Cambridge sermon: Jesus may have been trans

[flyingbuttress43]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/26/jesus-could-have-transgender-claims-cambridge-dean/

Jushua Heath, a junior research fellow, guest preacher at evensong at Trinity College chapel displayed Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion, which depicted a side wound he likened to a vagina, and said Christ had a trans body.

Dr Michael Banner, dean of Trinity College said such a view was "legitimate" in a response to one anonymous worshipper who said the audience and choir were "visibly uncomfortable" and upset at the sermon. Dr Banner said the sermon "suggested that we might think about these images of Christ's male/female body as providing us with ways of thinking about issues around transgender questions today".

He added: "For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism."

I'm not even religious, but I seriously wonder if there is anywhere the trans movement won't go in support of their ideology.

Leaving aside anything else, why would anyone accept Renaissance and medieval paintings as an accurate representation of Christ's body?

Leaving aside the deepy iffy theology, since when was a vagina under the ribs?

Leaving aside anything else, why would anyone accept Renaissance and medieval paintings as an accurate representation of Christ's body?

That as well.

And the fact the dean of Cambridge calls this a ‘legitimate view’. It’s like the Cof E is trying to implode. If they can’t see how insulting this is to Christians then I really despair. Why are they trying to relate everything to trans and gender theory? Those paintings had nothing to do with portraying Jesus as trans. Would they do this about the main figure in any other religion?

CoE isn't trying to implode, it's succeeding.

Would they do this about the main figure in any other religion?

A question to which we pretty much all know the answer.

Um, what? Seriously... WTAF?

You’d think they’d have at least had the decency not to do this right before advent, and from what I remember, evensong is usually a more spiritual, traditional service attended by older and more old school Christians so this was wholly inappropriate for that service, not that it’s appropriate for any service but ‘know your audience’ springs to mind.

Well, the whole 'Christ's wounds as sexualised imagery' thing was old when I studied some art history decades ago. Could probably dig up some references.

That was probably the point @Happylittlechicken . Let's be controversial and outspoken and shake up those traditionalists. Oooh look at what an iconoclast I am.

Jesus Christ. I was wondering if C of E aligned with my beliefs better than Catholicism, which I have other issues with, but that’s got to be a sign from God that the Church of England is a fucking joke.

I just googled 'Christ's wounds as sexual imagery' and this isn't even a new idea.

journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-15/your-body-is-full-of-wounds/penetrating-the-gash-in-late-medieval-prayer-books/

Man thinks that a vagina is interchangeable with ‘gash’. What a shock. And this is progressive 😂

I'm a Christian and I would have left if that had been the 'sermon'. What an absolute load of b*llocks.

It's something of a leap from that to 'Jesus himself might have been trans'. At most, one could say that Renaissance artists might have wanted to portray sexual ambiguity in their portraits.

I just told this to my 14 year old who hilariously said 'wow, someone's not going to heaven' 😆

I think he got a bit excited at the thought of a manly thrust from a Roman spear.

Me too. I am a Christian and I’d have left very loudly. What they fail to realise is those they are upsetting are the ones who give regularly to the church and would be more inclined to leave bequests in wills. I’ve now left the C of E. I just do independent prayer. They lost me at ‘God can make mistakes’. And ‘we can’t define woman but TW are women’. Stuff them. I’ve changed my donation to a charity that will actually do good.

Completely agree with you. I was pointing out that the "shock!" value of such a sermon is a bit undermined when some of the ideas are relatively mainstream.

Also, people have been saying odd things about Jesus' body since the very earliest days of Christianity. Most of them get rejected, in former times alongside accusations of heresy.

My thoughts exactly. I am sickened at the depths some individuals within the church are going.

So, a vagina is exactly the same as an open wound (well obviously, because it bleeds…) And these men tell us they know exactly what it feels like to be a woman 🙄

When I did my MSc I specialised in gender representation in images and one thing that seemed bloody obvious was that the images represent the interpretations of the artist, influenced by the era in which they lived, their social status, the financial influence of their patrons, the family background, the sexuality of the artist and their patron, and that’s just off the top of my head, and I am not an art historian.

You’d have to be thick as mince to think the subject somehow had any input into the image made of them.

Even allowing for “God inspires me” as a line of argument it is impossible to reconcile gender woo reimagining of an era when gender wasn’t a thing (arguably it still isn’t) because if God guided the artist’s hand to create a trans Jesus he would clearly also have guided society to a place of acceptance of natal women and an end to sex based discrimination, patriarchy, and misigyny.

Isn't this just a contemporary retread of St Sebastian as a gay icon?

Only, y'know, trans, cause that's more in vogue and even more boundary busting, being as it's about actual Jesus.

(And yes I did say ‘gender’ there because I was still labouring under a couple of misapprehensions at the time, my dissertstion was the tipping point)

Wow, what was the point of saying that in a sermon exactly? Should have stayed in a rarely-read blog in a dark corner of the internet.

@Zerogravity Some would say that if a sermon merely confirms your existing views, it hasn't done its job. I'm not sure whether I agree with that!

Me too.