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A German steel engraving of Jesus Christ.
A US college professor has caused outrage after suggesting that Jesus Christ was gay, genderfluid and liked to dress in drag.
Professor Tat-siong Benny Liew, teaches New Testament Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
The unorthodox views of the professor have come to light after he edited a 2009 compilation of Biblical criticisms.
His views were documented in a chapter called ‘Queering Closets and Perverting Desires: Cross-Examining John’s Engendering and Transgendering Word across Different Worlds’.
Jesus Christ: Genderfluid?
A stained glass window depicting Jesus washing the feet of a disciple
His work appears to have angered the likes of Breitbart and Fox News.
A student of Liew, student journal writer Elinor Reily claims that the professor wrote that what ‘what we have in John’s Jesus is not only a “king of Israel” or “king of the [Jews]’, but also a drag king.’
Liew says that Jesus later ‘ends up appearing as a drag-kingly bride in his passion.’
‘John is clear that Jesus is [Jewish]; what John is less clear about is whether Jesus is a biological male.’
He adds that Jesus’s ‘excessive’ and ‘deceptive’ speech would have been viewed as ‘feminine’ at the time, with women having a “moist and soft nature”.
‘I am suggesting that John’s constant references to Jesus wanting water, giving water, and leaking water speak to Jesus’ gender indeterminacy and hence his cross-dressing and other queer desires.’
Professor suggests Jesus ‘had a relationship with Roman centurion’
The professor also suggests that Jesus had a gay lover in the form of a Roman centurion.
‘One may, as a result, turn around Jesus’ well-known statement in John:
“No one comes to the Father except through me”: Jesus himself needs others to cum with the Father.
‘Jesus’ statement that “I in them [his followers] and you [the Father] in me” turns out to be quite a description.
‘What we find in John is a Jesus who longs to be ‘had’ by the Father.
‘Things do not get less queer as one gets to the other parts of John’s Gospel.
‘It is noticeable that throughout the Gospel Jesus and his Father form a “mutual glorification society”.
‘This constant elevation or stroking is nothing less than an exciting of the penis, or better yet, phallus,’ he adds.
In the text, Liew also explains that Jesus’s spiritual experience on the cross is homosexual and genderfluid in nature.
Reilly, the student who describes Liew’s interpretations, noted in her article that the professor ‘continues to be held up as an example and a bold successor to the learned and discerning tradition of our Catholic and Jesuit College of the Holy Cross.’
