The Jesus Born Gay

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At times, there is silence for a reason as some things are best said by being left unsaid.

That there is no mention of Jesus’ sexual orientation in scripture is perhaps reflective of a profound, cosmic reality that one’s gender nor orientation are a prerequisite for determining that which is of the Divine. To the dismay of much of western Christianity, Jesus wasn’t purposed on being imaged into a caucasian, American, heterosexual, Republican, gun-owning, blue-eyed, conservative male with flowing locks of brown hair. Rather, He is the surest example of what it truly looks like to simply be fully human and fully rested in the Divine.

Was or is Jesus gay in terms of sexual orientation or behavior? I don’t believe so—but it certainly doesn’t matter. For being gay is about so much more than mere sexual orientation or gender identification. It’s about being a beautifully created soul adorned with eternal extravagance imaged in the splendor of the Creator. It’s about bearing the arduous task of navigating their unique, human experience through the minefields of a brutally inhumane world that would quickly ransack those who break religious molds while clawing to strip them of their divine value, identity, purpose and worth. Beyond the gravity of sexuality and orientation, this is the deeper, ultimate essence of the plight intrinsic to being gay. It’s the quest to be fully human and fully alive while sweating beads of blood in determination to find one’s way and hold onto one’s inherent dignity and God-delighting in a spiritually nefarious, different-condemning, and different-killing world.

In this way, Jesus was surely gay. 

For under a single glimmering star in a stable shadowed by the dark of night, Jesus is the gay senior citizen, the gay adult, the gay teenager, the gay child—all of them born gay from the very beginning in the manger of God’s delight. Not by choice, but by the Hands of the One who creates beauty itself and all beautiful things. Affirmed by only a few wise to the ways of heaven. Born into a war of ignorance and the lifelong battle to be valued for your divine worth.

In the face of being ostracized and derided by His own Nazareth family of bigots determined to misunderstand Him, Jesus is the gay man and the lesbian woman who live in the constant, gruesome torment of coming out, being known, and fully living their God-designed personhood—a kind of hell on earth of daily accusation and rejection God never weaved into the tapestry of what anyone should endure.

Or crying over Jerusalem, begging for His heart to be understood and His people to receive Him, Jesus is the parent who lies awake deep into the night, tirelessly fighting in solidarity for the defense, worth, dignity and affirmation of their LGBTQ child. God has surely blessed them, but the religious deem His gift a disgrace. Jesus, not just the parent, but also the LGBTQ child born innocent by the Spirit’s authoring, pursued by the cunning Herods of our world whose sure desire is to seek out and kill them, erasing them from existence.

There, praying in the garden of Gethsemane, begging for divine reprieve, Jesus is the lesbian teenager, trembling in terror as she cuts her arms and threads the noose, convinced that giving up is the only way out, and the only sure resolve to the pain that is before her.

In the outer courts, confronted by the religious through the evil venom of their creed—backed into a corner, a pointed finger pushing at His chest questioning His true identity, Jesus is the transgender person whose truth is too truthful for the ignorant to hear nor see.

Then, from the confines of Pilate’s Praetorium where flogged beyond recognition, to a savage, religiously-conspired cross where nailed, pierced and left to die of internal suffocation, Jesus is every LGBTQ person ever murdered in body, mind or spirit—crucified to death by religion, bigotry, and hate, and even good people who remain silent and unengaged.

In all these ways, Jesus is surely gay—not just gay, but One of us all for whom religion has demonized, illegitimized, and crucified in fear.

For Jesus didn’t die just for humanity, He died as humanity—all of it. Transgender, black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, conservative, progressive—the haters, the lovers, the lifted high, the beaten low, the Christians, the Muslims—every type, color, creed, and flavor.

Everywhere there is religious oppression, everywhere there is bigotry, discrimination, or injustice—where there is the branding with labels or the withholding of Grace, Jesus is there in Person and as the person being deprived of that which has been given to them freely and irrevocably from the goodness of His Name.

In this way, if you can’t handle the notion of Jesus being gay then you aren’t fully understanding the essence of Jesus being you.

To be you or to be gay is essentially one in the same—it’s what it means for all of us to simply be human, created in the likeness, image, and favor of our Maker, living in a religious world that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy all that His hands have made, with special sights on that which the religious deem inferior or against the grain.

Run your fingers through the strands of an LGBTQ soul, then through mine, or that of any other, and soon you will declare the only declaration that can be truthfully rendered—that none are better, only different. For the sooner we see Jesus in and as the people around us, the sooner the lenses of God’s affirming view become the windows through which we see ourselves and all humanity.

If Jesus isn’t gay then Jesus isn’t you, and if Jesus isn’t you, then the incarnation is a fake, and your resurrection a certain uncertainty.

No one chooses to be born LGBTQ, but in Christ Jesus, God has chosen to be—not just One of them, but He even does the unthinkable and dares to be One of you.

Yes, that’s right.

Jesus is gay, Jesus is me, and Jesus is even…

You.

 

Grace is brave. Be brave.

 

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In Leatherbound Terrorism, Chris chases the evils of conservative Evangelicalism out of the shadows and gives powerful voice to the cries of the religiously oppressed. Confronting issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, religious greed, hypocrisy, nationalism, white supremacy, privilege, and the weaponizing of the Bible, Leatherbound Terrorism pulls no punches. Endorsed by best selling authors Steve McVey and Baxter Kruger, Leatherbound Terrorism will challenge you, inspire you, and most certainly cause you to rethink your faith and life.

 

13 Comments

  1. Traci Rowland

    In my fight to be fully recognized as a member of my church community this couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Thank you Chris, my brother, I love you.

  2. jan

    That’s beautiful. Thank you!

  3. Jordan Hurley

    This is utter nonsense

    • William Gonzalez

      I agree . Jesus was born sinless the bible call homosexuality a sin .

    • ckratzer

      Ok, what’s your problem with the article?

  4. Jordan Hurley

    Lies

  5. Marylee Fithian

    Thank you, Chris.

  6. SarahM

    Jordan,

    Are you so sure that what Chris is saying are lies or is this another case of false teachers who took the word of God and twisted for their own ends? Didn’t Jesus warn us more about teachers who would lead us into false hoods than He ever warned us about the world?

    No one would ever say that Jesus lied, but can you ever say that the Church has never lied about anything? Can you say that all of the translators are without any translational or doctrinal bias? Can you even say that most people can think for themselves as opposed to just taking what their leaders are saying without any critical thinking?

    Just who do you think the eunuchs in the scriptures are including? The Bible never says whether or not they became eunuchs by force or by choice. What do you think transexuals do when they have their privates cut off? That by definition makes them eunuchs made by man. They only had 2 definitions for the eunuchs, it was either they were made that way by man, or by birth. Not only that but you have 2 first century Jews who give descriptors of what they saw or evidenced with the eunuchs. The first one is Josephus who makes the claim that eunuchs are infused with a feminine spirit. Philo of Alexandria gives a much fuller description in which he colorfully describes how the eunuchs are acting. From his description, they could be contestants on Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

    And to top it off Paul as a Pharisee would know what the Pharisees teachings on the eunuchs were, and under them eunuchs were not classified as men and could not be sentenced as rebellious sons as they were not classified as men (And that included both made by men and those by birth.)

    Never mind the fact that I have never heard any preacher preach on this where God gives His promise to the eunuchs.

    Isaiah 56
    This is what the Lord says:

    “Maintain justice
    and do what is right,
    for my salvation is close at hand
    and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
    2 Blessed is the one who does this—
    the person who holds it fast,
    who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
    and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

    3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
    And let no eunuch complain,
    “I am only a dry tree.”

    4 For this is what the Lord says:

    “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose what pleases me
    and hold fast to my covenant—
    5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
    a memorial and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
    I will give them an everlasting name
    that will endure forever.

    And can you please explain why God says in verse 5 they will be given a name better than SONS OR DAUGHTERS? Who are the daughters in that passage? One has to wonder. If this is talking about those who are classified as men made or born as eunuchs and God tells them they will have a name better than SONS or DAUGHTERS wouldn’t that indicate that very likely that some of those eunuchs God sees as being DAUGHTERS and NOT SONS? God does not judge by outward appearances. God judges the heart.

    And can you also explain why it seems that many of the same people who treated like crap in grade school and called every name in the book and if the truth were to be known, in some ways the same people would be somehow be responsible for reinforcing the trans or gay issues in the first place. Yet somehow those same people NEVER take any blame for doing the things they did to us as kids. (And yes I went to a CHRISTIAN GRADE SCHOOL)
    So we were told we were one way to begin with and now because some have somehow seen the light, we are now condemned on the other hand. But yet no one has bothered to answer the question of when were they telling us the truth? If one was lying to me then, why should I believe them now, and how would I know that they are telling me the truth now? Can you please explain?

    • Jordan Hurley

      Read the Bible from God’s point of view. He destroyed Sodom for reason

  7. SarahM

    Of course He did and He even tells us WHY. (But somehow I wonder if you actually read what God Actually says about this.)

    This is God speaking to Israel.

    Ezekiel 16:

    49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 51 Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. 52 Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

    Now as God never specifies WHAT those detestable things are, you CAN NOT read into that passage WHAT they are. If you do you are going to end up in the wrong spot. Now the Bible does list quite a few detestable things. For example idol worship, temple prostitution, passing your children through the fire to the gods, adultery,
    haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, one who spreads strife among brothers, a false balance, a man who makes an idol, everyone who acts unjustly, he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous. Now which ones were the people of Sodom guilty of?

    Be careful with what you do with the passage from Jude. There is a connection between the flood and Sodom. Which is what Jude is alluding to.

    And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

    Genesis 6

    4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

    Going after strange flesh is also an abomination. The men of Sodom were trying to rape angels. They were doing the same thing the people were doing before the flood.

  8. Jordan Hurley

    Sexual immorality is one

  9. SarahM

    Please define what you mean as sexual immorality is a vague definition and it means something different to different people. Are talking about the biblical definition which is based off the law or are you speaking of the ‘churches” definition based off of Plato? (Most people have no clue at all how much the church was corrupted by philosophy even though Paul warns us against it.

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