Gay Holy Week series starts here on Sunday

Gay Holy Week and Easter readings start this Sunday here at the Jesus in Love Blog.

A queer version of Christ’s Passion will run in daily installments from Palm Sunday (March 16) through Easter (March 23).

Each daily post will feature a queer Christian painting and an excerpt from my new novel Jesus in Love: At the Cross.

The eight-day series covers the dramatic events of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, and Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. Jesus is in love with his disciple John and faces religious homophobia in the selections from At the Cross.

The online Holy Week series includes paintings by F. Douglas Blanchard, Gary Speziale and Becki Jayne Harrelson.

Christ’s story is for everyone, but queer people often feel left out because conservatives use Christian rhetoric to justify hate and discrimination. I’m doing this online series to make Christ’s Passion more accessible to GLBT people and our allies.

I have been labeled “a hyper-homosexual revisionist” by conservatives because of my work on the gay Jesus and queer Christ. I regularly get hate mail with warnings such as, “Gays are not wanted in the kingdom of Christ! They are cast into the lake of fire.”

I believe that this kind of religious bigotry is exactly why the queer Christ is needed. Some of Christ’s followers preach hate, but Christ loved everyone, including sexual outcasts.
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Kittredge Cherry blogs at the Jesus in Love Blog and edits the Jesus in Love Newsletter on queer spirituality and the arts. She offers progressive spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.