Radclyffe Hall: Queer Christian themes mark banned book "Well of Loneliness"

A queer Christ figure is the main character in the world’s best known lesbian novel, “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall. She was born on  this date (Aug. 12) in 1880.

The book was banned for obscenity in England in 1928, not just because it portrayed lesbian love, but also for using religious arguments to support “inverts” -- a 1920s term for LGBTQ people. Hall, a devoutly Catholic British lesbian, was herself pictured being nailed to the cross in a satirical cartoon from the era.

Radclyffe Hall

Hall (1880-1943) is widely recognized as a pioneering lesbian (or perhaps transgender) author. But her Christian side is often downplayed because of the conflict between Christianity and homosexuality -- what was then called “congenital sexual inversion.” Hall lived with those contradictions and tried to reconcile them in her books. Today the Jesus in Love Blog focuses on the role of Christianity in Hall’s life and work.

“The Well of Loneliness” ends with a desperate prayer that has been echoed by countless LGBTQ people and still rings true now. The prayer is uttered by the novel’s protagonist, Stephen Gordon. She was born on Christmas Eve and named after the first Christian martyr. As a girl she had a dream “that in some queer way she was Jesus.” Like Hall, Stephen grows up to become a masculine woman who wears men’s clothes, has romantic relationships with women, and identifies as an “invert.”

At the climax of the novel Stephen has a vision of being thronged by millions of inverts from throughout time: living, dead and unborn. They beg her to speak with God for them, and then they possess her. She speaks for queer people from the past, present and future as she gives passionate voice to their collective prayer:

“God,” she gasped, “We believe; we have told You we believe…We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!”

Such themes led to obscenity trials for “The Well of Loneliness,” even though the novel is not sexually explicit. It gets no more risqué than saying, “She kissed her full on the lips, as a lover.” In Britain it was condemned and all copies were ordered destroyed. It was only published in America after a court battle.

British judge Chartres Biron was especially outraged that Hall defended LGBTQI people by affirming that they are part of God’s creation. In his decision Biron wrote::

“I confess that the way in which the Deity is introduced into this book seems to me singularly inappropriate and disgusting. There is a plea for existence at the end. That of course means a plea for existence in which the invert is to be recognized and tolerated, and not treated with condemnation, as they are at present, by all decent people. This being the tenor of the book, I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it is an obscene libel, that it would tend to corrupt those into whose hands it should fall, and that the publication of this book is an offence against public decency, and obscene libel, and I shall order it to be destroyed.”

Both sides of the controversy were satirized in “The Sink of Solitude,” a series of cartoons including “Saint Stephen” by Beresford Egan. One drawing shows Hall nailed to a cross wearing her trademark sombrero. A near-nude Sappho leaps in front of the martyred author and Cupid perches on the crossbeam. The crucifixion is witnessed by the evangelical Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks, who helped enforce the censorship order.

Hall was upset to see herself portrayed in a way that she considered blasphemous. The drawing strengthened her resolve to write a modern version of Christ’s life as her next novel. Titled “The Master of the House,” it concerns Christophe, a compassionate carpenter born in Provence, France to a carpenter called Jouse and his wife Marie. He ends up being crucified during the First World War.

Writing the book was so spiritually intense that Hall developed stigmata on the palms of her hands during the two-year creative process. She believed it was her best book, but it got bad reviews and sales slumped. In America the book was seized not by police, but by creditors because her publisher went bankrupt.

Almost all references to “The Master of the House” describe it as a deeply religious book without further explanation. Actually it is an adaptation of Christ’s story for modern times. One of the only detailed summaries comes from the Delphi Classics edition of “The Complete Works of Radclyffe Hall.” It states:

“This 1932 novel concerns Christophe Benedict, a carpenter who lives in Provence. Almost saint-like, he is deeply spiritual, compassionate and experiences visions of a previous life as the Carpenter of Nazareth. He is attracted to girls, but refrains from having a relationship, held back by some unknown power -- his closest friend is his male cousin Jan, (but this is not a novel about homosexuality). When the 1914-1918 war begins, he enlists and is posted to Palestine. A close encounter with the enemy leads to a dramatic turn of events.”

Hall’s religious devotion dates back to 1912, when she was in her early 30s. She converted to the Roman Catholic Church under the influence of her first long-term lover, Mabel “Ladye” Batten. Her baptismal name was Antonia and she chose Anthony as her patron saint. Together they worshiped at London’s fashionable Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, known as the Brompton Oratory.

Hall and Batten made a pilgrimage to Rome, where a financial donation led Pope Pius X to bless them in a semi-private audience at the Vatican in 1913. “They went to confession and mass in St. Peter’s and bought triptychs, gilt angels and an alabaster Madonna,” biographer Diane Souhami reports in “The Trials of Radclyffe Hall.”

Batten, who died in 1916, was a Catholic convert too, as was Hall’s next lover, Una Troubridge (1887-1963). All three of them were part of a trend. A surprising number of upper-class English lesbians and intellectuals converted to Catholicism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in a trend related to the Oxford Movement. Conversion was a way of rebelling against English society while maintaining connection with tradition. Hall was also interested in Spiritualism.

An independently wealthy heiress, Hall gave generously to the church. In the 1930s she and Troubridge made their home in Rye, a village in East Sussex where many writers lived. The Catholic Church of Saint Anthony of Padua was constructing a new building when they moved to Rye, and biographer Souhami reports that Hall “poured money into this church” to bring it to completion and furnish it.

“She paid for its roof, pews, paintings of the Stations of the Cross and a rood screen of Christ the King. A tribute to Ladye was engraved on a brass plaque set into the floor:
Of your charity
Pray for the soul of Mabel Veronica Batten
In memory of whom this rood was given.

She paid off all the outstanding debts of the church… Masses, benedictions, processions and venerations stemmed from her beneficence.

One source says that she and Troubridge left their money to the church after their deaths. Hall died of colon cancer at age 63 on October 7, 1943. She is buried with Ladye in London’s Highgate Cemetery.

At the time of her death, “The Well of Loneliness” had been translated into 14 languages and was selling more than 100,000 copies per year. It has never gone out of print. For decades it was the only lesbian book generally available, and therefore it made an enormous impact on generations of queer people. It remains on many lists of the top LGBT books.

Hall is the subject of several book-length biographies, including not only “The Trials of Radclyffe Hall” by Diana Souhami, but also “Our Three Selves: The Life of Radclyffe Hall” by Michael Baker, “Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John” by Sally Cline, and “Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing” by Richard Dellamora.

“The Well of Loneliness” has sparked controversy not only from conservatives, but also among the LGBTQ community. The novel is often criticized for expressing shame and self-hatred, defining all lesbians as masculine, and presenting a stereotyped butch-femme lifestyle. Hall has long been classified as a lesbian, but now there is debate over whether she was a transgender man. Secular LGBT readers tend to dismiss the religious aspects as embarrassing and irrelevant relics of a bygone era.

One scholar who affirms the role of religion in Hall’s work is Ed Madden, English professor at the University of South Carolina. His article “The Well of Loneliness, or the Gospel According to Radclyffe Hall” is included in the 2003 book "Reclaiming the Sacred: The Bible in Gay and Lesbian Culture,” edited by Raymond-Jean Frontain. It was originally published in the Journal of Homosexuality, where the abstract summarizes it this way::

“Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel, 'The Well of Loneliness,' is repeatedly described as a "bible" of lesbian literature. The novel itself repeatedly alludes to biblical stories, especially the story of Christ. Yet there has been little sustained analysis of the biblical language of the novel. Most feminist and lesbian critics have dismissed the biblical allusions and language as unfortunate and politically regressive; religious critics have ignored the novel. This essay reexamines the biblical nature of the novel, especially its portrayal of the lesbian Stephen Gordon as a Christ figure. The study further claims a creative and interventionary power in Hall's use of biblical narratives and tropes, a power traceable in public reception to the novel and in courtroom reactions to the use of spiritual language in a text about lesbianism. By writing the life of a lesbian as a kind of gospel of inversion, Hall turns a language of condemnation into a language of validation, making her use of biblical language a kind of Foucauldian "reverse discourse." The novel's power lies in its portrayal of a lesbian messiah, and in its joining of sexological and religious discourses.”

Another scholar who writes in depth about the queer Christian aspect of Hall’s work is Isabella Cooper. She was a Ph.D. candidate in the English department at the University of Maryland in College Park when she wrote “The Passion of Stephen Gordon: The Messianic Lesbian Artist in Radclyffe Hall’s 'The Well of Loneliness.'” The article appeared in the Transverse Journal in 2011. In the article she states:

“The Well’s readers have frequently noticed the deliberate parallels Hall draws between Stephen and Christ; they have also noticed Hall’s identification with both. Some readers have mocked the novel for precisely this reason. Hall’s strategy of creating an alter-ego/ protagonist and identifying her with Christ reflects her understanding of her role as a Christian lesbian artist. She attempts in this novel to perform a powerful work of redemption for those whose desires society and the Church label sinful. In order to combat the stigma of sinfulness, Hall fashions (and speaks through) a protagonist whose Christ-like suffering and self-sacrifice challenge her readers, and whose ability (by the novel’s end) to reconcile her commitments to her faith, her art, and her sexual identity enable her to take on a messianic role.”

Hall would probably be the first to insist that she was no saint, but she is included in the LGBT Saints series here at the Jesus in Love Blog because was a pioneer in the effort to reconcile Christianity and homosexuality. Thank you, Radclyffe, for voicing a prayer from queer people of all times: “Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!”

___
Related links:
“Radclyffe Hall, E. Lynn Harris, and Franz Kafka: Christianity, Queerness, and the Politics of Normalcy” by Margaret Soenser Breen (International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies)

“Joan of Arc and Radclyffe Hall: Inspiration and Influence” by Steven Macnamara

Full text of "The Well of Loneliness" free online (Gutenberg.net)

___
Top image credit:
Lesbian author Radclyffe Hall is a crucified Christ figure in a 1928 cartoon by Beresford Egan

____
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.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Blessed John of La Verna: Kissed by Jesus

Blessed John of La Verna is a medieval Italian friar known for his visions of kissing and being kissed by Jesus. His feast day is today (Aug. 9). John also had an intense relationship with fellow friar and poet Jacopone da Todi.

Traditional writers have done “gender gymnastics” to hide the homoerotic content of John’s experiences, but Franciscan scholar Kevin Elphick proposes Blessed John as a queer saint in the following article written for the Jesus in Love Blog.

Elphick’s research included a trip in summer 2014 to John’s chapel, hermitage and tomb at Mount La Verna in central Italy. He ends his article with a vivid personal Postscript describing what happened when he visited Mount La Verna and touched the ground where John and Jesus embraced.

A stone wall surrounds the place where Jesus and John embraced in front of a chapel on Mount La Verna (Photo by Kevin Elphick)

Blessed John of La Verna

By Kevin Elphick

Hidden in musty libraries and on the sagging shelves of convents and monasteries are countless lives of the saints and blessed, gathering dust, and in many cases forgotten. With thousands of lives of the saints in existence, it is inevitable that some of these are our stories, the stories of LGBTQ saints and blesseds throughout the ages. One of the purposes of the genre of saints’ lives, “hagiographies,” is to ensure that the contemporary faithful might find examples from the past with which to identify, and personally recognizable models of sanctity to emulate. As such, the time is overdue for the LGBTQ communities to name and claim our patron saints.

One such candidate is Blessed John of La Verna (also called Giovanni della Verna, Blessed John of Fermo and Giovanni da Fermo), a Franciscan friar who lived in Italy from 1259-1322 C.E. While “gay” and “lesbian” are contemporary categories and not appropriate to use as accurate labels of historical figures,  still our collective gaydar is often attuned enough to detect our kinfolk and LGBTQ ancestors even across the centuries. John of La Verna is one such figure that should attract our attention.

Blessed John is unique in that the tradition describes him as “another Mary Magdalene…” and is heavily dependent upon multiple female metaphors to capture his spirituality and personality. Given that he joined all-male communities of religious, beginning as a child at 10 years of age, it is little wonder that his psychosexual development might be effected accordingly.

John of La Verna is introduced in the classic work of Italian literature, The Little Flowers of St. Francis (Fioretti di San Francesco), a book which continues to be well-known and commonly used even today in the schools of Italy. Its author unknown, this work has described as "the most exquisite expression of the religious life of the Middle Ages"[1]and for much of history has been the most popular life of St. Francis, in spite of the lateness of its authorship and its lack of historicity as a genuine source for the historical St. Francis. The stories of Blessed John are the final chapters of “The Little Flowers” (the “Fioretti”) and paint the culminating picture of early Franciscan spirituality and personalities for its author. As such, John is a pivotal and defining figure in this book. He is named John of La Verna because he lived with the Franciscan friars on Mount La Verna, the sacred mountain where St. Francis of Assisi had received the wounds of Christ as stigmata in a mystical vision.  (The same mountain is called Alverna in Latin and is geographically known as Monte Penna.)

While meditating under a beech tree at La Verna, John had a vision of kissing and being kissed by Christ.  The biographer Ermenegildo Da Chitignano places the apparition sometime before the visit of the Roman Emperor, Henry VII, to Alverna and Bl. John in 1312, following his coronation in Rome.  Much later, after the beech tree fell, a small chapel was built there.  It is known as the Chapel of the Beech (Cappella del Faggio).  The courtyard in front of the chapel is surrounded by a low stone wall with an inscription explaining that it encloses the place where John and Christ spent time together.

The inscription on the wall around the courtyard where Jesus and John embraced says, “This is the oratory of Blessed John of La Verna where he conversed (spend time) with Christ our Lord. There are 200 days indulgence.” In the old system of indulgences, a devout visit to the chapel was said to remove 200 days from the visitor's time in purgatory. (Photo by Kevin Elphick. Thanks to Marco Wooster for translation help!)

Blessed John is described in the Fioretti as one of the spiritual sons of St. Francis, who because of his great wisdom, is the “glory of such a great Father.”[2] After a brief biographical introduction covering John’s childhood, a defining episode from John’s adult life as a friar is recounted. This incident is set in the context of a period of a "dark night of the soul" for Blessed John. Following upon a three-year period of honeymoon-like intimacy, God withdrew the former palpable presence. Prior to this withdrawal, John had enjoyed "the mystical kisses and intense embraces of Christ's love, not only in interior spiritual graces, but also in exterior signs, as with an intimate friend."  

In keeping with the Franciscan tradition, the author uses the language of bridal mysticism to describe John’s relationship with Jesus, so that the language of romance and physical intimacy serves as a metaphor for human union with the Divine. Perhaps anticipating discomfort from an audience reading of even metaphorical intimacy between males, the author engages in a sort of gender-gymnastics, the back and forth volley of which serves to off-balance the reader as to the given genders of Jesus and John. At various moments, they are each, independently re-gendered as female. Explaining Christ’s withdrawal from John in a dark night of the soul, the author compares Jesus to a mother temporarily withholding food:

"But He was acting like a mother with her baby when she withdraws her breast from him to make him drink the milk more eagerly, and he cries and seeks it, and after he has cried, she hugs and kisses him and lets him enjoy it all the more. So Brother John followed Christ ... with greater fervor and desire, weeping like a baby following its mother..."

Alternately Blessed John is likened to Mary Magdalene, weeping at the feet of Jesus.

 “Blessed John poured out so many tears, that he seemed to be another Magdalene… lying at the feet of Jesus most sweet, he received so much grace that he was totally renewed, and like Magdalene, consoled and at peace.” 

In addition to Mary Magdalene, the author of the Fioretti recasts John as the maiden of the biblical book, the Song of Songs. This book of the Bible celebrates an erotic intimacy between a woman and her male beloved, and is typically interpreted as an extended metaphor of the human and divine romance. Where the Fioretti describes Christ’s withdrawal from John, it uses the language of the Song of Songs and the person of the Song’s maiden to describe John’s resultant pursuit of him:

 "... when his soul did not feel the presence of his Beloved, in his anguish and torment he went through the woods, running here and there, seeking and calling aloud with tears and sighs for his dear Friend who had recently abandoned him and hidden..." 

Compare this with the maiden of the Song of Songs:

"I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer.
I will rise now and go about the city,
in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but found him not."
(Song 3: 1-2, RSV) 

For the author of the Fioretti, Christ is "the beloved Spouse of his [John's] soul." In turn, John's female transformation is so complete, that without Christ the Bridegroom, the Fioretti has him declare: "Without you I am sterile... " 

Jesus embraces Blessed John at the beech tree in a 1521 painting by Aretino Intorno, located in the Chapel of Adoration at Mount La Verna

When Christ finally does appear to Blessed John, the Fioretti uses St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s commentary on the Song of Songs to explain the stages of intimacy which John will enjoy. First a kiss to Christ's feet in a movement of penitence. Secondly there is a kiss to Christ's hands, signifying the "grace to live a good life." "The second is given to those who are making progress." (Sermon 4, 1.1) Finally, there is the third kiss, a kiss of his mouth. The kiss of the mouth is contemplative union with God toward which all should strive. "O happy kiss...which is... the union of God with [hu]man." (Sermon 2, II., 3) As an aside, it is worth noting that for Bernard, this unitive “Kiss” is ultimately a participation in the loving “Kiss” of the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, who we know as the Holy Spirit.

The Fioretti’s dependence on St. Bernard’s commentary is explicit, as the earliest manuscript reads: “if anyone wishes to know this, read Bernard on the Song of Songs, who puts these stages there according to their order: namely, the beginners at the feet, those making progress at the hands, and the perfect at the kiss and embrace.” [3]And so the Fioretti has John excelling through these stages:

 “For he immediately threw himself down at Christ's feet, and the Savior showed him his blessed feet, over which Brother John wept … Now while Brother John was praying fervently, lying at Christ's feet, he received so much grace that he felt completely renewed and pacified and consoled, like Magdalene... he began to give thanks to God and humbly kiss the Savior's feet.” 

Following Bernard's stages, Brother John next kisses the hands of Jesus: 

"Christ held out His most holy hands and opened them for him to kiss. And while He opened them, Brother John arose and kissed His hands."

However, the author of the Fioretti deviates from Bernard’s stages, seemingly modifying them slightly for an encounter between the male Jesus and the male friar. Instead of Bernard’s stage-specific “kiss of the mouth,” it is toned down to a kiss of Christ’s chest:

"And when he had kissed them [Christ's hands], he came closer and leaned against the breast of Christ, and he embraced Jesus and kissed His holy bosom. And Christ likewise embraced and kissed him." 

While there is explicit textual dependence on the Song of Songs and Bernard’s commentary on it, our author appears reluctant to paint the verbal image of Christ and John kissing mouth to mouth, content instead to modify the stages with a modest and reverential kiss to the breast of Christ. Franciscan tradition may have influenced this use of the image of kissing the breast as perhaps  a greater intimacy—Clare had dreamed of nursing at Francis’ breast and St. Angela of Foligno in ecstasy kissed Christ’s breast—but it is more likely that our author was reticent to portray John and Jesus mouth to mouth in a kiss. With the backdrop of John as Mary Magdalene and Christ as a nursing mother, the reader might be understandably confused and distracted, but not so much so that two men kissing would escape their Medieval scrutiny.

Still, we are left with clear physical intimacy between John and Jesus. What is described here is not intended as metaphor or solely figurative stages, but an actual apparition of the bodily Christ to Blessed John. Where the apparition took place, Mount La Verna in Italy, a chapel and fenced courtyard mark the physical site where Christ appeared and embraced John. The author intends that the reader understands  as fact that John and Jesus kissed, embraced, and became progressively more intimate in this holy place.

Unique to the Franciscan tradition is a practice of redirecting “fleshly” interests from earthly objects and instead to the incarnate flesh of Jesus. If the human inclination is to be enticed by human flesh, the Franciscan tradition responds by exploiting this inclination and instead pointing it toward the God made flesh. The Franciscan meditative book, Stimulus Amoris, written in Italy during John’s lifetime, expresses this best. Writing from the perspective of God the Father it explains:

“It was necessary therefore, because the soul had become too enamoured of the flesh, for my Son to become enfleshed so as to entice it to his and my love.”[4] 

Divinity was hidden under flesh so that our propensity toward flesh might be exploited. Again the Stimulus Amoris:

“If, therefore, O soul, you love flesh, then love no flesh but the flesh of Christ.”[5] 

Kissing the flesh of Christ, John of La Verna is a perfect exemplar of this tradition. His kisses effectively move him upward from the feet of Christ in order to experience increasing intimacy with God, from his feet, then to his hands, further up yet to the very breast of the Savior.

While our author of the Fioretti appears to fail to reproduce Bernard’s prescribed “kiss of the mouth,” he clearly is comfortable with the image of John kissing the body of Jesus, feet, hands, and breast, and the two embracing. Equally, John’s community of friars at Mount La Verna, is not only comfortable with this image, they enshrined it in a chapel and fenced yard preserving the memory, as well as depicting it in paintings of the sacred event. And perhaps in the end the author of the Fioretti was faithful to St. Bernard’s required “kiss of the mouth,” for the apparition concludes with Christ responding to John’s physicality as Christ himself “embraced and kissed” John in return. It is left to the reader’s imagination to envision how Jesus kissed John in return. But it would be fully in keeping with Bernard’s theology that this beatific “kiss of the mouth” is the initiative of God, not the human. Our author would then be seen as pointing the reader’s imagination in this intended direction, but blushfully failing to paint it fully in words, only hinting in veiled reference to this erotic theophany.

Jacopone da Todi
in a fresco
by Paolo Uccello

A final snapshot rounds out the picture of Blessed John of La Verna: his friendship with his fellow Franciscan friar and poet, Jacopone da Todi (1230 –1306). Jacopone’s writings, his Lauds, are considered “the most powerful religious poetry in Italy before Dante’s time.”[6] He too experienced a spiritual marriage to Christ, and has much affinity with John’s mystical experiences. His 63^rd Laud is written specifically to Brother John and intended to console him during his dark night of the soul. Within Jacopone’s highly emotive writings, this poem of consolation to Blessed John is considered “one of the most moving pages of the Lauds.”[7]  In it, Jacopone sympathizes with John’s spiritual aridity and reminds him that “it is a great thing to be filled with God… wedded to reverence.”[8]

Jacopone’s Lauds are filled with images of Christ as the one true Spouse for humanity, which in turn is his Bride. The shared spiritual vision of Jacopone and John is evident.  As fellow friars, they knew each other as brothers. The depth of their relationship is revealed on Jacopone’s deathbed, when he summoned John of La Verna to travel from a distance to his side. Jacopone refused to die until consoled by John’s presence one last time.  It was Christmas Eve, and he clung to life until Blessed John arrived, finally expiring only after Blessed John gave Eucharist to him, communicating to him the flesh of their shared Bridegroom, as Jacopone passed over to the eternal wedding feast. Jacopone trusted only Blessed John to deliver him safely into the embrace of their Beloved.

After many years devoted to contemplation at La Verna, John spent his later years preaching in Florence, Pisa, Siena and other Italian towns.  He died at Mount La Verna at age 63 on Aug. 9, 1322.

By his example, John of La Verna urges us also to enter into the same embrace of Jesus our true Spouse. He teaches us that the flesh of Christ is sure refuge, and physical intimacy with Christ certain salvation. He recalls for us the maxim that “The flesh is the hinge of salvation.”[9] Blessed John of La Verna clung to the flesh of Jesus and kissed his holy body, knowing it to be his salvation. He enjoyed the touch of Jesus upon his own flesh and the warm embrace of the Savior. Like Mary Magdalene with whom he is compared, John kissed the sacred feet of his Savior. But in contrast to the Magdalene, Jesus did not say to him “Touch me not.” (John 20:17 KJV) Instead, John finds in Jesus a responsive Lover who “likewise embraced and kissed him” in return. In John of La Verna we find an erotic spirituality healthily directed by a male devotee toward a fully human male Jesus. And this literary and Franciscan tradition not only tolerates John of La Verna’s homoerotic mysticism, it presents it as paradigmatic and exemplary. Let us also celebrate John’s erotic spirituality and imitate his passionate kisses and embraces. For our LGBTQ communities, John of La Verna is already a patron saint and model for own spiritual journeys. In him we have heard our own stories and now travel similarly wooded paths toward our own encounter with the Divine Beloved.

Postscript: My trip to 
Blessed John’s mountain in Italy

By Kevin Elphick

In June of 2014, I had the privilege to visit Mount La Verna with a pilgrim group. While St. Francis and his stigmata were the central focus of La Verna, I was keenly conscious that this holy mountain had also been Blessed John’s home, along with his community of brother friars. I wanted to visit John’s sepulchre, his chapel, and his hermitage, and to know something of the wildness of Mount La Verna that had contributed to John’s earthy spirituality.

Tomb of Blessed John of La Verna (Wikipedia.org)

At the Sanctuary of La Verna, the sepulchre of Blessed John is found just to the left, inside the Basilica. There, with the interior darkened, I approached and knelt to pray, placing my hand upon his sepulchre. I had brought along with me small religious medals to touch to the sepulchre, so that I could later share these with friends as relics, touched to his blessed resting place. A Franciscan friar, Fr. Mario, sat nearby in a confessional, agreeing to bless these medals only after I hesitantly entered the penitent’s side. He invoked a lengthy prayer in Italian, made the sign of the cross (which I imitated, touching my forehead, shoulders and chest), followed by my profuse thanks to him in English.

From the Basilica, I climbed further up the mountain, eventually reaching the Chapel of Blessed John, with its low, fenced courtyard protecting the sacred space where Jesus and John had embraced. On a nearby path, a group of exuberant schoolchildren were led past on an outing, flags carried at the beginning and end of their line. I found the chapel door closed and secured with a rusty lock, so I was content to pay reverence by solely kissing the lintel of the door. Turning to the courtyard, I knelt and touched the ground. I removed the cross from about my neck and placed it on the soil, hoping that it would touch the same spot where Jesus and John had stood, venerating the ground on which they walked. After some time spent reflecting on their profound love, I rose and continued further up Mount La Verna.

Hermitage where Blessed John lived (photo by Kevin Elphick)

I found myself especially drawn to his hermitage, perched higher on the mountainside, but surrounded by steep, craggy rocks, and plunging precipices. I was reminded of the verse from the Song of Songs:

“O my dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock,
in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face, let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet, and your face lovely.” (2:14)

 John had been that beautiful dove, hidden away in this mountaintop hermitage, accessible only to his Beloved. With steep terrain surrounding his hermitage, I could only touch one side of the building, able to peer in just one window. I was increasingly convinced that the hermitage’s inaccessibility was intentional, so that John might be alone with his Beloved:

 “I charge you O daughters of Jerusalem…
do not disturb or awaken my Love
until he pleases.” (2:7)

 I could draw only this close, only this near. I knew that just beyond, together they rested, scarcely visible, not to be disturbed from their shared connubial rest. Quietly I pressed my hand to the hermitage’s stone wall ‘til my breathing slowed to their same pace, and together we sighed as these Lovers nestled, pulling their bodies closer in satiated contentment. Sanctity was palpable here, like a mist which begets dewfall.

As I walked away, a slight glimmer caught my eye, something small nestled in a rock outcropping, delicate and fashioned. Looking closer, I discovered the smallest of crèches-- just the Babe in a manger, accompanied solely by a calf-- nothing more. An act of devotion by another pilgrim, left to honor the memory of Jesus and John. And nothing could have been more fitting. For when that Babe was born, heaven and earth were wedded. The human and the Divine were betrothed. Jesus was already on his way to meet Blessed John. And I had found what I sought at La Verna.

---

[1]
                        [1] "Fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.

[2]
                        [2] Quotations from the Fioretti are taken from The Little Flowers of St. Francis, trans. Raphael Brown (NY: Image Books, 1958) and Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: the Prophet (NY: New City Press, 2001). The latter is the more definitive resource for accuracy of translation and manuscript tradition.

[3]
                        [3] Early Documents, p. 533.

[4]
                        [4] Love's Prompting and Canticle of One who is Poor for the Beloved (Phoenix, AZ: Tau Publishing, 2013), p. 38.

[5]
                        [5] Stimulus Divini Amoris: That is The Goad of Divine Love (NY: Benziger Brothers, 1907),  p. 3. Love’s Prompting and The Goad of Divine Love, although differently named, are both English renderings of the Stimulus Amoris.

[6]
                        [6] Jacopone da Todi: The Lauds, NY: Paulist Press, 1982. p. xix.

[7]
                        [7] Ibid. p. 59.

[8]
                        [8] Ibid. p. 193.

[9]
                        [9] “Caro cardo salutis.” Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, VIII.

___

Kevin Elphick

Kevin Elphick is both a Franciscan scholar and a supervisor on a suicide prevention hotline in New York. He wrote a thesis on “Gender Liminality in the Franciscan Sources” for a master’s degree in Franciscan studies from St. Bonaventure University in New York. Elphick also has a master's degree in Religious Studies from Mundelein College in Chicago and a Doctorate in Ministry from Graduate Theological Foundation with a focus in ecumenism. He writes regularly for the Jesus in Love Blog about queer Franciscan subjects, including Francis of Assisi and Madre Juana de la Cruz. Elphick joined the Sisters of St. Francis in New York as a lay associate on Aug. 17, 2014.
___
Related links:

John of La Verna (Wikipedia.org)

Blessed John of Fermo (NewAdvent.org)

Photo album of Kevin Elphick’s trip to La Verna

To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Beato Juan de La Verna: Un fraile besado por Jesús

___
Top image credit: Jesus embraces Blessed John of La Verna at the beech tree (from an 1883 biography by Ermenegildo Da Chitignano)

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.

Kuan Yin: A queer Buddhist Christ figure

Kuan Yin, the androgynous spirit of compassion in Buddhism, is sometimes thought of as a queer Christ figure or LGBTQ role model. Buddhists celebrate the enlightenment of Kuan Yin today (July 22) this year.

For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Kuan Yin: A queer Buddhist Christ figure


Christians honor Christ as savior, and Kuan Yin is a type of Buddhist savior figure called a bodhisattva -- an enlightened person who is able to reach nirvana (heaven) but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save others from suffering.

Artists often show Kuan Yin with eyes in her/his hands and feed. They are like the wounds of Christ, but Kuan Yin can see with them.

Kuan Yin is also known as the goddess of mercy and goes by different names in different places, including Avalokiteshvara in India, Tara (female) or Chenrezig (male) in Tibet, and Kannon in Japan.

Writers and scholars who have explored the queer side of Kuan Yin include Patrick S. Cheng, an Episcopal priest who teaches at Chicago Theolgical Seminary; Hsiao-Lan Hu, religious studies professor at the University of Detroit Mercy; and Toby Johnson, a former Catholic monk turned author and comparative religion scholar.

In the introduction to his 2003 essay “Kuan Yin: Mirror of the Queer Asian Christ,” Cheng explains:

"Kuan Yin, the Asian goddess of compassion, can serve as a mirror of the queer experience. Specifically, Kuan Yin affirms three aspects in the life of queer people that are often missing from traditional images of the divine: (1) queer compassion; (2) queer sexuality; and (3) gender fluidity. In other words, Kuan Yin can be an important means by which gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can see ourselves as being made in the image of God."

Cheng writes clearly about the connection between Kuan Yin and Christ in the section where he describes his personal search for queer Asian Christ figures:

Olga’s Kuan Yin
By William Hart McNichols ©
www.fatherbill.org

"I have been intrigued by the possibility of Kuan Yin serving as a christological figure for queer Asian people. For me, it has been difficult to envision the Jesus Christ of the gospels and the Western Christian tradition as being both queer and Asian (although I do recognize that queer theologians and Asian theologians have tried to do so in their respective areas). It is my thesis that Kuan Yin might serve as a symbol of salvation and wholeness for queer Asian people of faith...."

Click for the whole essay “Kuan Yin: Mirror of the Queer Asian Christ” in English or in Spanish.

Cheng's latest book Rainbow Theology: Bridging Race, Sexuality, and Spirit was published in 2013. He is also the author of “From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ”, “Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology.” His series on “Rethinking Sin and Grace for LGBT People Today” was one of the most popular stories of 2010 at the Jesus in Love Blog.

Hsiao-Lan Hu presented a paper on “Queering Avalokiteśvara” at the 2012 American Academy of Religion annual meeting. She noted that the Lotus Sutra says that Avalokitesvara will appear to teach different beings in different forms, based on what they can accept.

In the summary of her paper, Hu writes, “Of the 33 forms listed in the Lotus Sutra, 7 are explicitly female, indicating that the Bodhisattva of Compassion transcends gender identity…. What is the theoretical ground in the Buddhadharma (Buddha’s teaching) that justify or even propel such conceptualization? How does that theoretical ground compare to modern-day queer theory?”

She summed up her paper in the 2013 Women’s and Gender Studies Newsletter from the University of Detroit Mercy: “Avalokiteśvara's multi-morphic manifestation affirms different beings in their specific identities, while his/her transformability points to the possibility of moving beyond the confinement of any particular identity. For people of minority identities, the Bodhisattva thus can be both a source of comfort and a model for coping with reality in which they often need to perform different roles.”

Hu is the author of This-Worldly Nibbana: A Buddhist-Feminist Social Ethic for Peacemaking in the Global Community.

Another LGBTQ perspective on Kuan Yin is provided by Toby Johnson in Kuan Yin: Androgynous spirit of compassion, which he wrote for the Jesus in Love Blog. Johnson begins by retelling the traditional story of Kuan Yin. Then he explains that it is “a nice myth for gay people” because:

"It says we’re really all One, all reflections of one another, that the distinction between male and female is illusory and needs to be transcended and that transcending gender is part and parcel with experiencing heaven now."

A student of Joseph Campbell, Johnson has written 10 books, including the classic Gay Spirituality and Two Spirits. He is former production manager of Lethe Press and former editor of White Crane Journal. Johnson discusses Kuan Yin as an androgynous figure who embodies compassion in his articles “Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara” and “Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.”

Queer theologian Robert Shore-Goss applies the bodhisattva concept to queer Christian life in “Bodhisattva Christianity: A Case of Multiple Religious Belonging” in the 2013 book “Queering Christianity: Finding a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians.” Goss pastored Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley (North Hollywood, CA) after serving as chair of the religious studies department at Webster University in St. Louis.

Images of Kuan Yin posted here were created by Tony O’Connell, Stephen Mead, Ralfka Gonzalez and William Hart McNichols. Mead is a gay artist and poet based in New York whose work has appeared internationally in cyberspace, books, and galleries. McNichols is a New Mexico artist and Catholic priest who has been criticized by church leaders for making LGBTQ-friendly icons of saints not approved by the church. His icons have been commissioned by churches, celebrities and national publications.

“Avalokitishvara” by Tony O’Connell

O’Connell is a gay artist based in Liverpool. Raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, he has been a practicing Buddhist since 1995. He creates an artwork celebrating Avalokitishvara / Kuan Yin every year on his/her birthday. Viewers who look closely at his painting here will see an eye in the palm of the Compassionate One's hand.

“There is an amazing statue of Avalokiteshvara in a Liverpool museum with a text that explains how the mustache was painted over to alter his gender as the people who met the monks on the spice routes from India struggled with the idea of a manifestation of compassion being male and wanted to see him as female. It occurs to me that there are subtle ranges of the same personality between Avalokitishvara, Kuan Yin and Tara as one gender ambiguous enlightened mind,” O’Connell said.

He explains that Tara came into being in compassionate response to samsara, the cycle of birth and death: “There is a beautiful scripture that talks about how even with all his enlightened abilities to benefit living beings, Avalokiteshvara saw the suffering of samsara was almost beyond measure. His heart broke for living beings and he wept tears of compassion. When the first tear hit the ground a lotus flower grew up and blossomed to reveal Tara. Her first words as a Buddha were, 'Do not weep- I will help you.'”

For more about Tony O’Connell and his art, see my previous posts Reclaiming sainthood: Gay artist Tony O’Connell finds holiness in LGBT people and places and Olympics: Spiritual art supports Russia’s LGBT rights struggle.

Guadalupe as Chenrezig by Ralfka Gonzalez

Outsider artist Ralfka Gonzalez links Kuan Yin not with Christ, but with his mother by painting Chenrezig as Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the Gonzalez image, he/she is wrapped in Juan Diego's cloak.

His interpretation fits with the practices of Japan’s “hidden Christians,” who created statues of Mary disguised as Kuan Yin (Maria Kannon) when Christianity was outlawed from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Pictured here is the first of many “Buddha Lupe” images painted by Gonzalez. He is a self-taught Chicano artist and gay Latino activist who divides his time between Oaxaca, Mexico and San Francisco. He often paints Mexican and/or gay themes in a colorful folk-art style.

An in-depth discussion of this post happened on my Facebook page with various people adding valuable background info on Kuan Yin and his/her many incarnations:

Post by Kittredge Cherry.

___
Related links:

“Korean Christ” icon by Robert Lentz

“Christ Sophia” by Br. Michael Reyes, OFM (Christ with Chinese characters and lotus blossom)

Art by He Qi

Kuan Yin: Espejo del Cristo queer asiático by Patrick Cheng

___
Top image credit: “Kwan Yin is Coming” by Stephen Mead

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.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Homosexuality of Jesus explored by 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham

Biblical arguments for LGBT rights and a queer Jesus may seem like new ideas, but they were pioneered about 200 years ago by an influential British philosopher -- in writings that were never published until recently.

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) presented Biblical evidence for Jesus’ homosexuality as part of his theological defense for same-sex love in “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III.” It was published for the first time in 2013 and is freely available to download or view online. He died on this date (June 6) in 1832.

For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Homosexuality of Jesus explored by 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham


Bentham didn’t dare publish it during his lifetime because he feared being labeled a “sodomite” himself. At the time “buggery” was punished with death by hanging in England.

This champion of sexual freedom was far, far ahead of his time. “Not Paul, but Jesus” lays out many of the same arguments that are still used today by LGBT Christians and our allies: debunking the scriptures typically used to condemn LGBT people and pointing out that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Bentham goes on to present an idea that many still consider blasphemous. He suggests that Jesus had male-male sexual relationships.

Bentham wrote the book so long ago that the word “homosexuality” had not been invented yet. Instead he has a chapter titled “The eccentric pleasures of the bed, whether partaken of by Jesus?” His language may sound quaint, but his ideas are right on target for today. Bentham himself struggled with words for what we call homosexuality, deliberately creating new vocabulary so he could avoid the negative connotations associated with the terminology of his day (sodomy, buggery, perversion, etc.).

Bentham is best known as the founder of Utilitarianism, a philosophy that advocates “the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people” A respected thinker during his lifetime, Bentham was also far advanced on a wide range of other legal, economic and political issues. He coined the word “international.” He was one of the first proponents of animal rights. He supported women’s equality and opposed slavery and capital punishment. He corresponded with various world leaders, including US presidents Jefferson and Madison. Several South and Central American nations sought his advice in creating their constitutions and legal codes. Born and raised in a devout Anglican family in London, he became an agnostic who believed that religion was an instrument of oppression. His solution was separation of church and state.

In the third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III,” Bentham corrects false interpretations of what would later come to be called the “clobber passages.” He identifies the sin of Sodom as gang-rape. He puts the sexual prohibitions of the Hebrew scriptures into historical context, pointing out that many of the other taboos are no longer enforced.

He dismisses Paul’s condemnations of homosexuality as an asceticism not shared by Jesus himself. He sees romantic love between Old Testament heroes Jonathan and David -- and possibly between Jesus and his beloved disciple John, noting that the Bible reports their loving touch without condemnation.

Bentham goes on to analyze the account in Mark’s gospel of “the stripling in the loose attire” (now usually known as “the naked young man”) at the arrest of Jesus -- a passage that continues to fuel 21st-century speculations in the LGBT community. He urges readers to consider the most “probable interpretation” for the nakedness. (In a different manuscript he made it clear that the youth was probably a male prostitute loyal to Jesus.) Bentham even hints that Jesus was killed for homosexuality, asking readers to consider what interaction with a naked man could be “so awful” that it leads to cruel execution.

Pro-LGBT Christians today often note that Jesus never said anything against homosexuality. Bentham makes the same point in his own elaborate way, with sentences such as: “In the acts or discourses of Jesus, had any such marks of reprobation towards the mode of sexuality in question been to be found as may be seen in such abundance in the epistles of Paul—in a word, had any one decided mark of reprobation been so to be found as pronounced upon it by Jesus, in the eyes [of] no believer in Jesus could any such body of evidence as hath here been seen [to] present itself be considered as worth regarding.”

Indeed Bentham's main purpose in all three volumes of “Not Paul, but Jesus” is to show the error in following the ascetic Paul instead of the true Christianity of the more tolerant Jesus, who accepted the human pursuit of pleasure. This concept is introduced in the first volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was published in 1823. Fearing hostile reactions, Bentham used the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith. The second volume, which deals with the early church, and the third volume, which focuses on sexual morality, remained unpublished.

Bentham wrote more than 500 pages explaining his liberal views on homosexuality during the last 50 years of his life.  Some of these documents may have circulated among his followers, but none of it was published during his lifetime.

The first Bentham writings on homosexuality to be published were primarily secular. His 1785 essay “Offences Against One's Self: Paederasty” is considered the first document arguing for decriminalization of homosexuality in England. He reasoned that consensual sex between same-sex partners should not be punished because it does not harm anyone. The essay was not published until 1931, when a fragment first appeared in print. The full essay was finally published in 1978.

Only now are Bentham’s writings on Jesus and homosexuality coming to light. The third volume of “Not Paul, but Jesus” was not published in any form until 2013. It was released last year by the Bentham Project at University College London, which counts him as its spiritual father.

In January 2014 Bentham’s own overview of the “Not Paul, but Jesus, Volume 3” appeared as a chapter in a book published by Oxford University Press: “Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Writings on Sexual Morality” by Jeremy Bentham. (More info at: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199685189.do)

A section on “Jesus’s Sexuality” is also included in the 2012 article “Jeremy Bentham: Prophet of Secularism” by Philip Schofield, director of the Bentham Project. He draws on the “Not Paul” book and another set of manuscripts to draw powerful conclusions such as this:

Bentham claimed that, unlike Paul, Jesus did not, according to any account that appeared in the four Gospels, condemn either the pleasures of the table or the pleasures of the bed. On the contrary, Jesus’s opposition to asceticism was shown in his condemnation of the Mosaic law in Matthew 9: 9–17…. Bentham pointed out that Paul’s most forceful condemnation was directed towards homosexuality. Bentham responded that not only had Jesus never condemned homosexuality, but that he had probably engaged in it. There were, moreover, many females in Jesus’s immediate circle, and again Bentham saw no reason why Jesus might not have engaged in heterosexual activity as well.

Although Bentham doggedly defended consensual sexual activity between same-sex couples for half a century, his own love life remains a mystery. The son of a wealthy lawyer, he was a child prodigy who grew up to be a brilliant and eccentric recluse, living alone in London in what he called “a state of perpetual and unruffled gaiety.” He referred to his home as his “hermitage.” He lived there with a “sacred teapot” called Dicky, a favorite walking stick named Dapple, and a beloved tom cat addressed as the Reverend Doctor John Langborn. He declared, “I love everything that has four legs,” and allowed a colony of mice to share his office. One study concludes he had Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Check this link for an 1827 description of Bentham’s eccentricities.

The philosopher’s influence continued to grow after his death as his supporters spread his ideas. Most of what is now known as liberalism is rooted in Bentham’s philosophy. His diverse followers included economist John Stuart Mill and feminist firebrand Frances “Fanny” Wright, who once exclaimed in a poem, “Oh had I but the Lesbyan's lyre, / Blue-eyed Sappho's fervid strain, / Then might I hope thy blood to fire…”.

Contemporary queer theologians such as Robert Shore-Goss have recognized him too. Shore-Goss writes a section about Bentham in the chapter on “Christian Homodevotion to Jesus” in his book “Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up.”

During his 84 years Bentham wrote manuscripts totaling more than 5 million words, and many remain unstudied and unpublished. The Bentham Project is busy recruiting volunteers worldwide to transcribe them. More words of wisdom are likely to emerge from this prophet of LGBT rights who once summed up his approach to life by saying: “Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove.”

Not Paul, but Jesus Vol. III by Jeremy Bentham, edited by Philip Schofield, Michael Quinn and Catherine Pease-Watkin, is now freely available to download or view online at:
http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/2013/04/30/not-paul-but-jesus-vol-iii/

___
Image credit: Jeremy Bentham engraving by J. Thomson, from a painting by W. Derby (courtesy of the Bentham Project)

___
Related links:
Top 20 Gay Jesus books (from Jesus in Love)

___

Special thanks for tips and background info from Mitch Gould, Walt Whitman scholar and curator of LeavesOfGrass.org

____
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. It is also part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts