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The Crucified Christ critiques what queer men consider
beautiful, as well. He challenges us to include in our
communities those who are queerer than us, especially in
their aesthetics. Would we have mourned for Matthew
Shepherd if he’d been plain looking? A person of color?
A flaming drag queen? Gimpy? Trans? Did we become aware
of him because the straight world thought he was “safe”
or “asexual” enough to make into a public figure, a sweet little homosexual?
Would we pay attention to
Christ, would some queer men be so erotically
fascinated, if he were hideously unattractive? Can we be
saved—would we want to be saved—by a “fugly”
Jesus?
I hasten to add that I often implicate myself in my own
questions. My best friend and former Significant Other is a bear, but I
fantasize about twinks and guys with a swimmer’s build. I tend
to be less attracted if guys look emaciated, though. I
got angry when Shepard was killed because I wished I
could have saved him, loved him, and had sex with him.
He reminded me of me, except without the Cerebral Palsy.
I, the gimpy who used to be insecure in his looks, have
rejected (with a sneer!) perfectly loveable men who
didn’t fit my physical “type.” Some open-minded queer boy
I am, asking others to see past my disability to meet
me when I can’t see past my own fantasies to meet
them!
To this day, I don’t fully understand why my ex is
so hot to me, but he is. How many of us have been cruel
to twinks, to bears, to flamers in drag, or to average
Joes who use the hated phrase “straight acting and looking”
without actually taking the time to fully
understand their stories? Doesn’t that mean we’re capable of
“crucifying” members of our own communities? Don’t we
see the patterns of such violence in ourselves?
Stopping oppression sickness, and the cycle of violence,
must include a key component: forgiveness. After all the
self-care, after all the talk-therapy, after all the
interventions and activist projects combating
oppression, this is the only way to release ourselves
and those who oppress us from the psychic and spiritual
wounding of our pasts. Are we ever fully aware of the
damage that we cause others or ourselves, even if we
have good reason to stay angry, bitter, or cynical?
Perhaps this is why Jesus claimed from the cross, “[My oppressors]
don’t know what they’re doing.”
When we can ask for mercy upon those who have bashed us
in the streets, who have inflicted so much pain upon us,
we have forgiven. When we stop excluding potential
partners on the basis of our fantasies and instead take
time to hear each other’s stories, then we are truly
welcoming and queer. When we stop treating each other as
meat, even during casual sex, and realise that we, with
our bodies, welcome people into queer community rather
than simply perform a transaction, we can stop being so
fucking mean and catty to each other. But living this
way doesn’t happen overnight—we need the confidence to
believe that such a world is possible. This is why we
can’t, as queer men, leave Jesus on his cross to die. We
need his resurrection, too.
The Resurrected Jesus
Luke 24:1-3, 9-11 (NRSV)
1 But
on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went
to the tomb, taking the spices [that] they had prepared.
2 And they found
the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but
when they went in they did not find the body. 9
[R]eturning from the tomb they told all this to the
eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was
Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James
and the other women with them who told this to the
apostles; 11 but these words seemed to
them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
I’ve struggled immensely with articulating why the
resurrection of Christ should be important to queer men
– even through four revisions, I still struggle to make
my words do what I intend them to without alienating
anyone either by rude dogmatism (baggage from my
fundamentalist background) or by waxing poetic and
theological (which Trevor Hoppe, my editor, is quick to
point out!). On the one hand, the resurrection of Jesus
is, for me, a tremendous source of hope; on the other
hand, speaking of the resurrection of Christ immediately
seems to mark one’s position in the “culture wars” of
the United States. If I believe in the literal, bodily
resurrection of Jesus, most likely I will be homophobic,
heterosexist, “conversionistic,” and non-pluralistic:
“Our God was raised from the dead; therefore, we’re
right, and therefore, you queers (Muslims,
Mormons, radical feminists, etc.) get to burn in hell.”
If I believe in the spiritual resurrection of
Christ, on the other hand, I might seem rational,
non-judgmental, and pluralist. After all, dead bodies
don’t actually rise, do they? Maybe there are many paths
to the heart of the Sacred, and Jesus is just one of
them – besides, we don’t want the fundamentalists to be
right about us!
I believe in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus[20]
for many reasons, but one of them sticks out for me: my
own body will someday be completely whole and free. Many
people want to construct many kinds of disability as
merely constructive differences: “You’re just
‘differently abled,’” they say. But the way I see it, my
brain is damaged, and the God I see in Jesus didn’t
curse me with Cerebral Palsy; neither will God leave me
this way forever. If I were in a crowd in the Gospels,
Jesus would have healed me, too, just like he healed
everyone else who came to him. I used to think, for
years, that Jesus would only heal me if I “repented” of
my "homosexual behaviour." But repeated experiences of
Christ’s welcome to me as a gay man—not to mention
intensive study of the Bible—convince me that I was wrong.
I look forward to the day when I can dance just as
fluidly and sexily as any hotshot bar-star, thank you
very much! If Jesus Christ has been resurrected bodily
from the dead and is still alive, that kind of world, a
world with no disability, no AIDS, no queer bashing, is
not only probable—it’s inevitable. As a Christian,
believing in the Christ that will give us that
kind of world gives me hope... (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!