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.

You could turn that around though, and say that the reason the CofE has been so quick to embrace gender ideology is because they had already opened the door to the idea that sex wasn't an important material element of the body, whereas the Orthodox and Catholics, who do not believe that, have resisted that particular ideological idiocy.

This nonsense is being discussed in the US now: whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/11/27/cambridge-student-preacher-causes-a-row-by-suggesting-that-jesus-was-a-transsexual-male/

Meant to add that the author of that piece is an emeritus professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago and has also published on atheism - his Faith vs Fact is a good read on the subject of religion and science.

I don't think we this is any sillier (or less Christian) than the fundamentalist CofE folk who don't believe in evolution and hate Halloween.

The CofE has always been a social club with every possible type of 'Christian' in it (including lots for whom belief in God is optional).

Well he does have long hair and wear a white dress 🤷‍♀️

seems clear enough to me.

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

I’m fairly sure mine is lower than my ribs else, if it was higher than my ribs, it’d be around chin level which would be…disconcerting.

As for Jesus being trans, WTF? If nothing else, that’s a whole lot of “The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost” references that are going to have to be edited, not to mention all the mis-pronouning in every holy script for thousands of years.

Who says The Higher Powers don’t have a sense of humour?

Should’ve gone to Specsavers....

I would guess that some of the "manmade versions" are all three, but not vaginas..

definitely non binary, what with being trinity and all that...

(sorry)

This is a terrific point and I think it's definitely true this has played a big part in how ready Anglican leaders have been to adopt gender ideology. Although I also think that given you can pretty much find any theological viewpoint somewhere in the Anglican church, it was probably inevitable that at least some Anglicans would embrace it, even without women's ordination, just through general Anglican woolliness!

I do find the Catholic clarity on this quite bracing, I have to say.

It's another case of a man expressing his own deeply disturbing fantasy in public. Again. Sigh.

CofE should get its pastoral team on to him quick, and provide the help he obviously needs. Before he starts spouting any more deeply misogynist shit.

CofE also needs to recognise shit when spouted by their own people.

It would also help if CofE could make a swift statement, either acknowledging this as an official view; otherwise, saying No.

Yes or no? That any stab wound in any man is the equivalent of a vagina? Yes or no? CofE bloke said yes.

So you mean the famous quote should be :
'He's not the messiah, she's a very naughty girl'?

(Sorry. Someone had to)

😂Oh, come on! They is a very naughty non-binary, surely??!!😂

We've all missed the second coming - Jesus came back as the Missiah and no-one recognised her...

"Oh no, no - police officer, there's a man here been stabbed!!"

"No, you are totally mistaken, mate! You're nicked! That is a trans person with a totally unremarkable bleeding vagina halfway up their ribcage. Leave them alone, you bigot. I am arresting you for misgendering. You do not have to say anything etc etc..."

If you want carols, try this when it becomes available. It was broadcast live on Advent Sunday (yesterday) from a Cambridge college which is actually next to Trinity.

There will be lots of similar services around, probably most without sermons.

On Mary and the Magnificat, @Anactor, you said: "Yup. Without the naice music and the tradition of ‘gentle Mary Meek and Mild’, lines like:

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

Sound a bit more like an enthusiastic young revolutionary than ‘sweet, harmless young mother’."

...this is Mary talking about God - "He" - though yes, I agree that it does sound pretty anarchic and revolutionary for the time!

There really aren't enough church goers to tend to or theology students to teach because the C o E has way too much time to pontificate on this utter bollocks.

Well, yes that's true.

Not that the CofE necessarily has much of a link to the academic theology, religion and philosophy of religion course, but do you want to hazard a guess as to how many undergrads there are each year for the uni as a whole and Trinity College in particular?

@ErrolTheDragon I really don't know, but Deans are part of CoE hierarchy, and this Dean is indulging in some first-class navel gazing.

Good heavens, if the CofE is going to put out a statement someone, somewhere, in one of the thousands of sermons preached each week, says something stupid, the press office is going to be pretty busy

On the plus side, it will be far more entertaining national news than what we usually get.

I read this and sighed.. and then played this, loudly!