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It Seems to Me That Nothing Screams ‘White, Eurocentric, Privilege’ Like…
…some wretched (and I use the word advisedly) “guest preacher” at Trinity (Cambridge) College Chapel yesterday, who took the opportunity, during the Evensong service, to expatiate on the matter of Jesus’s sexuality while displaying Medieval and Renaissance paintings (from Europe) in which he focused on depictions of Christ’s penis (which are vague and rather amorphous in several paintings–hardly surprising really, given the subject matter, not to mention the tendency of art “restorers” in intervening centuries to airbrush out such things which might–in their time–have been considered overly-descriptive details.
Once he’d put that ticklish matter to bed, our hero (Joshua Heath, a “junior research fellow” whose Ph.D. work was supervised by former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Atkinson Williams), began to deconstruct the matter of Christ’s wounds as depicted in a series of paintings.
Apparently, penetrative (as in “arrow” or “spear”) wounds remind him of vaginas. And so he lovingly traced the outlines of the wounds in an effort to point out the similarities. (Ugh. I cannot help feeling this says more about him than it does about the artist.)
And then–dispositively:
the sermon displayed three paintings, including Jean Malouel’s 1400 work Pietà, with Mr Heath pointing out Jesus’s side wound and blood flowing to the groin.
I am not sure if Mr. Heath–or Reverend Heath, or whatever the Hell it is one is supposed to call him–is a “gravity denier,” but here is a photo of the image in question:
Apparently, the image of “blood flowing to the groin” is supposed to be indicative somehow of Jesus’s “trans” identity.
I ask you–reasonable men and women all–where else is the blood supposed to flow? Upwards, into His nose?
I really can’t think of anything more stupid than this, a theory that the great artworks of Western Civilization, undertaken a millennium-and-a-half after Christ’s death, should be shoehorned into some idiotic woke theory to suit a 21st-century moron obsessed (and not in a good way) with untoward sex.
Not only does it disrespect the actual facts on the ground–Christ was a Middle-Easterner who likely didn’t resemble any of our traditional representations of Him at all, it also denigrates other cultures whose Christian adherents represent Him in their own way. (I remember some of the very careful and respectful ways in which the Christian missionaries in Nigeria found ways to make Christ relatable and understandable in a primitive culture, without either insulting that culture, or diminishing the Christian message.)
Really, Joshua Heath. If you want a transgender Christ-Hero, draw your own, and leave my Christian art history, and my tradition alone.
Plus, and: Shame on you, Dr. Michael Banner, Dean of Trinity College, who–post flap–said that Heath’s view was “legitimate.”
Information here was sourced from a Telegraph article (behind a paywall) but it’s all over the Internet. From the Telegraph article:
A congregation member, who wished to remain anonymous, told Dr Banner in a complaint letter: “I left the service in tears. You offered to speak with me afterwards, but I was too distressed. 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.”
The worshipper said the audience and choir in the traditional Anglican service, with children present, was “visibly uncomfortable” at the “truly shocking” sermon, which “made me feel unwelcome in the Church” and his partner felt “violated”.
PS: Evensong is my favorite Church of England service. I’ll be damned if this fool is going to ruin it for me.
Published in General
Interesting. I knew a little of that, but had no idea just what a gnarly mess it was. Thanks.
Agree. And it’s not a matter of ostentation. (I grew up in a pretty high-church tradition.) The most beautiful, holy church I’ve ever known is the old parish Church of St. Nicholas in Oddington, Gloucestershire. The parish was founded in 681. Part of the current church dates back to the 11oo’s. It’s a place of absolute peace and contemplation, perfectly scaled to the community and its needs over the centuries. A key feature is the very faded “Doom painting” of the Last Judgment, painted in the 1300s.
The church is no longer used, and is maintained by charitable donations. It’s “bat-friendly,” with a grill in the door so the little guys can get up into the belfry, and a year or two before my first visit, a fox had found her way in and had a litter of kits under the altar. They left her there, undisturbed, until she, and they, beetled off into the woods.
The story of the Church of St. Nicholas is here: https://www.evenlodevalechurches.org/oddington-st-nicholas. There’s a reconstruction of the Doom painting showing the bright colors that would have been used when it was first painted:
One of Henry VIII’s most egregious acts (and there were many) was the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of the churches. Among much else that was lost was the vibrancy of the spaces, the colors and the attention to detail which poured from the hearts of those who were building for the glory of God. Soldiers of the King, in a somewhat eerie prefiguring of BLM and Just Stop Oil, smashed statuary, set things on fire, threw paint at works of art, and looted the coffers.
I’m very fond of Worcester Cathedral (the bishopric church of my childhood). It escaped a lot of Henry’s demolition efforts, because his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, is buried there. It’s also big enough to have all the bells and whistles (as it were) of the grander edifices, but at a much more human scale. I try to visit and say hello to King John (who’s also buried there, and who I think has been very badly done-by) on all my visits to the UK.
Dad saying hello to King John on our last visit together.
The divide that I have in mind is between actual, believing followers of Jesus, and the Wokeist-types who seem to have taken over.
The rainbow flag, and ordination of homosexuals, seem to be two fairly accurate signals of this. I haven’t looked into it much. I just checked the Episcopal Church web page (this is the name used by the Church of England in the US), and found this gem on LGBT issues:
They even have: “An LGBT-affirming bible app that seeks to ‘uplift ALL believers.'”
Support for homosexual and trans perversion is not the only way that a church can go astray. It does seem to be the most readily apparent, at the present time. In prior generations, we saw the erosion of real marriage and the acceptance of sex out of wedlock.
Strictly speaking, the Episcopal Church in America is one of fifty-or-so churches which belong to the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Yes, I think it’s a consistent theme that one of the ways in which churches can go astray is through an obsession, from either end (as it were) with sex and a determination to cater to the intense proselytizing of the perverse enthusiasms of those who hold them. Examples from both ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ maniacs on all parts of the spectrum abound.
Zounds! That is a stupid interpretation.
The wound in Christ side should remind you of Genesis, when God opens Adam’s side, takes a rib and forms Eve. I don’t know exactly what that means aside from Christ’s role as the New Adam, and something to do with the formation of the Bride of Christ (aka the Church). I’m not wise, but I do know that it’s something you can contemplate for years and not reach the bottom.
This, perhaps, but also to fulfill the prophesies:
“he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” Psalm 34:20 (cf. John 19:36)
“They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” Zechariah 12:10b (cf. John 19:37)
They are. The church I grew up in split and the portion my parents went with tried staying independent, but struggled with the lack of apostolic succession, so joined with the Anglican Church of Africa.
Do you want an Inquisition?
This is how we get Inquisitions.
I’m becoming less opposed.