Saints Perpetua and Felicity were brave North African woman friends who were killed for their Christian faith in the third century. Their feast day is March 7.
The details of their imprisonment are known because Perpetua kept a journal, the first known written document by a woman in Christian history. In fact, her "Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions” was so revered in North Africa that St. Augustine warned people not to treat it like the Bible. People loved the story of the two women comforting each other in jail and giving each other the kiss of peace as they met their end. Their names are familiar to Catholics because Perpetua and Felicity are included in the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass.
Perpetua was a 22-year-old noblewoman and a nursing mother. Felicity, her slave, gave birth to a daughter while they were in prison. Although she was married, Perpetua does not mention having a husband in the narrative.
They were arrested for their Christian faith, imprisoned together, and held onto each other in the amphitheater at Carthage shortly before their execution on March 7, 203.
The icon of Perpetua and Felicity at the top of this post was painted by Brother Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his progressive icons. It is rare to see an icon about the love between women, especially two African women. The rich reds and heart-shaped double-halo make it look like a holy Valentine.
Felicity and Perpetua by Jim Ru
Artist Jim Ru was inspired to paint Felicity and Perpetua as a kissing couple. His version was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.
Perpetua and Felicity are still revered both inside and outside the church. For example, they are named together in the Roman Canon of the Mass. They are often included in lists of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender saints because they demonstrate the power of love between two women. Their lives are the subject of several recent historical novels, including “Perpetua: A Bride, A Martyr, A Passion” by Amy Peterson and “The Bronze Ladder” by Malcolm Lyon.
I also recommend the 19th-century painting “The Victory of Faith” by St. George Hare. He paints a beautiful romanticized vision of what Perpetua and Felicity might have looked like as an inter-racial couple sleeping together nude in prison. Click here to see it at its home in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.
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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints 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.
March is Women's History Month, so women will be especially highlighted this month at the Jesus in Love Blog.
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Icons of Perpetua and Felicity and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores
Holy women icons, including some lesbians, are painted in a lively contemporary style by the multi-talented Angela Yarber: artist, scholar, dancer and minister based in North Carolina.
“It is long overdue for LGBT persons to be affirmed and told their lives, bodies, and beings are holy and beloved,” she explains.
Voluptuous, vibrantly alive and life-giving women dance through her paintings. She sees her art as a “redemptive act” because it highlights people whose stories are rarely heard and affirms their alternative forms of holiness.
Yarber is the pastor for Preaching and Worship at Wake Forest Baptist Church at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. She has a PhD in art and religion from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and is author of Embodying the Feminine in the Dances of the World's Religions. Yarber has been a professional dancer, artist, and clergywoman since 1999.
(UPDATE: Yarber's book "Holy Women Icons" was published in spring 2016 with nearly 50 color images of her folk feminist icons, along with accompanying articles about the women portrayed. “Holy Women Icons Contemplative Coloring Book” was published in 2016.)
In 2010 she began painting an ongoing series titled “Holy Women: Icons.” It includes lesbians such as Sappho, Mary Daly and the Shulamite -- plus a wide variety of historical, Biblical, literary and mythological women. Most are uncanonized by the church, but Yarber’s paintbrush consecrates them to become unconventional saints whose lives inspire people with new models of holiness.
Her artistic style combines swirling patterns reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” with scintillating dots and hearts. Like Sister Corita Kent, she uses text as a visual element to reinforce her artistic statement.
Yarber discusses her life and work in the following interview with Kittredge Cherry, art historian and author of the Jesus in Love Blog.
Kittredge Cherry: Why did you decide to do the “Holy Women: Icons” series?
Angela Yarber: I was serving as Associate Pastor of Arts and Education at Shell Ridge Community Church in Walnut Creek, CA (2006-2010) while I was finishing my PhD in Berkeley. One of my responsibilities was curating our gallery space. I rotated shows between individual artists and group projects so that the entire congregation could be involved. Our 2010 Lenten theme was “The Many Faces of Jesus” and the gallery was going to host an array of triptychs. I was commissioned to create one triptych and opted to paint Sophia on three canvases. As I worked on the painting, I was also contemplating what I would personally do during Lent (give up chocolate, take on a new piece of choreography, etc). As I created Sophia as a triptych icon, I decided to take on painting more holy women as icons as a Lenten discipline. So, I brainstormed a list of women, created templates, and chose 6 of them to paint during the Lenten season (one each week). After that I was hooked and couldn’t stop creating icons. For my first exhibition of these icons (summer 2010), I opted to name the show “Holy Women: Icons.” I still have many more women I want to create, so I see it as a life-long project.
(Text: “Because she looked into the eyes of fragile humanity and saw the face of Jesus, her heart shattered at the sight of oppression and injustice…so she committed herself to a lifetime of picking up the broken pieces by standing for peace and dancing for justice…And now when she looks into the mirror, she sees the face of Jesus once again.”
KC: How did you choose the particular women in the series?
AY: Some of them are women in my life that are particularly important to me, such as my partner, my mother, or my aunt. Others are women, dancers, scholars, artists, and historical, mythical, or biblical figures whose lives or stories have been influential in my life. A few are commissioned works for friends, students, and colleagues during special life events, such as an ordination, calling, or graduation. All of them would be considered feminists in some way or another.
AY: As a sexual minority, I live in world where some of my rights are denied. Whether it is LGBT youth who are not protected from bullying, couples who cannot file for joint adoption, students who are not permitted to learn about their own LGBT history in school, couples who are not afforded the thousands of government privileges of straight married couples, or individuals who risk being fired from their jobs simply because of their sexual orientation, there are countless LGBT voices that are not being heard.
I am a strong believer in the sentiment: “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.” It is for this reason that I am a preacher. It is for this reason that I earned a PhD. It is for this reason that I paint. I do these things because of the myriad LGBT persons who have never seen a preacher who was one of them, a scholar who was one of them, or a painting that depicted them.
Also, as a scholar and artist I think it is past time for feminist and queer theory to work together. My art is one way I put these theories into practice. It is my way of giving voice to persons and communities whose stories are rarely heard. In Saved From Silence Finding Women's Voice in Preaching, Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson propose that “When a person who has been oppressed and silenced stands and speaks, that person experiences redemption.” By painting these women—many of whom are lesbian or queer—and calling them “holy,” it is my hope that I am contributing to their redemption and to the redemption of the LGBT community. In these ways, I see my paintings, much like my preaching, as a redemptive act.
KC: Who is the Shulamite (pictured above) and what does she have to do with queer sexuality?
AY: The Shulamite is a dancer in Song of Songs 7, which says in part, “How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter. The curves of your (quivering) thighs like jewels crafted by artist hands.” I first discovered her when a dance historian mentioned her dance as a form of bellydance. This passing reference led me to translate, exegete, and publish an article about the Shulamite’s bellydance called “Undulating the Holy.” Since bellydance is historically a dance performed by women in the context women, men were rarely permitted to witness bellydance. In other words, it would be an anachronism to propose that the lover doting upon the Shulamite was male. Additionally, many of the women in all female harems performed bellydance and engaged in same-sex relations with other women in the harems. Consequently, the queer history of bellydance, combined with the absence of male pronouns in the poem describing the Shulamite in Song of Songs 7 led me to conclude that the Shulamite’s lover was likely another female.
What is more, the idea of homo and heterosexuality are not transhistorical essences, but instead are relatively recent socio-historical constructs. To say that there were strict sexual binaries in the ancient world in which the Shulamite lived would also be an anachronism. Sexuality was much more fluid. This dance and the poem describing the Shulamite are also very affirming of the female body. In these ways, the Shulamite is holy and empowering not just for women in general, but also for lesbians in particular.
KC: It’s a delightful surprise to see lesbian poet Sappho among your “Holy Women.” She’s not usually known for her holiness, so why did you choose to include her?
AY: I created a Sappho icon for the same reasons I mentioned earlier: if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. It is long overdue for LGBT persons to be affirmed and told their lives, bodies, and beings are holy and beloved. Painting Sappho, in all her beautiful and bodily wisdom, was my way of affirming and redeeming the love and life she represents. There are many ways to be holy. Her life and poetry is an example of this.
KC: Feminist philosopher Mary Daly is an especially unusual and inspired choice for an icon. How did your Mary Daly icon come into being? Daly wanted to replace the “masochistic martyrs of sadospiritual religion” in traditional hagiography with “Hag-ography” -- writing/living the real history of women. How does your “Holy Women” series relate to her vision of Hag-ography?
AY: I have a very distinct memory of my first encounter with Mary Daly. I’d learned about her in college and at first I just wasn’t ready for her radical philosophy; it scared me. The more I learned and grew in my understanding of feminism, however, the more I grew to love Mary Daly. Her Amazon Grace, The Church and the Second Sex, and Beyond God the Father were pivotal in my own formation as a scholar, activist, and preacher.
But I first encountered Daly when I attended the American Academy of Religion in Philadelphia in 2005. She was wearing green sweat pants and what looked like house slippers; she took one look at the table for panelists and the rows of chairs and scoffed. She announced that she and the panel wouldn’t use the table and we would put all the chairs in a circle for a more egalitarian discussion. It was both hilarious and meaningful at the same time.
I know that her work is not without its faults. She has a tendency to essentialize and sometimes ignores or sweeps over the voices of women of color. Because I created her as an icon does not mean I think she’s perfect or that I agree with everything she’s ever said or done. But she passed away at the beginning of 2010 when I started the Holy Women Icons project and her influence on my work kept coming to the forefront of my mind. So, I decided that she was a holy woman and deserved a painting in her honor.
There are other radical feminist and womanist scholars that I hope to create in the future. One example is Marcella Althaus-Reid.
KC: The historical Jesus was male, so why did you create a female Christ figure in your triptych “Sophia”?
AY: In Jacquelyn Grant’s White Women's Christ and Black Women's Jesus, she states, “It is my claim that there is a direct relationship between our perception of Jesus Christ and our perception of ourselves.” Many feminist and womanist theologians speak of how Jesus was male, but that the Christ could be female. Jesus was born into a particular socio-historical context. That context was patriarchal and androcentric; a woman’s voice was not valued. The message of Christ—inclusion, justice, peace, welcome, liberation, compassion, love—would not have been heard if it was proclaimed by a female during that time.
Since Sophia is the feminine Greek word for wisdom and often ascribed to the Christ by feminist and womanist theologians, I felt that painting Sophia-Christ-Wisdom was an appropriate embodiment of the theme, “The Many Faces of Jesus” that began this project. Additionally, the church has used the maleness of Jesus to oppress and silence women for centuries. Looking at an image of Christ and seeing yourself in that image (both as a woman and in the broken pieces of mirror that bear your reflection) is empowering. It emboldens us to be the presence of Christ in the world.
KC: How do viewers respond to your “Holy Women: Icons”? Was there any controversy or censorship?
AY: To my knowledge there has not been any major controversy or censorship. That is probably because of the supportive galleries where it was shown, though. My next showing will be at Gaia, a local shop in Winston-Salem, NC starting in April. Since Gaia is the name of the Earth Goddess and it’s a feminist and earth-friendly store, I’m not too worried about controversy there.
Viewers have responded in a myriad of ways. The primary response from people who do not know me is that they ask the gallery owners, “Is the artist an older black woman?” I absolutely love this! I’m actually a 30-something white woman. But I desire so much to be an anti-racist ally and to constantly be aware of my own white privilege. Many of my icons are women of color. Many are also biblical or mythological figures that are traditionally depicted as white in Renaissance paintings, but I find this likely inaccurate due to their historical locations. If our perception of these holy women impacts our perception of ourselves, it’s important for the holy women to portray that beautiful rainbow of diversity of our world. Holy women come in every color, shape, size, and from a diversity of religions. They aren’t just straight, white Christians.
Another common response is to ask about the hearts and the hair of the icons. The heart of each holy woman is essential. The idea of the giant hearts came from the sermon preached by Baby Suggs, holy, in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. She admonishes hearers to love their flesh and all their inside parts, but “more than these, love your heart,” she told them, “for this is the prize.” And the wild hair comes from the idea of Dionysian and Bacchanalian abandon where women are so filled with enthusiasm (literally meaning “having God within oneself” in Greek) that they wave their hair in wild abandon.
KC: Your website describes you as “unapologetically Baptist and unabashedly feminist.” It’s rare to find openly lesbian ministers in the Baptist church (or any church!). Were you raised Baptist? Why is it important for you to be in the Baptist church?
AY: I was not raised Baptist or in any particular religious tradition. I learned about Baptists in a church history course during college. The more I learned about historic Baptist principles—separation of church and state, the priesthood of all persons, local church autonomy, soul freedom—the more I realized that the core Baptist distinctives aligned with feminism. Baptists do not ascribe to any form of hierarchal structure that dictates beliefs or practices. Each individual is free to discern what to believe. And each local church is free to determine where they stand. It is for this reason that we see such extreme versions of Baptists in the media.
With churches like Westboro Baptist Church engaging in the most homophobic, anti-Christian, bigoted behavior, one would wonder why anyone would want to be Baptist! But their “church” isn’t affiliated with any Baptist organization. Because of Baptist polity, no hierarchy can tell them, “stop calling yourself Baptists; you’re giving us a bad reputation and you’re acting like jerks!” In the same way, no hierarchy can tell Wake Forest Baptist Church (where I am pastor) not to be the only Baptist church in the country with two lesbians as head pastors. We are each autonomous.
Wake Forest Baptist Church and I are affiliated with three welcoming and affirming Baptist organizations: the Alliance of Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.
Historically, Baptists were complete radicals. They were inclusive. They challenged the status quo. I’m proud to be a part of this radical and inclusive tradition along with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Alvin Ailey, Peter Gomes, and Jimmy Carter.
KC: Have you done any other paintings of special interest to LGBT people?
AY: In addition to the Holy Women you’ve displayed here (Sappho, Sophia, Mary Daly, and the Shulamite), I’ve also painted others that are LGBT. Isadora Duncan had female lovers and she is one of my icons. I’ve also been commissioned to paint other icons for some of my LGBT friends or colleagues for their ordinations.
And I’m hoping to continue and expand this Holy Women Icons project by painting the icons on old doors. One side of the door would be the icon as I currently have them on canvas and the other side of the door would include more written information about the particular woman. Ideally, I’d like door frames to hold each icon so that viewers can physically walk through the door, a metaphorical doorway to divinity, if you will. Doing this is a big (and likely expensive) project though! I’ll probably need to research and find a grant in order to complete it.
KC: Female Christ figures are close to my heart and I wrote about them in my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.” Your Sophia moves me deeply with Her heart made of broken mirrors and your powerful text. How do the words connect to your own life, art and ministry?
AY: Yes, I love your book Art That Dares! The words certainly connect to my own life, art, and ministry. Since Sophia was my first official icon the text was much longer than on the rest, but I still find it fitting. When it was in the Lenten triptych show I had a couple in the congregation approach me and tell me that when they saw Sophia they saw me and all that I stand for. That was probably one of the greatest compliments I’ve received in my art and ministry!
The texts on all the icons embody who I want to be, but more than any of them Sophia is an embodiment of my calling as a woman, lesbian, artist, scholar, and preacher. It’s not descriptive so much as it is constructive. The words are constructing who I want to be in this world; painting and writing them is one step in the process of fulfilling and actualizing them.
(UPDATE in 2013: Yarber's book "The Gendered Pulpit" was published in spring 2013. t is divided into four sections—gender, sexuality, dance, and disorder—and the author’s entry point is personal narrative. She uses her experience as a lesbian Baptist minister, artist and scholar to provide theological reflections and practical methods for including women and LGBTQ people in worship and preaching.)
For more on Angela Yarber, watch the video below and visit her website www.angelayarber.com. People can purchase or commission her paintings by contacting her through her website.
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This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery.
March is Women's History Month, so women will be especially highlighted this month at the Jesus in Love Blog.
“The Rev. Peter Gomes, of Plymouth, 1942 – 2011” by Jon Dorn
Peter Gomes was a gay black Baptist minister at Harvard and one of America’s most prominent spiritual voices for tolerance. He used his national celebrity as a “gay minister” to make the religious case for LGBT people, even though he reportedly disliked the label. He died at age 68 on this date (Feb. 28, 2011).
A man of many contradictions, Gomes became a Democrat in 2007 after decades as a conservative Republican. He even gave the benediction at President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985 and preached at the National Cathedral for the inauguration of Reagan’s successor, George Bush.
Gomes (May 22, 1942 - Feb. 28, 2011) was born in Boston to a black African immigrant father and a mother from Boston’s African American upper middle class. He grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He studied at Bates College (where a chapel was named after him in 2012) , earned a divinity degree at Harvard University, and taught Western civilization at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for two years before returning to work at Harvard in 1970. Four years later he became the first black person to serve as chief minister to Harvard. He held the positions of Pusey minister at Harvard’s Memorial Church and Plummer professor of Christian morals for the rest of his life.
He came out publicly as “a Christian who happens as well to be gay” at a student rally in 1991 after a conservative student magazine at Harvard published a condemnation of homosexuality. “I now have an unambiguous vocation -- a mission -- to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia,” he later told the Washington Post. “I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the 'religious case' against gays.”
Among Gomes’s many admirers is artist Jon Dorn, who drew the portrait at the top of this post. Dorn is a cartoonist, filmmaker, and Master of Fine Arts student at Emerson College in Boston. He also serves on the Plymouth Cultural Council.
A musical tribute to Gomes is “I Beseech You Therefore, Brethren” by composer Craig Phillips, music director at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills. It was originally commissioned by members of Harvard’s Class of 1978 to celebrate Gomes' retirement, but he died before its premiere so it was sung at his memorial. The anthem has become a memorial to Gomes' legacy. It is included on the 2014 album “Spring Bursts Today: A Celebration of Eastertide” by Harvard University Choir. Gomes himself selected the text, which was one of his favorite scriptures:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:1–2)
Gomes’ blend of scholarship, wisdom and accessibility is expressed in a few selected quotations:
“Hell is being defined by your circumstances, and believing that definition.” -- Peter Gomes
“To some, the temporal triumph of the Christian community in the world is a sign of God's favor and the essential righteousness of the Christian position. The irony of the matter, though, is that whenever the Christian community gains worldly power, it nearly always loses its capacity to be the critic of the power and influence it so readily brokers.” --Peter J. Gomes in The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
“The battle for the Bible, of which homosexuality is the last front, is really the battle for the prevailing culture, of which the Bible itself is a mere trophy and icon. Such a cadre of cultural conservatives would rather defend their ideology in the name of the authority of scripture than concede that their self-serving reading of that scripture might just be wrong, and that both the Bible and the God who inspires it may be more gracious, just and inclusive than they can presently afford to be.” -- Peter Gomes in The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
My “Jesus in Love” novels are available as e-books on Kindle starting this month -- just in time for Lent.
The two novels present a fictional autobiography of a queer Christ. They can still be purchased in paperback format too.
“Jesus in Love” covers Christ’s early ministry while “At the Cross,” the sequel, explores the dramatic events of his Last Supper, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. Many people have enjoyed reading “At the Cross” during Lent, the season of reflection leading up to Easter.
In both of my novels Jesus, the narrator, blends male and female as he does humanity and divinity. The gender-blind, gender-bending Jesus falls in love with people of both sexes -- and with the Holy Spirit -- in these lyrical novels of spiritual and sexual awakening. He has today’s queer sensibilities and psychological sophistication as he lives out the Christian story in first-century Palestine. He transcends gender identity, sexual orientation, and ultimately death itself.
I don’t have my own Kindle ebook reader yet, so I can’t check them out myself. I would love to hear from others about how my books look in ebook format. Let me know if you find any glitches and I will ask my publisher to correct them. Please review the book for Amazon.com too.
The price for Kindles recently dropped as low as $79, so I added the Kindle to my wish list.
Excerpts from “At the Cross” by Kittredge Cherry are available online in a Holy Week series. The Jesus in Love Blog is offered on Kindle too.
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Today on Ash Wednesday queer martyrs rise from the ashes as we recall the thousands who were executed for homosexuality throughout history.
This is not just a historical issue. The death penalty for homosexuality continues today in 10 countries (Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, and United Arab Emirates).
Christians traditionally put ashes on their foreheads as a sign of repentance on Ash Wednesday. It is an appropriate time to reflect on the sins of the church and state against queer people, including the burning of “sodomites” and thousands of executions for homosexuality over the past 800 years.
Some of the executions for sodomy were recorded by artists, either long ago or in recent times. This post features images, both new and historical, to remember and honor those whose lives were desecrated and cut short.
The whole sad history of church- or state-sanctioned executions of queer people stretches from the 13th century almost to the present. For the first 1,000 years of church history, Christianity was relatively tolerant of homoerotic relationships.
Then came campaigns of terror that started to use the terms “heresy” and “sodomy” interchangeably. Eventually hostility began to be directed at same-sex erotic behavior in particular. Terence Weldon of Queering the Church discusses the fateful period when the atrocities began in a well researched overview titled “Lest We Forget: The Ashes of Our Martyrs”:
In 1120, the Church Council of Nablus specified burning at the stake for homosexual acts. Although this penalty may not immediately have been applied, other harsh condemnations followed rapidly. In 1212, the death penalty for sodomy was specified in in France. Before long the execution of supposed “sodomites”, often by burning at the stake, but also by other harsh means, had become regular practice in many areas.
The church contributed to the deaths of thousands for homosexuality over the next 700 years. Witch burning occurred in the same period and claimed the lives of countless lesbian women whose non-conformity was condemned as witchcraft. (Current events in Uganda and elsewhere prove that some are STILL using Christianity to justify the death penalty for homosexuality up to the present day.) As Weldon concludes:
Obviously, the Catholic Church cannot be held directly responsible for the judicial sentences handed down by secular authorities in Protestant countries. It can, however, be held responsible for its part in fanning the flames of bigotry and hatred in the early part of the persecution, using the cloak of religion to provide cover for what was in reality based not on Scripture or the teaching of the early Church, but on simple intolerance and greed.
It is important as gay men, lesbians and transgendered that we remember the examples of the many who have in earlier times been honoured by the Church as saints or martyrs for the faith. It is also important that we remember the example of the many thousands who have been martyred by the churches – Catholic and other.
Sodomy is often considered a male issue, but the facts of history make clear that queer women were persecuted under sodomy laws too. The meaning of sodomy has changed a lot over the centuries. The “sin of Sodom” in the Bible was described as arrogance and failure to care for travelers and the poor.
“Catharina Margaretha Linck, executed for sodomy in Halberstadt in 1721” by Elke R. Steiner. Steiner’s work is based on Angela Steidele’s book "In Männerkleidern. Das verwegene Leben der Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagrantinus Rosenstengel, hingerichtet 1721." Biographie und Dokumentation. Cologne: Böhlau, 2004. ("In Men's Clothes: The Daring Life of Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Rosenstengel, Executed 1721.")
German artist Elke R. Steiner illustrates the last known execution for lesbianism in Europe. Born in 1694, Catharina Margaretha Linck lived most of her life as a man under the name Anastasius. She was beheaded for sodomy on Nov. 8, 1721 in Halberstadt in present-day Germany. Linck worked at various times as a soldier, textile worker and a wandering prophet with the Pietists. She married a woman in 1717. Her mother-in-law reported her to authorities, who convicted her of sodomy with a "lifeless instrument," wearing men's clothes and multiple baptisms. The subject is grim, but Steiner adds an empowering statement: “But even were I to be done away with, those who are like me would remain.”
Genderqueer Boston artist Ria Brodell portrays Linck and several other historical women who were killed for sodomy in her “Butch Heroes” series. They include Katherina Hetzeldorfer of Germany, drowned in 1477 for female sodomy, and Lisbetha Olsdotter aka Mats Ersson of Sweden, who was decapitated in 1679 for cross-dressing and other crimes.
“The Shameful End of Bishop Atherton and his Proctor John Childe,” hanged for sodomy in 1641 in Dublin (Wikimedia Commons)
John Atherton, Anglican bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and his lover John Childe were hanged for “buggery” in 1640 in Dublin, Ireland. The bishop was executed under a law that he helped to institute! The picture comes from an anonymous 1641 booklet titled “The Shameful End of Bishop Atherton and his Proctor John Childe.” The title tries to shame and blame the victims, but the shame belongs to the church and society who killed them for who and how they loved.
Balboa executing two-spirit Native Americans for homosexuality in 1513 in Panama -- engraving by Théodore De Bry, 1594 (Wikimedia Commons).
The Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa found homosexual activity among the Native American chiefs at Quarqua in Panama. He ordered 40 of these two-spirited people thrown to his war dogs to be torn apart and eaten alive to stop the “stinking abomination.” Executions for homosexuality continued during the “Mexican Inquisition,” an extension of the Spanish Inquisition into the New World. In one of the most notorious examples, 14 men were executed by public burning on Nov. 6, 1658 in Mexico City.
The knight of Hohenberg and his servant, accused of sodomy, were executed by burning in Zürich in 1482. (Wikimedia Commons)
The knight of Hohenberg and his servant, accused sodomites, were executed by burning before the walls of Zurich, Switzerland in 1482. Source: Diebold Schilling, Chronik der Burgunderkriege, Schweizer Bilderchronik, Band 3, um 1483 (Zürich, Zentralbibliothek)
Execution of sodomites in Ghent in 1578 -- drawing by Franz Hogenberg (Wikimedia Commons)
Five Catholic monks were burned to death for homosexuality on June 28, 1578, in Ghent, Belguim.
"Timely Punishment..." shows Dutch massacre of sodomites in Amsterdam in 1730-31 (Wikimedia Commons)
A total of 96 gay men were executed for sodomy in the Netherlands years 1730-31.
More recent examples include the Holocaust or "homocaust" of persecution by the Nazis, who sent an estimated 5,000 to 60,000 to concentration camps for homosexuality. Executions on homosexuality charges in Iran continued to make news multiple times since 2011.
Many more die in attacks fueled by religion-based hate, including those killed in the arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans.
Milder forms of anti-LGBT persecution continue in the church. Now it is common to freeze LGBT people out of church leadership positions. Gay pastor and author Chris Glaser writes about the exclusion from clergy roles as a “fast imposed by others” in the following prayer based on the practice of fasting during Lent, the season of individual and collective repentance and reflection between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
One: Jesus,
our fast has been imposed by others,
our wilderness sojourn their choice more than ours.
Many: Our fast from the sacraments,
our fast from ordination:
our only choice was honesty.
One: With the scapegoats of the ancient Hebrews,
sexual sins of generations
have been heaped upon our backs,
and we have been sent away,
excommunicated, into the wilderness to die.
Many: Yet we choose life,
even in our deprivation
One: Jesus, lead us to discern our call
parallel to your own:
rebelling against the boundaries,
questioning the self-righteous authorities,
breaking the Sabbath law
to bring healing.
This prayer comes from “Rite for Lent” by Chris Glaser, published in Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations. Glaser spent 30 years struggling with the Presbyterian Church for the right to ordination as an openly gay man before he was ordained to the ministry in Metropolitan Community Churches in 2005. He writes progressive Christian reflections at chrisglaser.blogspot.com.
“Faggots We May Be,” a 2015 poem by Georgia poet S. Alan Fann, makes connections between gay men burned to death, global warming and the Rainbow Christ.
It is horrifying to remember the "burning times," especially for those LGBT people who consider themselves part of the Christian tradition. Let us rise from the ashes with these verses from the Bible:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
[Psalm 51: 10, 17]
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a you to humble yourself?
Is it to bow down your head like a rush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under you?
Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to God?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily.
[Isaiah 58:5-8]
Iran's New Gay Executions (Daily Beast, 8/12/2014)
"Two men, Abdullah Ghavami Chahzanjiru and Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri, were hanged in southern Iran on August 6, possibly for consensual sodomy..."
Four Iranian men due to be hanged for sodomy (Pink News, 5/12/2012)
"Iran court sentenced four men… to death by hanging for sodomy… named ‘Saadat Arefi’, ‘Vahid Akbari’, ‘Javid Akbari’ and ‘Houshmand Akbari.’"
Book: Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton
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This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to LGBT and queer people of faith and our allies.
” by Amy Peterson and “The Bronze Ladder
” by Malcolm Lyon.
. Yarber has been a professional dancer, artist, and clergywoman since 1999. 
, Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson propose that “When a person who has been oppressed and silenced stands and speaks, that person experiences redemption.” By painting these women—many of whom are lesbian or queer—and calling them “holy,” it is my hope that I am contributing to their redemption and to the redemption of the LGBT community. In these ways, I see my paintings, much like my preaching, as a redemptive act.
, 
, and 
were pivotal in my own formation as a scholar, activist, and preacher.
, she states, “It is my claim that there is a direct relationship between our perception of Jesus Christ and our perception of ourselves.” Many feminist and womanist theologians speak of how Jesus was male, but that the Christ could be female. Jesus was born into a particular socio-historical context. That context was patriarchal and androcentric; a woman’s voice was not valued. The message of Christ—inclusion, justice, peace, welcome, liberation, compassion, love—would not have been heard if it was proclaimed by a female during that time.
. She admonishes hearers to love their flesh and all their inside parts, but “more than these, love your heart,” she told them, “for this is the prize.” And the wild hair comes from the idea of Dionysian and Bacchanalian abandon where women are so filled with enthusiasm (literally meaning “having God within oneself” in Greek) that they wave their hair in wild abandon.
.” Your Sophia moves me deeply with Her heart made of broken mirrors and your powerful text. How do the words connect to your own life, art and ministry? 
” went on to show that Jesus was a subversive whose radical gospel always overturns the status quo.
” covers Christ’s early ministry while “
,” the sequel, explores the dramatic events of his Last Supper, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. Many people have enjoyed reading “At the Cross” during Lent, the season of reflection leading up to Easter. 
.
.
by Louis Crompton
