Transgender Jesus? The Church has much more important things to worry about

Was Jesus transgender? This is not a question I ever thought I would have to address but hey, it’s 2022 and we all have to get with the programme. Let me say up front that my faith bends towards singer Ariana Grande, whose lyrics include “You, you love it how I move you/ You Love it how I touch you. My one, when all is said and done/ You’ll believe God is a woman”.

If that offends you, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that God was kind of gender neutral: “All human language about God is inadequate and to some degree metaphorical… God is not male or female. God is not definable.” It follows, then, that Jesus, the son of God, is not definable either and how you see him depends what kind of Christian you are.

I am not a believer, so I see Christ as a revolutionary mystic. Some believers see him as a white, European man with blonde hair, though he was born in the Middle East. To say he is the subject of projection is an understatement. There is Jewish Jesus, Black Jesus and Radical Jesus.

In 1976, James Kirkup caused a stir by writing a poem from the point of view of a Roman Centurion in which gay Jesus has sex with guards, disciples and even Pontius Pilate. It was pretty graphic, and Mary Whitehouse took the publisher (Gay News) and writer to court for blasphemy and won. Blasphemous libel ceased to be a common law offence in 2008, indicating perhaps that we have become a more secular society.

Yet last week, a sermon by a Cambridge Research student, Joshua Heath at Trinity College chapel, left some worshippers in tears, with one shouting “Heresy!”. Heath’s sermon was based on mediaeval paintings and speculated about where Christ’s body was “simultaneously masculine and feminine in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body”. The dean, Dr Michael Banner, said such a view was “legitimate” and it may provide us with “ways of thinking around transgender questions today”.

Does it really? I am offended by all this as a woman and I am not a Christian. To say that a gash in the side of a man in the painting he refers to, is a vagina, is insulting. The vagina is not a wound. What a peculiar way to think.

This is all just more revisionism of history to fit in a trans narrative that is completely unnecessary. One should be able to argue for the rights and dignity of trans people without rewriting history or the Bible. If anyone wants to get literal about it, Deuteronomy is pretty hard-core: “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.”

I don’t believe this, of course, and if there is a God they made people as they are: straight, gay and fans of Drag Race.

Gender non-conforming people have always existed, but not as trans people do now. Why pretend this nonsense? Many female saints starved themselves so they had no periods or breasts. They often dressed in men’s clothes to avoid marriage. Some lived their lives as men in monasteries. Eunuchs described in the Bible could move between male and female communities. But none of this equates to what is going on now.

This reworking of history simplifies real lives. Thus, Joan of Arc was trans as she wore armour, those who started the Stonewall riots were trans when they were in fact drag queens, gay men and butch lesbians. Where historical figures have courageously rebelled against gender stereotypes they are dragged back into some all-inclusive but reductive box.

I believe Jesus was trans as much as I believe in the virgin birth or transubstantiation or that he came back from the dead. In other words, I don’t. I don’t think a wafer is the actual body of Christ. I don’t think a man who thinks he is a woman is one on his say-so. What we have is the collision of two faiths: a Christian one that is trying to make itself relevant and the new religion of gender identity. On both counts I am a heretic.

What strikes me, though, is that instead of trying to trans Jesus, the Church should get its own house in order. Its clergy are allowed to be in same-sex relationships as long as they are celibate. This is ridiculous, as is the fact that same-sex people can’t get married in church or have their civil marriage blessed.

Theological speculation about trans Jesus in such a context seems an exercise in avoidance. Never mind the fact that it is – for some people – upsetting. So, like Depeche Mode, I am sticking with having my own Personal Jesus. Good enough for Johnny Cash. Good enough for me.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbHLnp6rmaCde6S7ja6iaJufocKuusisq6xnYmV%2Fc3uQamZrcF%2Bpv6K60qCcp5yVp3qrsdKuqmabmKq%2FpLSMoZisZZ2qsKl5yKanqKqklru1edOhoKefo2LEsL7RsmY%3D