More interesting takes on the buriel of Jesus

"Pieta" by Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin, 1998


The "Jesus" in this picture was a gay man, who was about to die of AIDS. The artist wanted him to pick his Pieta. He chose a female leather bar employee, well known in Stockholm for mothering gay man. They posed at the door of the AIDS ward of a Stockholm hospital.

The man wanted people to remember him after his death - but his "Jesus" experienced his own personal resurrection. Shortly after the photo shoot, he began taking the new Aids drug cocktail. A decade later, Ohlson Wallin could proclaim "Jesus is alive!" And the AIDS ward no longer exists.

Information gleaned from Kittredge Cherry, 'Art that Dares. Gay Jesus, Woman Christ and More' Androgyne press, Berkeley CA, 2007.

The Killing - Edwin Muir

Pic: Becki Jayne Harelson - Crucifixion of Christ

The Killing

Edwin Muir

That was the day they killed the Son of God
On a squat hill-top by Jerusalem.
Zion was bare, her children from their maze
Sucked by the dream of curiosity
Clean through the gates. The very halt and blind
Had somehow got themselves up to the hill.
After the ceremonial preparation,
The scourging, nailing, nailing against the wood,
Erection of the main-trees with their burden,
While from the hill rose an orchestral wailing,
They were there at last, high up in the soft spring day.
We watched the writhings, heard the moanings, saw
The three heads turning on their separate axles
Like broken wheels left spinning. Round his head
Was loosely bound a crown of plaited thorn
That hurt at random, stinging temple and brow
As the pain swung into its envious circle.
In front the wreath was gathered in a knot
That as he gazed looked like the last stump left
Of a death-wounded deer's great antlers. Some
Who came to stare grew silent as they looked,
Indignant or sorry. But the hardened old
And the hard-hearted young, although at odds
From the first morning, cursed him with one curse,
Having prayed for a Rabbi or an armed Messiah
And found the Son of God. What use to them
Was a God or a Son of God? Of what avail
For purposes such as theirs? Beside the cross-foot,
Alone, four women stood and did not move
All day. The sun revolved, the shadows wheeled,
The evening fell. His head lay on his breast,
But in his breast they watched his heart move on
By itself alone, accomplishing its journey.
Their taunts grew louder, sharpened by the knowledge
That he was walking in the park of death,
Far from their rage. Yet all grew stale at last,
Spite, curiosity, envy, hate itself.
They waited only for death and death was slow
And came so quietly they scarce could mark it.
They were angry then with death and death's deceit.

I was a stranger, could not read these people
Or this outlandish deity. Did a God
Indeed in dying cross my life that day
By chance, he on his road and I on mine?

Gay images of Jesus

I love these three images, two of which are based on the famous "Consolator" of Carl Bloch (centre). I don't know where the Marilyn Monroe piece comes from, but the gay iconic spoof is from Elizabeth Ohlson-Wallin's "Ecce Homo" series.

The thing about the two alternative takes on the "Consolator", is that they both make exactly the same point. They foreground, and explicitly sexualise the adoration aspect of the painting. I suppose, in the heterosexual version, one may want to update the sexual iconography a bit, by substituting the head and body of Megan Fox, for instance. The gay one speaks a particular iconographic language of a particular, but very recognisable sub-culture.

Now, how come only certain options are available? How come the vocabulary and grammar of religious iconography has been so completely hi-jacked and owned by heterosexual imagists? Naturally, it has to do with the power of the majority. But how come, when the church talks of "listening" to gay people and "dialogue" with us, that our language, our grammar, our vocabulary is not up for discussion?

Save us, dear lord, from more resolutions

The Anglican Church in South Africa – well, more specifically, the diocese of Cape Town, has taken a resolution. It could not be described as “groundbreaking” or “earth shattering”. It is really little more than a timid little whimper. According to the Cape Argus (24/08/2009) the resolution “ask(s) the Archbishop to request the synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are in covenanted relationships (sic – how they got into these, needs some explanation, seeing that the Church itself won’t allow this), taking due regard of the mind of the Anglican Communion”(Sic!)

Clarifying the resolution, the Dean, Rowan Smith – himself Gay, said that “the mixed signal which the church was sending out needed to be clarified”. (I’ll say!). “We allow gays and lesbians in same sex relationships to become reverends and bishops but refuse to acknowledge their relationships as valid. This causes confusion and we as the clergy have no idea how to advise people”.

This seems to have been followed by other extraneous issues, like that while South Africa has a constitution which accepts civil unions between same sex partners, other countries i9n the region do not. (The resolution, you will notice, immediately, is not that these countries SHOULD have things like the recognition of same-sex partnerships, but merely noting that they don’t – causing a bit of awkwardness and unpleasantness.

Well, that really blew my hair back. Don’t know about you!

Homocentric pictures of Jesus

Becki Jayne Harrelson: Judaskiss

Signorelli: The flagellation of Christ

Frances Farmer on the cross - source unknown

Elizabeth Ohlson-Wallin: Krucifix

Maerten can Heemskerck: Man of Sorrows

Giotto: The kiss of Judas

Hans Schaufelein : Crucifixion (1515)

These are some of the images I have collected over the years, of what I would call "homocentric" images of Jesus. The obvious ones, are, of course, those by Elizabeth Ohlson-Wallin and Becki Jayne Harrelson. But the others are interesting as well. The image of Frances Farmer on the cross is a "Christa" or female Christ. The homoerotic images of Giotto and Van Heemskerck are also extremely interesting from a Gay and Lesbian perspective, as a comparitive. And then there is the really singular crucifixion by Schafelein - which, I suppose, might be anybody's guess!

Homocentric images of the last supper

Three very different images of the "Last Supper" - all, I would say, with their own integrity - all making a point for their time. The first one is of 'Bears', clustering around a drag queen (as Jesus). The second is also homo-erotic - but with women as the focus. The last is the well known Michaelangelo.

Depending on one's prejudices, each will have their own triggers for the viewer. 'Bears', for instance, are a particular sub-category of gay culture. The fact that most of us gay white men end up bears, is either a sad (or a happy) reality!

The wymyn in the second picture, I will grant you, look a bit as though they are extras for the set of "The L-Word". But pictured as they are, and clustered in this traditional pose, they make a particular point.

The thing I wonder, is not why would straight people find these images offensive - as they probably would. What continues to confuse me, is why Gay and Lesbian people would - (which, in my experience of showing them, they often do). The answer lies, I would think, in the complete dominance of explicitly hetero-normative imagery in the Christian church, even when the theme itself lends itself to homocentric interpretation, such as this one.

Mary and the language of symbol

So, this past Sunday was the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I took a non churchy friend of mine with me, because the service promised to be fairly spectacular. It's an ultra High kind of church, and this kind of feast day lends itself to an explosion of ceremony.

We had the usual bells, whistles, incense enough to choke on, white vestments. Did we stop there? No - we had a full orchestral Mass with 4 soloists singing the Haydn Missa in honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae, commonly known as the Grosse Orgelmesse. This was all followed by a fundraising lunch in the hall. (They don't do things in small measures in my church, I can tell you.)

But when my friend asked me, innocently, what it was we were celebrating - I had to pause for a moment or two. "The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary" - I answered brightly. She looked at me quizzically, waiting for the punch-line. "Er...", I stumbled on, "that is about when the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven."

"Assumed"? she asked - "Who assumed? Did someone assume that is where she went?" Mercifully, at that point the priest started speaking - uncharacteristically, at the beginning of the service to say that one of the orchestra had an "episode" - (I think was the word he used) - and that explained the ambulance outside.

In his sermon, the priest started by drawing attention to the sheer oddity of the feast:

"When was the last time you saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars? Not even in the Cape Quarter at New Year would you see such a sight, unless you were high on something. Yet this woman is the person whom we encounter in the Introit proper of today’s mass, which is quoting from the Revelation of St John the Divine: A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars. With this language, strange and unworldly, we enter into the world of the apocalyptic.

An apocalyptic world view pushes us to edge of the symbolic world, a world where image defines a deeper reality and where flights of fantasy take us into a new world. It is a world of hopes, deeper than the power of the human imagination..."

Yes, indeed. This is the world of fantasy. It cannot be literal. It cannot be real. It is as camp as a row of pink tents! The word Apocalypsis in the Greek, means the act of revelation - but really, we have lost that ability, that apocalyptic ability these days. And it all just comes out weird, strange, extraordinary and... well ... colourful, to say the least!

Does that, or should that stop sensible people from going to Church? I am sure it is a barrier to some - and so be it. The stuff my children understand, like Bakugans - the strange things my six year old demanded for his birthday - is pretty opaque to me, I promise you. They inhabit, in many ways, as different a universe to mine, as mine is to that which clothes the Blessed Virgin Mary in moons and stars. It is just bits of a lost language. It meant something important once, and all we can get of it now, is a kind of feint residue - an echo - a mist.

Undoubtledly, motherhood is a powerful image. But we denude it of its essential value, if we simply accord it to all mothers. There are, after all, terrible mothers - mothers who don't give a damn; mothers who should be in jail; mothers who damage and hurt and destroy. Not all mothers are good.

The symbol of Mary points all of us - in the strange, curious imagery and iconography to another form - a perfect form, a form, if you like, taken appropriately into "heaven" (which is, of course, yet another symbol).

For Gay and Lesbian Christians, the symbol of Mary is one for those of us who are outsiders in a patriarchal (and heteronormative) church, where the phallus holds eternal sway. It speaks to the downtrodden, to the milked, to the millions of women in the world who are controlled by men - and by inference the millions of us who are controlled by heterosexuals. It is a powerful symbol. because it says - this is a picture of what could be, what should be.

Queer discussions with a Bishop

A Bishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa, who will remain nameless, recently invited me in for some discussion on the 'Queer' issue. Now, let me start by saying, he is a good guy. He has a long history of involvement in the struggle for justice and equality in South Africa. He is sensible. He reads (which is a huge pleasure to behold!) and he is extremely thoughtful. But more than that, he values the opinions of others, which is not necessarily a common episcopal trait.

I understand (though I did not ask) that he is straight. But despite this handicap, he undoubtedly has a passion for issues of justice and queer justice being one of them. How rare is that, I ask you? And I wonder how much easier it would be for Christian Queers, if there were more people in positions of authority in the Church who did start with a passion for justice, in all its myriad needs and forms, and only then proceed to a discussion about homosexuality and whether or not Anglicans should allow; ordain; consecrate or marry homosexuals. I have a suspicion, things would be a lot easier, if a pre-requisite to the debate was a committment, not just in word, but in deed, to those issues of social justice.

Anyway, I had taken him one or two books to read. The one which he enjoyed the most was Leo Steinberg's The Sexuality of Christ in Rennaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (University of Chicago Press, 1983 (revised 1996). It is an extraordinary book, unbelievably well researched and hugely informative.

The other, was a book I have already reviewed on this site - The Queer God, by Marcella Althaus-Reid - which had the desired effect of blowing him away - just because that is what it does! I sent him my review as well, and it was this which he homed in on, in our discussion. In it, I made the following points:

• We Queers are only allowed to speak, if it is in the language and grammar of the hegemonic power. We are not allowed to explore our own language, our own culture, our own norms, our own reality. That is the dungeon to which we are confined, within the church and the dominant theology.
• In the end, in the fullness of time, we Queers will make ourselves heard. And not in a way which accepts that the dominant heterosexual project is the right one and that we somehow fit in with that. Queer Theologians are saying, "you have got it thumpingly wrong!" If we are excluded, if we are kept at the gate, if our voices are silent and if our culture and practice is condemned and excluded, you are wrong! Do not think for a moment that we will give up the struggle, or that we will be marginalized or silenced. Because the God is not a heterosexual God. In fact, that God is a blasphemy, an abhorrence and a sham.

The Bishop drew my attention to what I had said in a review of the book (i.e. the above) and said it sounded "angry". I was surprised about this, because I do not feel particularly angry. Mostly, I feel resigned, because I know that eventually, the Church will be dragged kicking and screaming into a more reasonably position than it has at the moment - eventually.

And then, secondly, the issue which perplexed him was, of course, the issue of my questioning the rightness of the hetero-normative church on its views relating to single, committed partnerships - as a model of marriage.

I said that I did not necessarily have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is the absolute refusal to even consider anything else! That is no way to have a debate. That is certainly no way to "listen" to those on the other side! You cannot, in any negotiation, start with the bottom line!

His point, about the debate was interesting. He said, granted, that was probably the bottom line for them. But what was the actual objective. If one starts with that point, we will probably never get any further. And the objective is, he would have thought, to kind of "get a toe in the door", as it were.

Although, at the time, I think I agreed with his position, on reflection it sounds very much like those who, during apartheid, argued that blacks and others in the liberation struggle, should pitch themselves a little lower than the full take-over of power from the white minority. A range of mechanisms were suggested: tri-cameral parliaments; bantustans; separate development etc etc. None of them worked, because the black majority, and those of us who fought alongside them, refused to accept "crumbs from the master's table".

I would suggest that it is much the same with the women's struggle and I would suggest it is much the same for us Queers. It is actually inauthentic to suggest anything else.