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Many Christian queer men
identify with Jesus, sensing a kindred spirit or an
alternative set of masculinities available to them
within the Christian tradition. Christian institutions,
as a whole, continue to ignore this crucial fact,
because it severely problematizes traditional homophobic
and misogynist theologies. In Roman Catholic theology,
for example, the allegedly celibate priest is seen as
the bride of Christ. Former Jesuit queer scholar Robert
Goss suggests that, in offering himself as a sacramental
channel to Christ, a priest performs an alternative
masculinity—Goss calls it a “femasculinity.” [9]
The priest both “births Christ on the altar” [10]
and consummates (as a male) an erotic act with a male
Christ! Are we at all surprised by the instabilities and
contradictions of such “homodevotion to Jesus,” [11]
especially if a primary image of God’s relationship to
His people throughout the Hebrew and Christian
scriptures is that of Bridegroom to bride?
What I mean is this. Throughout the biblical
text, we have an image of heterosexual marriage as a
primary metaphor of relationship with God, usually
viewed as male. But in the hetero-patriarchy of Biblical
times, only men were considered full persons (though
there is an ever-increasing strand of liberation for
women). So we’ve got allegedly heterosexual men trying
(and probably failing) to relate romantically to their
male deity while simultaneously forbidding homoerotic
acts (as in the book of Leviticus) because the
penetrated man symbolically becomes a woman, and the
penetrator is a bastard for stealing his victim’s
manhood! Is it any wonder that tensions and
contradictions should arise within such an angst-ridden
metanarrative? rative? rative?
Despite this angst, subsequent
Christian history also includes stories of queer male
lovers of Jesus. St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-67), for
example, “struggled with…sexual attraction to his fellow
monks,” but “transferred [his eroticism primarily] to
his contemplative practice.” [12]
This contemplation was a highly imaginative form of
prayer that engaged the senses. Goss himself admits that
such visualization allowed him to experience Christ’s
welcome to him as a gay man: “I finally admitted to myself that
I loved Jesus because he was a male and that it was OK
to love Jesus passionately and erotically as a man.” [13]
Even before I knew I was gay, I
longed to be the Beloved Disciple of John’s Gospel,
lying close to Jesus’ heart. There was a period within
the last few years when erotic visualization of Jesus’
presence was a great help to me in my journey to
integrate my sexual life, my sense of personal devotion
to Christ, and my theology. Like many male Christian
mystics, I wanted Jesus to be my lover, a top to this
mostly-bottom. [14]
When Goss describes “men lying joyfully on their backs
with their feet ecstatically in the air,” I blush
because that playfulness, that jouissance,
describes me! [15]
When I have sex, and I often sense the presence
of the Holy Spirit so intensely that (s)he makes my
orgasm even better than normal! Other times, there is a
quiet peace, a sense of being wrapped in a blanket, or
of being kissed. Visualising Jesus as my lover actually
scared me a little bit—it is easy to make Christ in
one’s own image. (Certain Christians I know find
my experiences very strange, or blasphemous.)
But these experiences helped me to reject the idea that
Jesus would be indifferent or hostile to me as a
“gimpy”—a disabled man—who finds a deep childlike joy in
seeing beautiful men everywhere! As an old Sunday school
song says, “Jesus loves even me” in my queer gimpy
masculinity.
This erotic contemplation becomes
possible for many queer men with the aid of Christian
artistic representations of Jesus, especially on the
cross. There is a strange androgyny—Goss’ femasculinity,
perhaps!—in early Christian art about Jesus. [16]
Queer men may be right, it seems, when they intuit
Christ’s welcome as their lover and identify with him as
a victim: he is male, and a queer male at that, who
accepts his own sexuality, and the sexual interest of
other queer men, as part of being fully human.
Homodevotion to Jesus on the cross seems rather shocking
in light of any challenges that Jesus presents to queer
masculinities, because we seem to forget a central and
disgusting fact: the cross is an instrument of
torture.
It is difficult to imagine a more terrible
implement of torture than the cross. With its
development, the Roman Empire created one of the
most painful, humiliating, and effective forms of public
execution in human history. Yet, Christian queer men
often seem to forget how horrible a fate befell their
Lord. Historically speaking, Jesus would not have been
beautiful and pristine on that crude device, with a look
of exquisite agony upon his face. On the contrary! Based
on historical data about crucifixion (confirmed by the
accounts in the Gospels), we can imagine the scene.
Jesus’ back is raw from being scourged brutally with a
metal-tipped whip; he scrapes against the wooden cross’s
unfinished surfaces; he gasps for breath, slowly
suffocating, tensing his muscles to push against the
nail through his ankles so he can draw air; he sags back
down to relieve the pain, except that, without the
support from his ankle, he is unable to breathe. He
begins again. Whatever the problems of The Passion of
the Christ as a portrait of Jesus, Gibson’s film
shows us clearly how horrible was the penalty of
crucifixion for Jesus or anyone else under Roman rule.
Non-Christians rarely miss
the absurdity of the Church’s glorification of torture
as supposed means of salvation.[17]
It is not, of course, the torture that the "good news" Gospel,
acclaims, [18]
but this fact is easy to miss in a society where the
cross is a piece of jewellery on the one hand and a
weapon to perpetuate anti-queer (anti-Muslim,
anti-Semitic, etc.) violence on the other. Do, or
perhaps better yet, should queer men find a
tortured Christ physically appealing? [19]
Does our sexualised fascination with an androgynous
Christ blind us to our own hypocrisy? Is it possible we
over-identify with Jesus on the cross, or Matthew
Shepard on his fence, and thereby forget that we
are capable of the same kinds of violence? ... (continue reading)
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2 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
I keep wanting to correct the tiny typos that I see...especially the last sentence: "The peace of Christ be yours." LOL. Minor thing!
Fantastic essay! I think one of the most exciting ideas suggested by your essay is the idea of adopting a subversive masculinity, a masculinity of which Jesus (at least in this characterization) is a superb example. I also appreciated the inclusion of a critique of our postmodern disdain for metanarratives. While I think this disdain arises quite naturally out of the radical critiques and the sheer volume of alternative readings of "important" texts that have accompanied poststructuralism and deconstruction, I also think there are radical possibilities (and even something of a practical imperative) to be found in reconstructing metanarratives on a wider, more inclusive foundation, by weaving together the millions of personal narratives that structure our daily existences, as queer men, as masculine, as feminists, as people of color, as people with disabilities, etc. - that out of this melting pot or mosaic or what have you, certain patterns begin to emerge and it is these patterns that offer us an opportunity to write our own story, our own grand narrative and lend our movement direction, sweeping up the whole of humanity in its march forward. This is just a flowery way of suggesting that the problem lies not with these grand narratives, but with their exclusivity. I also thought your approach to forgiveness was refreshing. I think what I've found missing in some of the essays was a failure to question or seek forgiveness for our own transgressions against one another or understand our attackers. On the surface this doesn't sound very radical, until you realize that we ourselves are the attackers at times and that change begins with ourselves. Wow, that was a lot more than I was going to write. Anyway: Thank You!