21. Jesus Appears to His Friends (Gay Passion of Christ series)

21. Jesus Appears to His Friends (from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision) by Douglas Blanchard

“And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see.’” -- Luke 24:38-39 (RSV)

Jesus’ friends were hiding together, afraid of the authorities who killed their beloved leader. The doors were shut, but somehow Jesus got inside and stood among them. They couldn’t believe it! He urged them to touch him, and even invited them to inspect the wounds from his crucifixion. As they felt his warm skin, their doubts and fears turned into joy. Jesus liked touch. He often touched people in order to heal them, and he let people touch him. He defied taboos and allowed himself to be touched by women and people with diseases. He understood human sexuality, befriending prostitutes and other sexual outcasts. LGBT sometimes hide themselves in closets of shame, but Jesus wasn’t like that. He was pleased with own human body, even after it was wounded.

Jesus, can I really touch you?
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Next: 22. Jesus Returns to God


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. 

Click to go to the beginning
or view the whole series.

Scripture quotation is from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Queer disciples in the Bible?

Detail from “The Last Supper” by Becki Jayne Harrelson, beckijayne.com

“Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark’s Male Disciples” by New Zealand theologian Robert J. Myles was published recently in a scholarly journal.

The article appears in the June issue of “The Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality,” an online scholarly, peer-reviewed journal.

Myles, a graduate student in the School of Theology at the University of Auckland, challenges the assumption of heterosexuality in the Bible and tries to liberate the scriptures from sex-negative misinterpretations. He does this by purposely rereading three Gospel stories in sexual (and homosexual) ways.

For example, he gives a homoerotic twist to the call of the disciples (Mark 1:16-20): “While cruising the seashores of Galilee, Jesus began his ministry by fetching a number of seemingly attached men to join his cohort of male admirers….Upon enticing them, they immediately left their father and their livelihood, to elope with the alluring Jesus.”

The article also offers queer versions of two other stories. Myles reexamines the disciples’ argument about “who is greatest” (Mark 9:33-37) in light of the male obsession with penis size. Then he looks at the arrest of Jesus (Mark 14:43-52) by focusing on “the erotic texture of the betraying embrace” -- the scandalous kiss between two men, Judas and Jesus -- and the possibility that the mysterious naked youth in the story was a prostitute.

Myles is not trying to prove that the historical disciples were gay, but instead to present queer disciples as one valid possibility. “The ultimate goal is for the reconstruction of the biblical text in order that it is a redeeming text for all, rather than just redeeming for some,” he states in the conclusion. By liberating the scriptures with his queer approach, Myles hopes that the Bible may continue to liberate its readers.

Throughout the article, Myles uses a method of queer and gender criticism pioneered by theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid, author of “The Queer God” and “Indecent Theology.”

Myles admits that “the queer imagination deliberately transgresses normalcy in order to destabilize.” But there’s a reason for it. He sums up the purpose -- and the human condition -- with eloquent clarity: “Normalcy, as an ideological means of control, obscures our perception of reality.”

The full article is available online at:
http://www.jmmsweb.org/issues/volume4/number2/pp66-81
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The image above is a detail from “The Last Supper” by Becki Jayne Harrelson, an Atlanta artist who challenges mainstream religious beliefs via art. The painting is a tribute to Da Vinci and Caravaggio, but Harrelson’s multiracial version includes a drag king in the background! All Harrelson’s models are LGBT people in real life.