Speculation that Jesus Christ might have been transgendered was “legitimate”, according to the dean of Trinity College in Cambridge.
The Telegraph reported that Reverend Dr Michael Banner defended a junior research fellow who claimed during last Sunday’s college chapel service that Jesus could have been trans.
The speaker, Joshua Heath, reportedly told the congregation that a Renaissance painting of Jesus’ crucifixion showed wounds on his body that had “a decidedly vaginal appearance”.
Heath, who judging by his sermon has never seen a vagina, directed the congregation to a 14th-century painting that depicted Jesus with a side wound, from which blood was streaming down to the groin.
“In Christ's simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ [is] as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath preached.
This is now the state of academia …
‘Jesus was transgendered because someone painting him more than a thousand years after his crucifixion depicted him with a stab wound that I imagine looks like a vagina.’
Not even Dan Brown’s Davinci Code was that stupid.
Next thing you know, an academic will stand up in a mosque and claim that Mohammed was "transgendered".
Maybe not.
Anyway, if academics can’t tell a stab wound from a vagina, no wonder students can’t figure out which bathroom they are supposed to use.
A congregation member reportedly complained to the Trinity College dean …
“I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.
“I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong.
“I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ’, a new heresy for our age.”
Incredibly, college dean Rev Dr Banner defended the sermon and said he believed that “speculation was legitimate”.
According to The Telegraph, Rev Dr Banner replied to the complainant that medieval paints of Jesus provided us with ways of thinking about issues around transgender questions today.
He might have said the Bible provided us with ways of thinking, but that would have required the dean to have been thinking.
The dean wrote …
“For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism.”
For myself, I think speculation that Heath is a heretic and that Banner is an idiot is legitimate.
My friend Kirralie Smith, who works for an organisation called Binary, pointed out the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to Jesus.
“When they want to be offended, they’ll complain about the inaccuracy of religious artwork and ‘white Jesus’, but when it suits them, spear wounds to the ribs can be vaginas,” she said.
Indeed.
And why isn’t anyone cancelling Heath for failing to respect Jesus’ pronouns?
Progressivism, if not checked, will hollow out the Christian religion and wear its skin like a trophy.
Well from an artist's perspective, I'd be a bit upset if someone said my painting of a stab wound looked like a vagina. Perhaps the oil paints need to come out for a touch up. But seriously, this bloke has formed this view based on one artist's interpretation of a historical event he didn't himself see, hmmm. It might be best if the preacher keeps out of Art galleries otherwise his view of pretty much everything is going to be just as distorted.
I don't understand the argument here! The painting depicting Christ after His crucifixion shows where the centurion's spear pierced Christ's side and from which blood and water issued forth. No evidence of 'vaginal' entry to my way of thinking. If one follows the blood trail down the body, it flows into the groin area which has a flimsy cloth covering. Here one might presume to believe that modesty, in not showing genitalia is the artists way of also not wanting to offend religious feelings of the day. To look on the private parts of any crucifixion figures, you will find a modesty pose is adopted or loin cloth covering is employed generally speaking. To suggest The Son of the Living God was in some way altered to give minority groups a share in the reasons for the crucifixion is ridiculous. Christ's vicarious death was for ALL humanity and does not need embellishment so as to make all humans feel they are included.
Another case of ignorance or plain stupidity by those wishing to do harm to Christianity in today's society. (Alas even from some within the fold. Wolves in sheep clothing seeking to devour the innocent?)