DECEMBER 1976

PASSIONATE CHRIST

Such dissertations as The Passover Plot have alluded to the potentiality of Christ's humanness. Therefore, I see no reason why an essay about Christ's homosexuality should advance as an iconoclastic tidal wave. It is no secret that Christ's teachings represent a decisive departure from the bellicose dogma of the invaders of the Fertile Crescent.

Unlike Moses or the sedentary agricultural homophilic King David, the individuality of the Essenes and the sexual freedom of Hellenism afforded a liberal world outlook for the Messiah. We are able to penetrate the Gospels to reconstruct Christ's homophilia, if we do so with cool anthropological objectivity.

The master began his career not as a woman-hater (or any kind of hater for that matter), but as a lover of men. He collects a homo-emotional "harem" of male disciples who curiously leave their families, if they have any, and follow him through the hills and mountains of the Mediterranean Coast for the rest of his life.

better

This was surely no random selection. It is apparent that Christ chose men who bespoke weak heterosexual affinities and strong male-to-male, for lack of word,. "love." Convictions alone are not enough to drive avarage secular professionals from their homes and occupations to pursue lives of what is never described in the Gospels as "celibacy."

The in-group loyalties of the twelve apostles are only too reminiscent of those of the ancient Greek homosexual military establishments or the homosexual alliances which cemented such philosophers as Plato and Socrates with their pupils. The concept of teachers with subsidiary disciples was new to the Aramaic Hebrews. It is not to be found in the Old Testament tradition, but rather is imported directly from the Greeks. In this light, the bonds between the Twelve and their mentor are only too obvious.

The discreet Gospel writers cannot conceal the fact that there was quite a bit of physical intimacy between Christ and his

subordinates. That Jesus was betrayed by a kiss from Judas Iscariot indicates that a kiss was

common form of greeting between these men. It is not mentioned as a form of greeting for others outside of the circle. This salutation must have been unusual for Christ's contemporaries, because later the apostle Paul has to instruct his congregation to "greet one another with a holy kiss." (Romans 16:16).

This, of course, is not the only physical gesture shared by the disciples. Christ washes the feet of the apostles, not to institute a ceremony, but to demonstrate that emotional subservience in a

master-slave relationship can be represented by a genuine physical interchange.

Christ's attachment to the youngest apostle, John, is the most inescapable exposition of Christ's homoerotic tendencies. The classic situation which proceeds shortly after the footbathing is the following: "There was reclining in front of Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, and Jesus loved him. Therefore Simon Peter nodded to this one and said to him, 'Tell who it is about whom he is saying it.' So the latter leaned back upon the breast of Jesus. and said to him: 'Lord, who is it'?" (John 13:22-24).

The painting of the Last Supper by DaVinci does not portray the actual positioning of these two. Unlike later Europeans, Christ and his follower reclined on couches in the Roman fashion around a stone table. Hence, John was lying next to Christ and unlike our usual notion of John's somehow leaning on Christ's shoulder, he was in fact sprawled out in Christ's lap and as painful as it may be to puritanical theologians, literally "necking". with the "Son of Man."

Jesus did not take Mosaic sexual restrictions seriously. This is dramatized in his rescue of the prostitute from stoning. We have no reason to assume that Christ had no sexual desires inasmuch as he doubtlessly ate, slept and défecated in a very human way. No note is made of any biological exemption for his. sexuality. Therefore, if we are to be totally objective, we have no choice but to conclude that Christ entertained erotic feelings in his bawdy display with John.

Of course, Christ "loved" each of the Twelve, so to say that Christ specifically "loved him" in reference to John must mean that Jesus was in fact making an act of love to John. Let us put that phrase in its context again: "There was reclining in front of Jesus' bosom one of his disciples and Jesus loved him." Why state the obvious unless this "love" was specific and unique, as the situation pointedly outlines: PHYSICAL?

Since others have dealt with the Nazarene's masochism, I will not deal with it in this essay. except to mention it as an ingredient in his complex sexual make-up.

If we presume that free sexuality is natural and not to be punished as Christ clearly believed, then we must assume that Christ used physical interaction as a vehicle for spirituality. Christ's healing and blessing involved the "laying on of hands," and carnal transaction coupled with a divine act..

I anticipate that many zealots

HIGH GEAR

will be offended by my contention that the Savior was homosexual. This feeling of indignation betrays these individuals' homophobia and guilt, insofar as they identify sexuality with sin. As a result, to link the mortal Christ with sexuality is an indecency extracted not from the Bible, but from societal prejudice. We should feel no shame in identifying Christ as a homosexual unless, in truth, we find disgust in recognizing our own gayness.

Christ was not above eating or spitting, as the record proves, and he was not above sensual behavior (which is not to say that sex is something to be "above"). This might seem to be an essay assembled by some godless atheist and scoundrel. It is! But ironically, it is religion which strikes the death blow to bona fide theology.

Virtually all of the world's organized religions treat the "Theos" rather indecently. Judeo Christianity, like Buddhism or Animism, is fundamentally and helplessly primitive. To describe a god who is supposed to be the creator of the entire universe, including the laws of physics, the universal system of mathematics, dimensions, in terms of those qualities and quantitites is an horrendous and unforgiveable insult. To portray god as having eyes or a hand or thinking or anything that is banally human, is denigrating to an extra-universal diety.

How would we feel if an articulate population of canines described us as having paws, muzzles and urinating against fire hydrants? The truth is we cannot talk about a god at all without defaming its person (May it forgive me for referring to "its person" or even to it as ans "It"). No consistent 20th century theologian can escape the Deism espoused by the amazingly far-sighted Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (Deism is the belief that God is detached from and disinterested in human affairs).

I am not iconoclastic in describing Christ as gay. On the contrary, in the long run, I am excessively orthodox. Christ never called himself the "Son of God" but rather the "son of man. Perhaps he, and not Erasmus, was the first Western humanist.

Religion can only be relevant and legitimate when interpreted in human terms, ie. when

assigned human meaning. We should never hesitate for an instant to interpret the mythology of the Bible and the philosophy of Christ from a socio-analytical point of view. To attempt to draw a real omnipotent being into the pathetic melodrama of the parchment and papyrus shreds of archiac psychopaths is both a mistake and a cosmic obscenity!

GAY

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