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.

Exactly my thoughts!

More sexist shite defended because it’s delivered in trans clothing.

Well I think you can have that. God(dess) has no physical body. The fleshly types are divided into male and female for reproductive purposes. Sex is irrelevant to spirit. So God the Father is also Goddess the Mother. It just gets awkward to say it that way.

Also yes the word (logos) made flesh is incarnated in a male body but some strands of Christian thought have posited that wisdom (Sophia) made flesh incarnated as female in the form of Mary, mother of God or Mary Magdalene or somehow in both of them. Wisdom is referred to by female pronouns throughout the Old Testament.

Oh FFS.

Just when you think we've reached peak idiocy, now Jesus was trans . 🤦

are we sure this isn't all a really elaborate practical joke?

Also women had important roles in the early church, Phoebe the deaconess mentioned by Paul as well as Mary Magdalene and all the other women named in the New Testament. Much of this was lost when the Roman Empire took charge of Christianity, then again roles were removed from women in the late Middle Ages and even more so with the reformation, iirc.

Yes, it lost me that that point. I'm I being thick? Because I can't understand how he made that leap from a wound to a vagina!

This thread is great!
It's Monty Python meets Dan Brown meets Jordan Peterson meets Melvyn Bragg.

He's not dead, he's resting. Give it three days.

😂

What a load of absolute nonsense.

I saw the painting and the statement Jesus had a transbody and just assumed you couldn't see any male genitals but no female breasts so a representation of trans.

Did he actually say Jesus was trans or just referred to "transbody". I can't see why he actually said.

Not two hours ago, as The Last Supper was being dissected, the thought crossed my mind - how long before it’s claimed Jesus was trans

This isn't even the first time it happened, I automatically assumed this was the same guy from a similar story earlier this year, but searching it out, it isn't. This guy claims Jesus was transgender because he washed people's feet which is an act that women do:

twitter.com/wokepreachertv/status/1484203077351751683

I have to say, it was really... interesting to run a google search using custom dates from 2020 to early 2022 (I did this because when I was trying to find the above it kept bringing up this recent story). There's been a lot of push it seems in other countries for transgender Jesus.

Some of the headlines:

June 2021: "Scottish union sparks outrage over transgender Jesus play"

December 2021: "Germany Bible museum puts on play presenting Jesus as transgender, weeks before Christmas"

December 2020: "Church depicts Jesus as genderqueer with breasts, a beard and make-up so ‘everyone sees themselves in Christ’" (Iceland)

I'm fine if our culture wants to create the concept of a "genderqueer" transbody that combines male and female bodies.

Our culture is full of different types of bodies, like fairies and giants and zombies, that don't exist in material terms but nevertheless embody something meaningful to us. Taken that way, framing Jesus through a "genderqueer" lens to gain new insights is just part of the long tradition of twisting the familiar to make it new and exciting again.

I don't think this cultural need/desire/use for genderqueer figures/iconology means we need to instantiate them in the real world, any more than we need to instantiate fairies, unicorns or zombies, but I wouldn't stop any mentally healthy adult who wants, for aesthetic, sexual or political reasons to make their body a facsimile of genderqueer because the concept expresses something meaningful to them, just like those who get their teeth sharpened or subdermal horn implants to express something they feel.

However, I don't see any connection between these body modifications and the material reality of sex, nor does it follow the existence of such modified bodies means sex-based needs and rights are somehow superceded by mental gender.

This guy claims Jesus was transgender because he washed people's feet which is an act that women do

That'll be news to a few medieval and early modern kings and clergy (who tended to be men)

my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/02/humilitas-christi-washing-of-feet-in.html

I mean, I'm not saying queens didn't do it to demonstrate their humility, but to claim it as a specific female act is...odd.

I mean it is pretty offensive to women. Vaginas are not holes, wounds or gashes

You do have to wonder how many actual vaginas this bloke has experienced. In the Times today Banner is claiming to have been 'grossly misrepresented.' In that case he can explain what he did mean.

The world is going crazy

Now I'm imagining Lynn from Alan Partridge frowning and saying "Jesus wasn't trans" instead of "Jesus wasn't brown"

If it is reasonable to ask whether Jesus was a closeted transwoman, it is equally reasonable to ask if Hitler was a closeted transwoman…

Maybe not so unreasonable!
Remember this?:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3489152-Cross-dressing-Nazi-soldiers

There are quite a lot of fanciful speculations about the role of women in the past, which simply seem to assume that anything that seems humble was a female thing, and anything involving power or action was only done by men. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

For that matter it's perfectly reasonable to ask if St Michael was a kitten and Mary Magdalen time travelled to Scotland and became Nicola Sturgeon.

I mean, why not at this point?

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if he has.

But the fact is that bringing the idea of a "trans body" into speculations about Jesus, or medieval art, is pretty questionable. It's wholly anachronistic and imo is the kind of faddish crap scholars come up with to get funding that is attached to the faddish crap.

It still has no place in a sermon, where in my experience rather than bringing in funding it is somehow meant to show the preacher is with it, and "make the Church relevant," as they say.

Not today Satan, not today.

DameMaud I missed that!!! 😂

In the Times now, with pithy comments as expected

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9e5fb932-6e72-11ed-8a5b-f385de7508fe?shareToken=f8e44dbd516c1542fcfc592e668a83df

Comments are behind a paywall, Errol. Any gems stand out?