that, I feel it is unlikely that he an outwardly public Gay, although being that he was a human male a little homosexual play at some point in his upbringing or young adulthood is likely, but no more or less so that with most men. I doubt he was overtly gay due to the negative attitudes towards sexuality in his area at the time. There is every reason to thing that Jesus was well versed in the Hebrew religion, and the stance of the Old Testament towards Gays and Sodomy was well established. I just suspect that if Jesus was overtly gay in any way, more would have been made of that fact.

Well let me amend that further, this is all assuming that Jesus of the Bible is anything like the Jesus of reality. In all liklihood the Jesus of the bible is a highly mythical super-hero version of a true regional holy man that was probably only superficially similar to the character from the story.

One thing is for sure, the Jesus of the New Testament would have been very ill-at-ease amongst the hyper-masculine truck driving, deer shooting, beer swiggin good Christian Conservatives of the American Mid-West. He’d probably have been pushed down and called a Fag had he attended highschool in this country.

[Zeebadee]

Unbelievable how low the atheists will go to try and discredit something they profess doesn't even exist. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

[lsbskins1]

Unbelievable how low the atheists will go to try and discredit something they profess doesn't even exist. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

By and large, atheists don't tend to think being gay is bad, so by calling Jesus gay, they aren't trying to discredit him. If they wanted to discredit him, they would attack him for being religious. What they are trying to discredit is the idea that being gay is bad.

[barts]

Unbelievable how low the atheists will go to try and discredit something they profess doesn't even exist. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

How does a chaplain, not an atheist, at the University of Sussex (see OP) suggesting that Jesus was probably gay (the chaplain's words, not mine) discredit Jesus?

How does being gay discredit anyone?

For the record, the notion that Jesus was probably gay is not a claim put forward by an atheist, so perhaps you should consider directing your outrage at the Christian chaplain who makes the claim, not someone who is entirely innocent of the charge. It's also worth noting--perhaps even ironic--that the biblical Zeebadee was the father of John whom the chaplain suggests was probably Jesus's lover.

[hensatri]

Unbelievable how low the atheists will go to try and discredit something they profess doesn't even exist. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

I've never met an Atheist that doesn't believe Jesus was in some form a real person.

And, as the others have said, being gay isn't a form of discrediting.

Your statement was Fractally Wrong.

[Zeebadee]

My disgust is with the atheists that trumpet this speculation as a way to discredit Christianity, since many Christians consider being gay a sin. The author bases his opinion on nothing more than Jesus had a close relationship with John. BFD, I've made similar close friendships with a few men over my lifetime, especially in the military. Does that mean I'm gay? Have you got same sex friends? Does that make you gay? I in no way consider being gay a sin, so I really don't care what this bozo has to say, but it seems to me he may just be saying this to make himself feel better about his own sexuality.

BTW, the biblical character was Zebedee. I chose Zeebadee from a character in the novel Not As A Stranger.