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.
Presidents Obama and Putin are shown as gay saints in “Divine Love,” part of a controversial Danish art exhibit that opens Aug. 29.
Danish artist Jim Lyngvild portrays Russian president Vladimir Putin and U.S. president Barack Obama as a gay couple in a variety of settings with “Icons” exhibition, which is getting international attention.
Lyngvild told the Jesus in Love Blog that the “Divine Love” image is based upon “the old saintly motifs,” but not on any particular painting from history. Haloes shine around both men’s heads as Obama cradles Putin in a Pieta-like pose.
In media interviews, the artist said he depicted the opposing leaders in love as a way to reflect his own sexuality and challenge viewers to understand the power of love.
In other Lyngvild images the two presidents express their love for each other by riding a lavender horse together and sharing a caress at an outdoor tea party for two.
Originally scheduled for January 2015, the “Icons” exhibit is set to run from Aug. 29 through Oct. 4 at the Flintholm Gallery in the town of Vester Skerninge in central Denmark.
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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. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.
A lesbian minister, Nancy Wilson of Metropolitan Community Churches, became the first openly gay or lesbian clergy member in history to participate as a worship leader a Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service.
She read the scripture at President Obama’s Inaugural Prayer Service yesterday morning (Jan. 22) at the National Cathedral in Washington.
I worked closely with Nancy in the 1990s when I was MCC’s National Ecumenical Officer and she was Chief Ecumenical Officer. Since then she went on to become moderator of the whole Metropolitan Community Churches denomination, which was founded in 1968 as a LGBT-affirming church and now has ministries in 40 countries. Nancy was part of the first LGBT delegation to meet with a sitting president in 1979. Almost 35 years later she is serving on President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Rev. Nancy Wilson at President Obama’s Inaugural Prayer Service (mccchurch.org)
Nancy read a scripture that includes one of my favorite lines: "My word... will not return to me empty; but it will accomplish that which I have purposed, and prosper in that for which I sent it."
How often I turned to that scripture in the early days of my LGBT ministry! It helped me through the emptiness of the AIDS crisis and the rejections that Nancy and I faced in trying to do "dialogue on homosexuality" at the World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches. It is amazing to see that the seeds we planted are bearing fruit now. God's purpose is being accomplished, although the journey is far from over.
Nancy stood for many queer people when read the Bible at the Inaugural Prayer service. Before the event, she wrote about what is means in a blog post for Believe Out Loud: “When I stand in the presence of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden to read the Hebrew Bible under the soaring arches of the National Cathedral on Tuesday, I will be exalting. This exaltation is not for myself but for the millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people who have longed for a safe place to call home,” she wrote.
The Inaugural Prayer Service was the final event on the inauguration schedule. The inclusion of an openly lesbian minister was a suitable ending for an inauguration with many breakthroughs for LGBT people. No president had ever even mentioned LGBT people before in an Inauguration speech, but Obama set a new precedent with a strong affirmation of LGBT equality:
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until… click here for full text.
Gay bishop Gene Robinson gave the invocation at opening event for President Obama’s inauguration.
I especially like the line, “Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.” Christians, myself included, tend to have trouble embracing our anger, but suppressing it leads to all kinds of problems.
HBO didn’t start its coverage of the event until AFTER Rev. Robinson spoke, so it’s important to make his prayer available online. You can see it on video or simply read the moving words. I read the prayer first, then watched the video -- and got a lot out more out of it when I heard and saw Rev. Robinson’s own powerful delivery.
Memory of the inauguration may already be fading with today’s fast-moving news cycles, but it happened not long ago on Jan. 18 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It’s refreshing to stop and remember the contributions made by GLBT spirituality on that historic day. Here is the prayer:
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By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009
Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
“The Holy Family” by Janet McKenzie, copyright 2007.Oil on canvas, 42 x 54 inches.www.janetmckenzie.comCollection of Loyola School, New York, NY
Mary, Joseph and their infant son Jesus are black in “The Holy Family” by Janet McKenzie. Her artistic mission is to create sacred images that honor those who have been excluded, which often means people of color.
“The Holy Family” takes on special significance this Christmas, as the first African American president and his family prepare to move into the White House. African American commentators have emphasized the importance of the Obama family as a positive role model. Michaela Angela David of Essence Magazine put it this way on CNN, “It’s not just about Barack. It’s Barack, Michelle and those two little girls. We haven't seen an intact black family since the Huxtables -- and they weren’t real!”
McKenzie’s painting provides another much-needed image of an intact black family.
Her work is truly visionary because the art world has a whole genre of black Madonnas, but there are almost no images of a black Holy Family. The painting is not only meaningful, but also beautiful with drawing and line incorporated into oils to build luminous images.
Sometimes McKenzie’s art sparks controversy. Her androgynous African American “Jesus of the People” painting caused an international uproar after Sister Wendy of PBS chose it to represent Christ in the new millennium in 2000. However, McKenzie says that the responses to “The Holy Family” have been accepting and positive, perhaps because it was commissioned and wholeheartedly supported by the Loyola School in New York.
“As a school run by the Jesuits, it was important to them to have such an image, one that reflects their ethical and inclusive beliefs,” McKenzie explains. “ ‘The Holy Family’ celebrates Mary, Joseph and Jesus as a family of color. I feel as an artist that it is vital to put loving sacred art -- art that includes rather than excludes -- into the world, in order to remind that we are all created equally and beautifully in God's likeness. Everyone, especially those traditionally marginalized, needs the comfort derived by finding one’s own image positively reflected back in iconic art. By honoring difference we are ultimately reminded of our inherent similarities.”
The Vermont-based artist had built a successful career painting women who looked like herself, fair and blonde, before her breakthrough with “Jesus of the People.” At that time she wanted to create a truly inclusive image that would touch her nephew, an African American teenager. “The Holy Family” continues the process of embracing everybody in one human family created in God’s image.
(For another image of a black Holy Family, see “Madonna” by Elizabeth Catlett.)
Please come back tomorrow for AltXmasArt 6: “San José (Saint Joseph)” by Armando Lopez
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The full story of the “Jesus of the People” controversy -- and more art by McKenzie -- are included in the book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More” by Kittredge Cherry. The book is filled with color images by 11 contemporary artists. Five artists from AltXmasArt are featured in the book. The artists tell the stories behind their images and a lively introduction puts them into political and historical context, exploring issues of blasphemy and artistic freedom.
Black Jesus is causing controversy now for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.
“Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and lived in a culture that was controlled by rich, white people,” said Obama’s recently retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. He was preaching to a predominantly black congregation. If you can't see the video above, click here to see it.
I appreciate the need for the black Jesus because as a lesbian minister and author I promote the idea of a queer Christ. 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.
However, some people reacted with outrage when videos of Wright’s preaching were broadcast on national television yesterday. News reports about the controversy focus not only on the black Jesus, but also on his analysis of U.S. politics, which Obama has condemned as “inflammatory and appalling.”
Wright recently retired as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Watch him on video and judge for yourself.
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Kittredge Cherry is the author of Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More. She 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.
