Saints of Stonewall inspire LGBT justice -- and artists

“Stonewall Inn” by Trudie Barreras (Collection of Kittredge Cherry)

Queer people fought back against police harassment at New York City’s Stonewall Inn in June 1969, launching the modern LGBT liberation movement.

Their bold rebellion against government persecution of homosexuality is commemorated around the world during June as LGBT Pride Month. The Stonewall Uprising continues to inspire a variety of art that is featured here today.

The LGBT people who resisted police at the Stonewall Rebellion (also known as the Stonewall Riots) are not saints in the traditional sense. But they are honored here as “saints of Stonewall” because they dared to battle an unjust system. They do not represent religious faith -- they stand for faith in ourselves as LGBT people. They performed the miracle of transforming self-hatred into pride. These “saints” began a process in which self-hating individuals were galvanized into a cohesive community. Their saintly courage inspired a justice movement that is still growing stronger after four decades.

Before Stonewall, police regularly raided gay bars, where customers submitted willingly to arrest. A few acts of resistance pre-dated and paved the way for Stonewall, such as the 1967 demonstration at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles.

The Stonewall Inn catered to the poorest and most marginalized queer people: drag queens, transgenders, hustlers and homeless youth. Witnesses disagree about who was the first to defy the police raid in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. It was either a drag queen or a butch lesbian. Soon the crowd was pelting the officers with coins, bottles, bricks and the like. The police, caught by surprise, used nightsticks to beat some people before taking refuge in the bar itself. News of the uprising spread quickly. Hundreds gathered on the street and a riot-control police unit arrived. Violence continued as some chanted, “Gay power!”

“It was Beautiful” by Douglas Blanchard shows the Stonewall Rebellion

Oil on canvas, 24" x 36," 1999.

Drag queens started spontaneous kick lines facing the police with clubs and helmets. That dramatic moment is captured in the painting “It was Beautiful” by Douglas Blanchard. The drag queens met violence with defiant humor by singing,

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That night 13 people were arrested and some hospitalized. The streets were mostly cleared by 4 a.m., but a major confrontation with police happened again the next night, and protests continued on a smaller scale for a week.

A month later the Gay Liberation Front was formed, one of many LGBT rights organizations sparked by the saints of Stonewall. LGBT religious groups are indebted to the saints of Stonewall for our very existence.

Artists usually choose between two approaches when addressing the Stonewall Uprising. Some focus on the action in the past while others highlight the present-day Stonewall Inn, which is still in operation as a bar for the LGBT community.

Artists who recreate the past include Doug Blanchard, a gay New York artist who teaches art at City University of New York and is active in the Episcopal Church. “It was Beautiful” (pictured above) and other Stonewall paintings by Blanchard were shown at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center of New York in 1999. His series “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” has been featured here at the Jesus in Love Blog.

“The Battle of Stonewall - 1969” by Sandow Birk

California artist Sandow Birk put Stonewall history into heroic context in a big way. The oil paintings in his Stonewall series measure up to 10 feet wide. The crown jewel of the series is “The Battle of Stonewall - 1969.” It updates the classic painting “The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle - 1304” by 19th-century French artist Charles Philippe Lariviere. In both cases, the physically superior side attacked those who were considered weaker, but the underdogs won and gained their freedom. Birk replaces swords with police batons and turns national flags into “Gay Power” banners. The knight in shining armor is replaced by a drag queen in mascara and high heels. For more about Birk’s Stonewall series, see my previous post: Sandow Birk: Stonewall's LGBT history painted.

The location where history happened is emphasized in the colorful painting of the Stonewall Inn by Trudie Barreras at the top of this post. Barreras is a member of First Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta. Her art and writing on queer religious themes have appeared frequently here at the Jesus in Love Blog. She also does personalized pet portraits as “donation incentives” for Jesus in Love.

“Prostrations at the Holy Places and Veneration to Our Martyrs (Stonewall Pilgrimage)” by Tony O’Connell

British artist Tony O’Connell paid homage to the power of Stonewall by photographing his own personal pilgrimage to the historic site in New York City. He prayed with incense at the Stonewall Inn earlier this year as part of his a new series on LGBT pilgrimages, which he does as performances recorded in photos. He travels to places of importance in LGBT history, treating the trip as a pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint. For more about O’Connell’s pilgrimages and other art, see my previous post Tony O’Connell reclaims sainthood: Gay artist finds holiness in LGBT people and places.

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem and the Stonewall Riots happen in Station 8 from “Stations of the Cross: The Struggle For LGBT Equality” by Mary Button

Tennessee artist Mary Button weaves together the LGBT uprising at Stonewall with Christ’s journey to Calvary in Station 8 of her LGBT Stations of the Cross. She shows that a chain of oppression that stretches from the crucifixion of Christ to police harassment of LGBT people today, offering hope for resurrection. For more about Button’s Stations, see my previous post LGBT Stations of the Cross shows struggle for equality.

May the saints of Stonewall continue to inspire all who seek justice and equality!
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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, heroes and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Author discusses “Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love”: Will Roscoe interview

Gay anthropologist Will Roscoe gives new insights into the connections between Jesus and same-sex love in an interview today at the Jesus in Love Blog.

He discusses recent archeological discoveries related to the queer Christ and his own beliefs about Jesus. His groundbreaking book “Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love” is back in print with a new edition from Lethe Press.

Drawing on recently discovered ancient sources, the book makes a persuasive argument that gay love and mysticism form a hidden tradition in Christianity. It won a Lambda Literary Award in 2005 and the new edition includes updated material.

In the following interview with lesbian Christian author Kittredge Cherry, Roscoe offers his detailed response to the latest controversies over the Secret Gospel of Mark and his analysis of newly discovered archeological evidence related to the queer Christ, such as the Gospel of Judas and a bowl with an inscription about “Christ the magician.”

The interview below also includes his thoughts on the role of Jesus in his own life. He tells how he identifies with “the love of equals and sames that Jesus refers to again and again.” He even reveals a recent spiritual experience that he had while viewing the Infant Jesus of Prague statue on a trip to the Czech Republic.

Will Roscoe 2012
(photo by Cass Brayton)

Roscoe is one of the most important scholars in the areas of queer history, anthropology and spirituality, especially Native American two-spirit traditions. Based in California, he has been active in the gay movement since 1975, working with such pioneering leaders as Harvey Milk and Harry Hay.

Roscoe’s first book, “The Zuni Man-Woman,” received the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. His other books include “Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature” and “Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities.” Roscoe holds a Ph.D. in history of consciousness from the University of California in Santa Cruz and has taught anthropology and American Studies at various colleges and universities.

Lethe Press is an independent publisher specializing in titles of gay and lesbian interest, literary fiction, poetry, speculative fiction and science fiction.

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Kittredge Cherry: Based on all your research, what do you believe about the sexual orientation of Jesus? What role did same-sex love play in the Jesus movement during his lifetime?

Will Roscoe: I don’t think I believe anything about the sexual orientation of Jesus. There just isn’t evidence. We have no idea what a gay Jewish peasant man of that era would even look like. Anyway, I don’t think it’s worth the effort trying to argue that Jesus was gay—or had a sexual orientation all. The resistance to that will always be enormous.

But everywhere in the gospels Jesus extols a special, new idea about “love,” using an uncommon term for love in a new and special way—“agape.” This is the love that occurs between individuals who are equal, who are not sharply differentiated by social status or age or gender. It is God’s gift of loving and being loved unconditionally. And it is the love of equals and sames that Jesus refers to again and again when he seeks to explain agape, which he sharply counters to the prevailing social relationships of his time: the highly stratified Greco-Roman world and the patriarchal relationships between men, women, and children in Jewish tradition.

My sexual orientation is that of a gay man. Pursuing my desire for bonding sexually and emotionally with a man who is my equal has led to me to provide experiences of love, and made me witness to what Jesus holds up as the most important teaching he has given his disciples when he says, “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Had he said “one’s family,” “one’s kin,” “one’s priest,” or “one’s king,” I wouldn’t have known what he was talking about. But this I understand. My life—my gay life—attests the truth of it.

Kittredge Cherry: Important new scholarship on the Secret Gospel of Mark has been published since your book “Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love” was first published almost 10 years ago. How has this changed your understanding of Jesus and the shamanic same-sex tradition?

Will Roscoe: In my book, I described the storm of controversy that greeted publication of Morton Smith’s study of the letter he discovered at a desert monastery in Palestine in the late 1950s. But once the controversy subsided, I noted that a “strange silence” followed. At that time, in the early 2000s, there was still a dearth of research concerning this revolutionary text, even as a growing consensus among mainstream scholars had accepted its authenticity. Indeed, many scholars now go further than Smith did in Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark: not only is the letter genuinely Clement’s, the passage from an unknown Gospel of Mark that Clement quotes is likely written by the same author who wrote the canonical gospel as we know it.

It’s taken a generation, but now the silence is ending. A growing number of books and articles are undertaking the task of assessing the implications of this remarkable discovery—a fragment of gospel text older than, but missing from, the canonical version. The value of this simply can’t be overstated. It is a loose thread in the tightly woven narrative by which the churches cloak themselves in authority. If we tug on it hard enough, the emperor will soon be revealed to have no clothes. Here is definitive evidence that the gospels are the product of human handiwork and human agendas. Our sacred texts have been edited.

Growing numbers of New Testament scholars now challenge the distinction between canonical and noncanonical early Christian writings as arbitrary and ideologically motivated. I think the Secret Gospel tips the scales. And as this distinction crumbles, the body of evidence available for our inquiries into the history of early Christianity expands exponentially.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Because what is the picture of early Christianity that the Secret Gospel gives us a glimpse of? In fact, all of its elements and characters and imagery and story lines are familiar to us. It’s a version of the Lazarus story; it hints at esoteric teachings—and similar hints are peppered throughout the gospels, especially in Mark. But here all these tropes are brought together in a single short passage. And now what the hints are hinting at is undeniable—Jesus taught secretly things he only alluded to in public.

The Secret Gospel answers a longstanding, although seemingly minor mystery—the reference to the naked youth fleeing from Gethsemane. Now we know who he is (a youthful follower of Jesus) and what is going on (a nocturnal session in which Jesus taught “the mystery of the kingdom of heaven.”)

But the Secret Gospel also solves a larger mystery. How and when did the Christian rite of baptism originate? The gospels don’t provide an origin story for this distinctive practice of emergent Christianity. John even seems to deny that Jesus practiced baptism at all. Yet, it is a well-established practice, the source of important theological speculations and vivid allusions, in the writings of Paul. Where did it come from?

To me, the Secret Gospel is immediately relevant to this inquiry about the origins of baptism. But this remains controversial, and few have seriously pursued it. The most important new work on Smith’s discovery is substantially devoted to arguing against seeing anything in the Secret Gospel of Mark or Clement’s letter having to do with ritual, whether baptism or other.

I’m referring to Scott Brown’s Mark’s Other Gospel, published the same year as Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love (2005). Brown starts with an impressive argument for the authenticity of the Clement’s letter and the Markan authorship of the Secret Gospel. (“Secret Gospel” is Smith’s translation of Clement’s term mustikou euaggeliou, which Brown better translates as “mystical Gospel.” Brown, however, for reasons devolving from his agenda, prefers to call the text the “Longer Gospel of Mark.”) Brown thoroughly debunks two recent books which claimed that Smith forged these texts—and that the motivation for doing so was tied to the fact that he was homosexual. (Speculations that Smith was gay remain unconfirmed, but have been the subtext of thinly veiled homophobic criticisms of Smith throughout his career.)

Having laid these controversies to rest, Brown goes on to develop new evidence that the Secret Gospel was written by Mark, based on recent insights into Mark’s literary techniques. However, Brown devotes the bulk of his effort to debunking Smith’s interpretation of the “Longer Mark”: namely, that it provides evidence of a baptismal practice by Jesus. Brown is at great pains to deny that any such ritual interpretation of the text can be made. To do so, he must argue that Clement’s description of the origin, purpose, and meaning of the Secret Gospel, while seemingly permeated with allusions to mystical experience and esoteric beliefs, is purely metaphorical. He sums up his position this way: “This figurative use of mystery-religion language was standard in the writings of Alexandrian Jewish and Christian authors of this period and should not be taken to imply a cultic setting for readings of the longer text.”

I am not convinced. Of course, I was trained in graduate school in postmodern discourse theory, and one doesn’t need to make a special argument that any given text refers, not to a putative reality, but to…other texts. From the point of view of discourse theory all language is always metaphorical and figurative.

But I am also a student of anthropology and religious studies. I know that in all traditions myth and ritual are intimately connected, that rituals are enacted myths, and myths are instruction manuals—liturgies—for ritual. It would be an exception to these patterns to find myths, such as those told by Clement, Origen, and the Secret Gospel, employing ritual structures and weighted with symbols of ritual, to not to have had, at some point in their history, a relationship to ceremony—that is, to the performance and enactment, using gestures and symbols, of what myths tell. It seems to me that Clement and Origen are saying just this: these words ARE metaphoric and allegorical, allusive language for representing something that ultimately cannot be represented: experience. But these words are true and you should believe them because what they describe is something that can be and has been experienced.

So when I read the Secret Gospel, I see the undeniable outlines of a ritual structure: the rite of passage. It follows precisely the stages Arnold van Gennep identified in his famous work, The Rites of Passage. And we see this kind of structure and language in references to baptism throughout the early Christian period, in canonical and non-canonical texts. For me, there’s just too much evidence to ignore the conclusion that actual ritual practices and religious writings had a long and symbiotic relationship with each other: rituals enacting, preserving and transmitting myth; myth providing narratives that give ritual deeper meaning and resonance for those who undergo them.

And…in any case…even without evidence of a “cultic setting,” I’m mindful of a comment by Claude Levi-Strauss—where did I read it?—that myths are “thought rituals.” That is, the mental “performance” of a myth by reading it—that is, “thinking” it—or as Jung put it, “dreaming the myth onwards”—produces the psychological effects of performed ritual—which, as in all rites of passage, is nothing less than an experience of death, rebirth, and return, a passage from an old self to a new, higher state of being.

Aside from this recent scholarship, two new findings of primary evidence have occurred in the years since Jesus was first published. The painstakingly restored Gospel of Judas, released with much fanfare in 2006, provides a unique glimpse into the worldview of a marginal Christian community in the mid-second century C.E. The text mounts a withering critique of what is presumably the orthodox branch of the Christian movement at the time. And in the eyes of the Gospel of Judas, these Christians look remarkably like Paul’s opponents as I described in my book. They engage in mystical practices involving interactions with angels and stars, they are interested in astrology—and they are arsenokoitēs; queer if you will, using Paul’s idiosyncratic word which seems to refer to male prostitution or, perhaps, homosexuals generally. In fact, the Gospel of Judas is a distinctly Pauline text in its themes and language. All this is fully consistent with my argument in Jesus.

Paul’s opponents, it should be remembered, represented the church in Jerusalem and knew Jesus personally—claims Paul could not make.

A second fascinating discovery comes from the waters off Alexandria in Egypt. It is a bowl, roughly dated to the era during and after Jesus’ lifetime, inscribed with the phrase “by Christ the magician.” It appears to be an example of precisely the sort of bowl used in the magical procedures that Smith argues many early Christians engaged in—procedures which produced, among other things, an hallucinatory experience of ascending through the heavens.

I have articles on both these discoveries posted on my website at www.willsworld.org.

Kittredge Cherry: Are you Christian, Will?

Will Roscoe: Funny you should ask that. Officially, of course, no—as in HELL no. I am a feminist gay man who rejects patriarchal religions of the book, and I practice an alternative spirituality that derives its values from nature and from the life-creating and sustaining powers that women, especially embody. I am one of those fanatical ex-Catholics who can’t say enough bad things about the Church. You know, “whore of Babylon,” “legions of Pharisees,” and such.

I initially approached my work on Jesus as a student of religion, interested in diverse religious beliefs and practices, respectful of all heart-felt spiritual experience but viewing none as especially better than any other. But the more I engaged with the New Testament texts the more I thought, “This isn’t what they told me Jesus was about at all.” I kept having this uncanny sensation that I get this, I get this guy, I get what he’s saying about love. Not only does it resonate with my experience as a gay man; he tells me that my experiences are central to what this mission of love is about.

Infant Jesus of Prague
(Wikimedia Commons)

In April of this year I was in Prague. I visited the Church of Our Lady Victorious where the Infant Jesus of Prague “doll” is installed. Maybe I was tired after a long day of sightseeing. Maybe it was jet lag. I knelt and I prayed. The kneeling only lasted about a minute before the pain was too much. But I prayed for longer, and I asked for help for myself and friends I’m concerned about. I haven’t done that since I was a child. For years, I’ve practice a form of meditation, and I always assumed that if there was anything to praying, it was because it involved similar techniques to meditation. But I found that the experience involved something different than meditation, something I needed to do. That is, to invoke in my mind deity as I envision it, and then to talk to it like it was a friend who loved me unconditionally. Mind you, I was praying to a wax doll wearing a dress—the Infant Jesus, protector of women and children—not Jehovah. But it was a powerful experience.

So, no. I’m not Christian. But I guess I’m still a Catholic!

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This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing warrior-saint

Saint Joan of Arc by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM trinitystores.com

Joan of Arc was a tough cross-dressing teenage warrior who led the medieval French army to victory when she was 17. She is a queer icon, girl-power hero and patron saint of France. Her feast day is today (May 30).

Smart and courageous, Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431) had visions of saints and angels who told her to cut her hair, put on men’s clothes and go to war. At age 18 she helped crown a king and at 19 she was killed by the church that later made her a saint. She died for her God-given right to wear men’s clothing, the crime for which she was executed 581 years ago today.

Joan of Arc portrait, c. 1485
Wikimedia Commons

Contemporary LGBT people recognize a kindred spirit in her stubborn defiance of gender rules. Queer writers tend to downplay Joan’s Christian faith, while the church covers up the importance of her cross-dressing. In truth, Joan believed strongly in God AND in cross-dressing. She insisted that God wanted her to wear men’s clothes, making her what today is called “queer” or “transgender.” Cross-dressing was illegal, but what really upset the church authorities, then as now, was the audacity of someone being both proudly queer AND devoutly Christian. Her belief that God was the source of her gender-bending queerness makes her an especially inspiring role model for LGBT Christians and our allies.

Joan’s extraordinary life continues to fascinate all kinds of people. Many are eager to claim her as a symbol, from LGBT people and feminists to the Catholic Church and French nationalists. Joan is the subject of more than 10,000 books, plays, paintings and films, including recent works by transgender author Leslie Feinberg and lesbian playwright Carolyn Gage.

Gage’s one-woman show “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc” is an underground classic with Joan as “a cross-dressing, teenaged, runaway lesbian” confronting male-dominated institutions. Feinberg has a chapter on Joan as “a brilliant transgender peasant teenager leading an army of laborers into battle” in her history book “Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman.”

The extensive records of her trials by the Inquisition make Joan of Arc the best-documented person of 15th century. There are only hints that she may have been a lesbian, but the evidence is absolutely clear about her transgender expression as a cross-dresser.

Joan of Arc, also known as Jeanne d’Arc, was born to peasants in an obscure village in eastern France around 1412, toward the end of the Hundred Years War. Much of France was occupied by England, so that Charles, the heir to the French throne, did not dare to be crowned. When Joan was 13, she began hearing voices that told her to help France drive out the English.

The visions continued for years, becoming more detailed and frequent. Once or twice a week she had visions of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. They told her that God wanted her to meet Charles and lead an army to Reims for his coronation.

Joan’s family tried to convince her that her visions weren’t real, and her first attempt to visit the royal court was rejected. When she was 17 she put on male clothing and succeeded in meeting Charles. He agreed to outfit her as a knight and allowed her to lead a 5,000-man army against the English.

On Charles’ order, a full suit of armor was created to fit Joan. He had a banner made for her and assigned an entourage to help her: a squire, a page, two heralds, a chaplain and other servants.

Joan of Arc on Horseback, 1505
Wikimedia Commons

Joan’s appearance awed the soldiers and peasants when she traveled with the army. Mounted on a fine warhorse, she rode past cheering crowds in a suit of armor. Her hair was “cropped short and round in the fashion of young men.” She carried an ancient sword in one hand and her banner in the other. Her sword was found, as Joan predicted, buried at the church of St. Catherine at Fierbois. The banner showed Christ sitting on a rainbow against a background of white with gold lilies and the motto “Jhesus-Maria.” Legend says that white butterflies followed Joan wherever she rode with her banner unfurled.

With Joan leading the way, the army won the battle at Orleans and continued to defeat English and pro-English troops until they reached Reims. She proudly stood beside Charles VII at his coronation there on July 17, 1429.

Joan soon resumed leading military campaigns. Even during her lifetime the peasants adored her as a saint, flocking around her to touch her body or clothing. Her cross-dressing didn’t disturb them. In fact, they seemed to honor her for her transgender expression. Perhaps, as some scholars say, the peasants saw Joan as part of a tradition that linked transvestites and priests in pre-modern Europe.

One of the first modern writers to raise the possibility of Joan’s lesbianism was English author Vita Sackville-West. She implied that Joan was a lesbian in her 1936 biography “Saint Joan of Arc.” The primary source for this idea was the fact, documented in her trials, that Joan shared her bed with other girls and young women. She followed the medieval custom of lodging each night in a local home. Joan always slept with the hostess or the girls of the household instead of with the men.

Nobody knows for sure whether Joan of Arc was sexually attracted to women or had lesbian encounters, but her abstinence from sex with men is well documented. Her physical virginity was confirmed by official examinations at least twice during her lifetime. Joan herself liked to be called La Pucelle, French for “the Maid,” a nickname that emphasized her virginity. Witnesses at her trial testified that Joan was chaste rather than sexually active.

Joan’s illustrious military career ended in May 1430. She was captured in battle by the Burgundians, the French allies of the English. During her captivity they called her “hommase,” a slur meaning “man-woman” or “masculine woman.”

In a stunning betrayal, Charles VII did nothing to rescue the warrior who helped win him the crown. It was normal to pay ransom for the release of knights and nobles caught in battle, but he abandoned Joan to her fate. Historians speculate that French aristocrats felt threatened by the peasant girl with such uncanny power to move the masses.

The Burgundians transferred Joan to the English, who then gave her to the Inquisition. She spent four torturous months in prison before her church trial began on Jan. 9, 1431 in Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. She was charged with witchcraft and heresy.

The politically motivated church trial was rigged against her, and yet Joan was able to display her full intelligence as she answered the Inquisitors’ questions. Her subtle, witty answers and detailed memory even forced them to stop holding the trial in public.

Witchcraft was hard to prove, so the church dropped the charge. (Many of today’s Wiccans and pagans still honor Joan as one of their own.) The Inquisitors began to focus exclusively on the “heresy” of Joan’s claim that she was following God’s will when she dressed as a man. The judges told her that cross-dressing was “an abomination before God” according to church law and the Bible. (See Deuteronomy 22:5.)

They accused Joan of “leaving off the dress and clothing of the feminine sex, a thing contrary to divine law and abominable before God, and forbidden by all laws” and instead dressing in “clothing and armor such as is worn by man.”

Joan swore that God wanted her to wear men’s clothing. “For nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man’s dress; I must obey the orders of Our Lord,” she testified. She outraged the judges by continuing to appear in court wearing what they called “difformitate habitus” (“monstrous dress” or “degenerate apparel.”)

Today Joan’s conservative admirers claim that she wore men’s clothes only as way to avoid rape, but she said that it meant much more to her. Joan of Arc saw cross-dressing as a sacred duty.

The judges summarized Joan’s testimony by saying, “You have said that, by God’s command, you have continually worn man’s dress, wearing the short robe, doublet, and hose attached by points; that you have also worn your hair short, cut ‘en rond’ above your ears with nothing left that could show you to be a woman; and that on many occasions you received the Body of our Lord dressed in this fashion, although you have been frequently admonished to leave it off, which you have refused to do, saying that you would rather die than leave it off, save by God’s command.”

Joan refused to back down on the visions she received from God, and she was sentenced to death. She was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431 in Rouen. Twenty five years later she was retried and her conviction was overturned. Joan was declared innocent.

Her armor, that “monstrous dress,” became an object of veneration, sought after like the Holy Grail with various churches claiming to possess her true armor. Joan of Arc was canonized as a saint in 1920. Famous writers and composers who have done works about her include Shakespeare, Voltaire, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Mark Twain, Bertolt Brecht and George Bernard Shaw. A stunning portrait of Joan kissing her sword (below) was painted by Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose sister Christina Rossetti is also part of the LGBT Saints series here.

“Joan of Arc Kisses the Sword of Liberation” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1863 (WikiPaintings)

A widely used prayer to Saint Joan of Arc makes a powerful statement that can inspire those who believe in equality for LGBT people, despite rejection by religion and society:

“In the face of your enemies, in the face of harassment, ridicule, and doubt, you held firm in your faith. Even in your abandonment, alone and without friends, you held firm in your faith. Even as you faced your own mortality, you held firm in your faith. I pray that I may be as bold in my beliefs as you, St. Joan. I ask that you ride alongside me in my own battles. Help me be mindful that what is worthwhile can be won when I persist. Help me hold firm in my faith. Help me believe in my ability to act well and wisely. Amen.”

Don’t miss the video where Judy Collins sings “Joan of Arc.” Joan has a dialogue with the fire that is about to consume her in a haunting song written by award-winning Canandian songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen.



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Click for more info:
Wikipedia article on Cross-dressing, sexuality, and gender identity of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc trial transcript online

Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing martyr at Queering the Church Blog

Juana de Arco: El travestismo santa (Santos Queer)


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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, heroes and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Icons of Joan of Arc and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores

Hidden Perspectives interviews Kittredge Cherry on LGBT religious themes

Hidden Perspectives, a project for “bringing the Bible out of the closet,” posted a new interview with author Kittredge Cherry on interactions between LGBT people and religion.

“My Christian faith gave me the strength to come out as a lesbian almost 30 years ago,” Cherry says in the wide-ranging interview. “Later I learned that my journey was unusual. Many LGBT people start out feeling condemned as sinners by the church, and find liberation by rejecting religion. But I felt condemned by society and found liberation through the church. I could never imagine a God that didn’t totally love LGBT people.”

Artists, singers, poets, academics and storytellers will challenge homophobic assumptions about what the Bible says at the day-long Hidden Perspective Festival on Sat., June 1 at the University of Sheffield in England. Cherry wrote text for a booklet to accompany an exhibit of the LGBT Stations of the Cross paintings by Mary Button.

Hidden Perspectives is a large-scale pioneering public engagement project that aims to open up Bible interpretation to under-represented groups. The project is jointly organized by Katie Edwards, who teaches Bible studies at the University of Sheffield, and LaDIYfest Sheffield, a grassroots feminist collective.

Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author and art historian who writes about LGBT spirituality and the arts at the Jesus In Love Blog. She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its National Ecumenical Officer. Her books include “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus: Woman Christ, and More.”

Click here for Cherry’s full interview at HiddenPerspectives.org. Here is an excerpt:

Hidden Perspectives: Do you have a personal story about LGBT and Religion/The Bible?


Kittredge Cherry: My Christian faith gave me the strength to come out as a lesbian almost 30 years ago. I grew up mostly secular and did not believe in God. I hid my sexual orientation in the closet and lived a lie because I was afraid of the stigma and discrimination against homosexuality. My father’s death in 1983 led me to go an interdenominational church, where I experienced the reality of God reaching out personally to me with love. I got baptized and Christianity gave me a whole new way of looking at the world: I knew God loved me and created me as I am, so I could stop worrying about other people’s disapproval. Later I learned that my journey was unusual. Many LGBT people start out feeling condemned as sinners by the church, and find liberation by rejecting religion. But I felt condemned by society and found liberation through the church. I could never imagine a God that didn’t totally love LGBT people.

Hidden Perspectives: What do you wish to communicate through your blog?

Kittredge Cherry: I want the Jesus in Love Blog to communicate that God is madly in love with everyone -- including LGBT people and people who don’t believe in God. I am committed to presenting ideas in an impartial way that appeals to non-believers as well as people of faith. Because I grew up secular, I feel an affinity for atheists and for people who are alienated from the church. My blog speaks in a special way to people who are outside the official church, but still have spiritual needs. I also seek to nurture artists who are creating queer Christian images. These images are badly needed, but they face a lot of opposition from conservatives and almost no institutional support. Like me, they’re too queer for the church and too Christian for most LGBT people and allies. I thank God for places like Hidden Perspectives where LGBT interpretations of the Bible are welcome.

Click here for Cherry’s full interview at HiddenPerspectives.org.


Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Trinity Sunday: Holy Spirit blesses same-sex couple as Gay Passion of Christ series ends

24. The Trinity (from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision) by Douglas Blanchard

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”-- Luke 23:43 (RSV)

An angelic figure blesses a gay couple in “The Trinity,” the final, climactic image in Blanchard’s Passion of Christ. The painting can stand alone to affirm the holiness of gay couples, but it also serves as a meditation on the Christian Trinity: one God in three persons. Churches celebrate the concept on Trinity Sunday, which is today (May 26) this year.

The couple holds hands before a table set with milk, honey, and fruit -- references to the Promised Land. The man draped in red reaches toward out, coaxing the viewer to join them in the sunny garden. The winged woman in the golden robe is the same Holy Spirit who arrived in the previous painting. An arch in the background hints at the gate of heaven. Indeed viewers are welcome to imagine themselves seated in paradise with Christ as their bridegroom.

“The Trinity” shows how Jesus has been transformed by his experience of the Passion. He moved from the dark prison of the first painting to a bright land of promise, out of the closet, into the streets, and on to holy bliss. He completed the mythic hero’s journey: martyred and reborn with power to redeem the world. The painting can stand alone to affirm the goodness of same-sex couples, but it also serves as a foretaste of paradise and a meditation on the Christian Trinity: one God in three persons. The artist has said that he intended this image to be “a little glimpse of salvation, of the reward of the faithful.”

The Bible often says that Jesus will ascend to heaven and sit at the right hand of God. By that reckoning, the man in blue must be God, but he is not the usual Father figure of traditional Trinitarian imagery. He doesn’t look like “the Lord” and certainly not old enough to be Jesus’ father. In Blanchard’s universe, God’s identification with humanity is so complete that God and Jesus are identical young lovers in a mystic same-sex marriage, both sharing the same crucifixion wounds. Mission accomplished, they sit together side by side in radical equality. As the historical Christian creeds say, they are “of one substance” and “coeternal, and coequal.”

The Trinity concept is reinforced by the colors of their clothing. The red, blue, and yellow robes are the three primary colors that, when mixed, create the full spectrum of white light. Red, yellow, and blue flowers blossom around them. These are common, garden-variety plants: irises, geraniums -- and dandelions! Even weeds are welcome at the feet of Christ. Blanchard’s heaven is just not a faraway, immaterial afterlife, but an earthly garden in this present paradise. The natural setting and robes give it a timeless quality, but there are hints of contemporary life in the glass pitcher and honey jar. The man on the right wears a modern t-shirt under his blue robe.

The term “Trinity” is never used in the Bible, although it is implied in references to Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, who is often represented as female. Viewers will be forgiven for wondering which man is Jesus. Blanchard, who is so adept at painting individual faces, gives the same face to all three, even the female Holy Spirit. The artist does this on purpose to emphasize the three-in-one nature of God. BOTH men have haloes and marks of crucifixion on their wrists.

One clue to their identities comes from the way the figures direct their attention. The Holy Spirit and the man in blue focus on the man in red. Their body language suggests that he is Jesus, the center of this series, the one who just completed his heroic Passion journey. Like Christ in Blanchard’s first painting, the man in red gazes straight ahead, meeting the eyes of the viewer. His upper torso is naked, revealing the wound in his side and a radiant, muscular body. Surely this man is Jesus.

The holy gay wedding imagery is especially revolutionary because of its placement in Blanchard’s Passion sequence. After the Ascension and Pentecost, the final position in a Passion cycle normally goes to the Last Judgment. Traditional images show Jesus condemning sinners to hell and sending the righteous to heaven. Conservative Christians like to imagine homosexuals among the damned. But Blanchard rejects the crime-based model. Jesus and God are not on thrones nor do they judge anybody. Indeed Blanchard reverses the whole Christian view of history as presented by countless artists, including his acknowledged inspiration, Albrecht Durer. In his 16th-century Small Passion, Durer began with Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit and being expelled from Eden as punishment. He ended with the Last Judgment. By contrast Blanchard starts with punishment in prison, and then finds a way to paradise. He chose a prototype for this painting in a separate branch of art history: Andrei Rublev’s great Byzantine icon “Trinity,” which shows the three angels at Abraham’s table. Blanchard’s Passion concludes not with judgment, but with love as its crowning glory.

The symbolism of this image can be better understood in comparison with the first painting, “Son of Man with Job and Isaiah.” The opening picture also forms a kind of Trinity. The two paintings that start and end the series have a lot in common. Unlike the rest of the series, their titles are theological concepts. Both have interrupted the flow of time, mixing modern and ancient dress. Both show Jesus gazing directly into the eyes of the viewer. The first and last images are like brackets that enclose and uphold the events in Christ’s life.

A lot of LGBT people (and others) just plain like “The Trinity,” without seeing it as Christian at all. It was chosen to illustrate the concept of gay friendship on the cover of “White Crane Journal: Gay Wisdom and Culture” in summer 2007. Blanchard’s Trinity is queer in other ways. The whole concept of a three-in-one God with male and female aspects means that that God does not fit the standard “male” and “female” binary, but may be transgender, omnigender, or genderqueer. Most artists throughout history have not used couples to symbolize the joys of heaven, but some contemporary LGBT artists do. Both Blanchard and Swedish photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin envision same-sex pairs in the afterlife. Ohlson Wallin closes her “Ecce Homo” series with a vision of heaven in which Jesus and his boyfriend are surrounded by a crowd of loving lesbian and gay couples, all clad in white.

After progressing through the whole Passion series, viewers have witnessed God’s solidarity with humankind and seen the power of love to transcend personal suffering, human history, and even death itself. Preconceptions have been shaken by the encounter with Jesus, the wounded healer, the hated lover, the crucified creator, the liberator in chains, the all-too-human child of God. From this post-resurrection space, Christ has regained his complexity. The gay vision of Christ’s Passion leaves viewers with an invitation to rise to a new life where everyone can reach out to others with love as Jesus does. The painting ends the series as a visual benediction, encouraging viewers to carry the vision onward and live with passion in every sense of the word.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the realm of heaven.” -- -- Matthew 5:10 (Inclusive Language Lectionary)

What is the gay vision of heaven? The Holy Spirit inspires each person to see visions of God in his or her own way. Look, the Holy Spirit celebrates two men who love each other! She looks like an angel as She protects the male couple. Are the men Jesus and God? No names can fully express the omnigendered Trinity of Love, Lover, and Beloved… or Mind, Body, and Spirit. God is madly in love with everybody. God promises to lead people out of injustice and into a good land flowing with milk and honey. We can travel in the same paths where Jesus journeyed. Opening to the joy and pain of the world, we can experience all of creation as our body -- the body of Christ. As queer as it sounds, we can create our own land of milk and honey. As Jesus often said, heaven is among us and within us. Now that we have seen a gay vision of Christ’s Passion, we are free to move forward with passion.

Jesus, thank you for giving me a new vision!

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Related links:

Celebrate the Feast of the (Queer) Holy Trinity (Queering the Church)

The Genderqueer Trinity (Queering the Church)

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This is part of a series based on “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision,” a set of 24 paintings by Douglas Blanchard, with text by Kittredge Cherry. For the whole series, click here.

Scripture quotations are from the Inclusive Language Lectionary, copyright © 1985-88 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.