A place for LGBTQ spirituality and the arts. Home of the gay Jesus and queer saints. Uniting body, mind and spirit. Open to all. Renamed Q Spirit blog and moved to Qspirit.net in 2017.
Female Christ figures by international artists are on display at the University of Winchester in England through Aug. 9.
“Celebrating Female Images of Christ/a” brings together women artists from across Europe to celebrate the ongoing heritage of Christ as a woman.
Artists include Silvia Martinez Cano (Spain), Annette Esser (Germany), Sylvia Grevel (Netherlands) and British artists Megan Clay, Angie Devereux and Jess Wood. The exhibit at the university's Link Gallery also includes the Bosnian Christa created by Margaret Argyle in 1993. The exhibition poster features “She is Risen” by Megan Clay, curator of the show.
I wrote about the importance of female Christ figures and their connection to queer Christ images in my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.” Here are some excerpts from the book:
Two dramatic new visions are coming into consciousness: the gay Jesus and the woman Christ. They break gender rules and gender roles. Their very presence stirs controversy. These radically new Christ figures embody and empower people who are left out when Jesus is shown as a straight man. They can free the minds of everyone who sees them. Artists who dare to show Christ as gay or female have had their work destroyed—if they can find a way to exhibit it at all….
Appreciation for the gay Jesus and woman Christ images is not limited to LGBT people, women, or even Christians. Many others are also turned off by dogmatic, male-dominated religions and the wars they fuel. Such people may welcome the sacred feminine and the gay-sensitive reassessments of Christ. On a deeper level, the new images aim to heal the painful split between body and soul that came with patriarchy. Without that basic wholeness, humanity is likely to continue down the destructive path of war, economic exploitation and ecological destruction. …
The woman Christ is a radical reimagining of the central figure of Christianity. It’s possible that the historical Jesus was gay, but he definitely was not female. All artists who portray the female Christ are breaking with historical fact in order to express a deeper truth. Most say they are drawn to the Christ archetype for reasons that they cannot explain. Some note the influence of feminism or faith—the Christian belief that the risen Christ transcends gender. Some point out that the world needs to honor the sacred feminine and is cycling back to it.
A woman on the cross is still rare enough to shock, but for those who go looking, it is the most common motif for female Christ figures in art. As with the gay Jesus, crucifixions far outnumber resurrections. Female crucifixions generally express the sacrifice and suffering of women—and yet the power to overcome death is implicit in every crucifixion….
The current exploration of the female Christ is new, but not unprecedented. Some artists draw inspiration from Sophia, the female incarnation of Wisdom in the Bible. Sophia is considered a Christ figure in Byzantine tradition, and she has appeared in Byzantine churches and icons at least since the Middle Ages.
At the University of Winchester, lectures are being presented in conjunction with the Christa exhibit by Nicola Slee of the Queen's Foundation in Birmingham and Angela Berlis of the University of Bern, Switzerland. Slee is the author of “Seeking the Risen Christa.”
The exhibition catalog for “Celebrating Female Images of Christ/a” features a description of each painting and its meaning. To purchase the catalog, contact Lisa Isherwood, professor of feminist liberation theologies and director of the Institute for Theological Partnerships, which oversaw the exhibit. Her email address is Lisa.Isherwood@winchester.ac.uk.
The Christa exhibit opened on July 10, 2015. The opening weekend was so successful that the institute is already making plans for a follow-up exhibit next year on feminist images of Mary/Miriam.
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.
Christa, the female Christ, is the theme of the following address by Nicola Slee, a feminist theologian and poet based at the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham, England. She is the author of the new book “Seeking the Risen Christa.”
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If you are anything like me, you will be conscious of an ambivalence about Good Friday. I can’t imagine being anywhere other than in church, yet I wonder what I’m doing here, fixing my attention and prayer on the horrible death of a man two thousand years ago. I’m both drawn to the cross yet repelled by it Somehow we are here, however we’ve got here and whoever we are, gathered around the cross, with all its strange fascination and its horror – with some kind of a sense that it is important to be here, that we need to be here, that we are doing something that is significant, even essential.
Yet we do well to proceed with care as we approach the cross, to bring what theologians call a hermeneutics of suspicion to bear on this place of violent death where Christians claim we see the love of God most powerfully at work. The cross can be, and has been used, as a tool of oppression to justify violence, bloodshed and abuse. The suffering of Jesus, the innocent, has been preached as a means of encouraging those who suffer to accept their burdens meekly, without complaint, as Jesus did – even when that suffering is unjust and cries out to heaven for restitution. Mary Daly, that arch feminist whose death this year marks a milestone in feminist theology, described Christianity as necrophiliac, death-fixated, addicted to violence. Mary Grey, a more moderate critic, ponders: ‘as Christianity has now had two thousand years of death symbolism, it is at least possible that the slaughter perpetrated in the name of Christendom is related to its symbols of death, blood-guilt and sacrifice’. A number of feminist theologians argue that the cross should be displaced from the centre of Christianity and an entirely new (or perhaps old) religion of natality (birthing) and flourishing replace the death-fixation of patriarchal religion.
It is important to take such critiques seriously, and I for one have found such work both challenging and liberating, helping me to recognise ways in which I have succumbed to an unhealthy valorization of suffering in my own life – and, perhaps more importantly, helping me to see the ways in which the church uses the symbolism of the cross to shore up its own patriarchal power and to keep abusive systems in place.
So I can go a long way with those who want to deconstruct and decentre the cross. A long way, but not the whole way, because even if we try to remove all references to suffering, violence and death from our faith, these are daily realities for many in our world and can’t be easily airbrushed out. It’s not so much that we need to remove the cross from the centre of Christianity as find better ways of understanding it. And this is possible because the cross is capable of multiple readings and re-interpretations. As Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendell has said, ‘In the last analysis, the cross is a paradoxical symbol. It is not simply the guillotine or the gallows. It is also subconsciously the symbol of wholeness and life and it probably could only survive as a central Christian symbol because of this simultaneous subconscious meaning.’
In these addresses, then, I want to consider some different ways of ‘reading’ the cross, some different angles or perspectives on the cross, particularly some that have been developed by feminist and womanist theologians – some that don’t often find their way into churches, particularly on Good Friday, though if they do, it’s places like St James where I’d expect that to be happening – and I’m grateful for places like this, rare as they are, where it is possible to bring our critique, our ambivalence and our efforts to find new theologies.
One of the ‘fresh readings’ of the cross feminists offer us is the image or symbol of the female Christ, the so-called ‘Christa’. I say ‘fresh’, though in fact, it’s almost forty years old in its recent manifestation, and has roots that go way back into the ancient mystical tradition of Christianity. You have a few examples of artists’ depictions of a female Christ on your service sheet, although these represent just the tip of the iceberg, as there are literally dozens of such images to be found once one starts searching (and that in itself tells us something about the need for images of a feminine divine in a religion which has suppressed the feminine).
When presenting such images to Christians who have never seen them before, I can expect reactions of shock, confusion, even horror – though I imagine that at least some of you at St James will be familiar with such images and, even if you are not, will have a more sympathetic reaction. The Christa is not in any way a denial of the historical reality of Jesus’ masculinity, it is not an attempt to rewrite history and pretend that Jesus might have been a woman. Such images are trying to do something more profound. They are making a positive and visceral identification between the bodies and sufferings of women and the body and suffering of God. In doing so, they have the power to shock us into recognizing just how patriarchal and male our assumptions about God and Christ still are – and in that sense, as Marcella Althaus-Reid puts it, such images ‘undress’ or reveal, our own blasphemous idols of God. She speaks about the ‘obscene Christ’ – a black, or female, or lesbian or transgendered image of Christ – not that such a notion in itself is obscene, but it reveals to us our own obscenity when we recognize that we had assumed Christ to be white, male, heterosexual or whatever.
Nevertheless, the female Christ figure is, itself, controversial amongst feminist theologians. Some consider it merely reinforces, rather than challenges, the stereotype of women as powerless victims of abuse. Others find it immensely healing, enabling them to realize their own bodies as the site of the divine, even in their mortality, pain and abuse. I leave you to make your own response, as I share with you something of my own, in a poem I have written exploring the identity of the crucified Christa with us today:
Who is the Christa?
Every woman forced to have sex who didn’t want it
Every girl trafficked out of her own home country
trapped in some anonymous bedsit in someone else’s city
working all the hours men want to have her body
making a fast buck for her pimp
The woman you meet in the street with bruises all up her arm
which you don’t see because she covers them up in long sleeved blouses
and thick sweaters
(Harder to hide the gash on her face but make-up has its uses)
Every woman who is too frightened to go out alone because of what has happened to her in the past or what she imagines might happen to her
The woman sleeping in the underpass
in her makeshift room of cardboard
who wards off the unwanted attentions from the drunk two streets up
The smart young graduate climbing the career ladder
who can’t get through the day without shooting up
The anorexic teenager starving her young body
that is strange to her and she cannot seem to love
The classrooms of self-harming girls
The nine-year old orphan caring for three siblings all under five
in a shanty town in any African city
Her parents dead from AIDs
Every street girl and boy scavenging on rubbish tips
Every child working in sweatshops making cheap tee-shirts for Primark
All the women raped in war or, worse, forced to watch their daughters raped
Husbands shot in front of their eyes
Women who walk a thousand miles through a war-zone
with babies on their hips and children dragging along beside them
Desperate to make it to a refugee camp
where they might find food and shelter
Christa, our sister,
have mercy
Christa, God’s beloved,
show us your face
where we have not wanted to see it
where we resist your presence among us
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The above reflection by Nicola Slee is the first of three addresses on Christa that she delivered on Good Friday in 2010 at St. James Piccadilly Church in London. Her other addresses look at the Corporate Christa and the Cosmic Christa. Click here for the full text of all three addresses.
We usually focus on LGBT spirituality here at the Jesus in Love Blog, but the idea of Christ being female seems queer in the best sense of the word. We are also focusing on the woman Christ now in order to help balance the many gay male Christ figures that will appear here soon in a new series for Lent/Easter.
The illustration for this post is “Christa” by Edwina Sandys -- the most famous artwork of a female Christ. Sculpted in 1975, the magnificent bronze crucifix has graced the pages of the London Times, Time, Newsweek, Life, and other major publications. It has appeared at respected galleries and churches throughout Europe and North America, notably a controversial 1984 showing at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Wherever Christa goes, the sculpture triggers debate about the nature of God and the role of women. Sandy’s “Christa” sculpture and the story behind it are included in “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More” by Kittredge Cherry.
The Vermont artist is committed to creating inclusive art celebrating women. She is best known for painting a controversial black female Christ in “Jesus of the People,” which was chosen by PBS art critic Sister Wendy Beckett to represent Jesus in the new millennium.
That painting is in the book, along with 27 more works by McKenzie. Another highlight is “Epiphany,” which presents the three “kings” as a multiracial trio of women. McKenzie’s daring view of the Magi angered conservatives when the head of the Episcopal Church used it as her Christmas card in 2007.
Even though McKenzie alters race and gender in her work, her art is never contrived. She makes it seem natural to see an Asian Madonna or the Holy Family with African features. The book also includes some historical people of color, such as Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Native American convert to Christianity.
Each picture is accompanied by an essay that provides historical background and theological reflection. McKenzie’s art is so profound that the essays pale in comparison, even though they were written by 28 well known women writers. Contributors include Sister Wendy, bestselling novelist Ann Patchett, womanist theologian Katie Cannon and feminist nun Joan Chittister.
The matching of authors and images is artful, sometimes even inspired. Helen Prejean, a nun who works against the death penalty, writes about “Jesus at Gethsemane.” Katharine Jefferts Schori is paired with “Epiphany,” her controversial Christmas card. Barbara Marian reflects on “Mary with the Midwives,” which she commissioned.
The book focuses on women’s spirituality, but it is not for women only. I recommend it for anyone seeking the Divine Feminine or alternative Christian imagery. The $28 price is extremely low for what you get -- a hardcover book of top-quality color pictures printed in Italy on glossy paper that is luscious to the touch. The book could easily fetch twice the price.
One category of women is noticeably under-represented: lesbians. None of the writers are identified as lesbian, and only two of them make references to LGBT people. Korean theologian (Chung) Hyun Kyung.includes “heterosexism” in her definition of sin and states, “Thanks to the rise of liberation theology, black theology, feminist theology, Asian theology, African theology, Indigenous theology, womanist theology, mujerista theology and queer theology, we can now reimagine Jesus and declare that Jesus is a campesino, black, female, Asian, African, Indigenous, Hispanic or queer.”
A more poetic approach to LGBT issues comes from poet Edwina Gateley. She imagines what Mary thought while pregnant with Jesus:
I birth you, my child
and in you is embraced
My divine love for all humanity --
black and white and brown,
male and female,
gay and straight.
McKenzie has demonstrated her own support for LGBT people by generously sharing her art here at the Jesus in Love Blog. She allowed me to use her famous “Jesus of the People” on the cover of my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.” My book also includes McKenzie’s “Christ Mother,” a majestic nude female Christ bound in a crucifixion pose. That image is so challenging that it has been censored by the gatekeepers who decide what gets shown. Unfortunately it is also missing from “Holiness and the Feminine Spirit.”
The Catholic Press Association recently honored McKenzie’s new book with two awards. It won first place for Spirituality (hard cover) and third place for Design and Production. In this case, the Catholic authorities are right. This beautiful book goes a long way toward expanding and enhancing the ways we see holiness.
Before “Holiness and the Feminine Spirit” was published, some of the images were posted here at the Jesus in Love Blog. Click the following links to see our original posts:
Christ Mother (Not in the new book -- and this is the only place to see it online!)
“Holiness and the Feminine Spirit: The Art of Janet McKenzie.”
Edited by Susan Perry Orbis Books (the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers)
ISBN: 1570758441
Hardcover, $28, 146 pages
Author Kittredge Cherry, left, with artist Janet McKenzie and her art at 2007 Festival of Progressive Spiritual Art in Taos, New Mexico
For more about Janet McKenzie, visit her website or watch this video of her on “Art Express” from Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh, NY. It includes interviews with the artist, scenes of her in action as she paints, and photos of the woman who modeled for “Jesus of the People.”
Nicola Slee, a respected scholar, author and theologian, will lead the conference.
“I will be exploring with participants a variety of artists’ images of a female Christ, and also tracing this idea in the work of contemporary feminist theologians, as well as looking at historical roots of the notion of a female Christ figure,” Slee told me when I contacted her about the conference.
One of the resources that she plans to recommend at the conference is my book, “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.” Both the Christa conference flier and “Art That Dares” use the same powerful image of a black female Christ: “Jesus of the People” by Janet McKenzie, shown above.
Slee’s next book is titled “In Search of the Risen Christa.” She gave me some advance details about it. “My own book, which is very near completion, explores the idea of the Christa through a sequence of poems that are focused on the passion narrative, but with a particular focus on resurrection and what it might mean to image a risen Christa,” Slee said.
She is research fellow and team leader of the MA in applied theological studies at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, England. She was the keynote speaker at the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement’s 2008 annual conference. Click here or on the image below for a video of her speech there.
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. 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.
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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? 
” by Kittredge Cherry.
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