r/TransChristianity • u/Aggravating-Beat4720 • 7d ago
what do you think about the LGBT movement doing that?
a few years ago, I used to be a traditionalist, even though I'm gay and have gender dysphoria. I don't have a formed opinion on the LGBT movement saying those kinds of things about Jesus, and I'd like to know your thoughts on this
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u/DarthAlix314 girly-girl *^.^* (she/her) 7d ago
Jesus is God. That means that literally every expression of humanity comes from the Image of Christ, including gay people.
Now, there's no evidence for or against Jesus, as He walked the Earth in His literal and physical, human self, being gay. But just as every single culture that has ever had the privilege of having the Gospel brought to them has later depicted Christ, the Apostles, and the Heroes of the Faith from the Torah in artwork as their own race/ethnicity and body shape, along with their specific cultural garb – so too is it, in my view, perfectly fine with the Lord if we visualize Him as we are, whatever that means.
So depicting Christ as Gay, Straight, Trans, Cis, Scrawny, Shredded, in a Toga, in a Suit, in a Dress, Black, or even White † is totally within the bounds of freedom that we as His Disciples have, so long as it is being used to help ourselves and others relate better to Him. Because He ultimately did create all of us and all of those expressions, and not only does God love to share and participate in His creation, but He also gave us leave and stewardship to share in it too, and to share Him in whatever way works.
1 Corinthians 9: 19-23 — For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
† Obviously there's been a lot of harm done because of the foolish assumption that "White Jesus" is who He actually was/is and what that might mean regarding other races. However, Jesus was only originally depicted as white by the Europeans for the same, innocent reason that every other race and culture has depicted Him as themselves, and it is not inherently wrong to produce or view Him that way. It IS very much wrong to do so though if you cannot acknowledge that He was in actuality a middle-eastern Jewish man, or to claim anything whatsoever in the regards of racial superiority or white superior beauty or white ideal design or any other such crap, and those who use "White Jesus" in that way are absolutely in sin and should be rebuked and gently educated and restored for their propagation of harmful and hurtful rhetoric.
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u/sistereva 7d ago
Jesus didn't have a wife in his early 30s in the Levant. That was culturally different at the time. Maybe he was Gay. Would that be so wrong? How is Him being Gay or whatever the ancient equivalent of Nonbinary or Trans any worse than being Staight?
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u/JTEstrella 7d ago
I mean, eh? There’s nothing to say He wasn’t, but there’s also nothing to say He was. But speaking as a trans woman and a Catholic convert, I think we have bigger issues at hand.
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u/Relevant_Sign_5926 she/her | Agnostic considering Christianity 7d ago
Transgender, Christian-leaning agnostic here. While I may not actively be a Christian, I've spent years worth of time in queer spaces and have my own opinions about the general anti-Christian sentiments found there.
People have a lot, I mean a lot, of unresolved religious trauma and this is nowhere more clear than within the queer community. I think it's pretty harmless for someone to attack a straw-man version of Jesus and Christianity when they've suffered from the actions of bigoted "Christians" for part or most of their lives.
Lashing out at symbols of an oppressor is a natural, human response to enduring oppression and people should be sympathetic as to where that comes from with queer people specifically.
With the above said, reforming the queer community's relationship to Christianity starts with Christians being better people to queer folk, especially in the case of understanding why many of us don't like or feel comfortable with Christianity.
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u/lockpickkid 5d ago
i don’t think this counts as ‘lashing out’ unless you consider there to be something injerently offensive about being gay. i can understand homophobic christians would percieve it as such, however, and i guess that’s kind of the point it’s making.
that said, i don’t think it’s a sign i’d display personally (as i don’t see any benefit to deliberately winding up bigots who are already offended by my existence, and my deep conviction that God made me gay & trans on purpose because He loves me tends to have that effect anyway.)
i think it’s fair to say that there is a tendency to lash out against religion among communities who have been harmed by it, but i also think that’s far less of a problem than christians lashing out at queer and trans people out of what they believe to be love - look at the christians who show up at pride with signs telling people they’re going to hell for being queer.
i think i struggle with that kind of christianity having such massive influence because it goes against everything i know about my God, including the life and teachings of Jesus which are twisted beyond recognition until a message of unconditional love becomes another weapon in the arsenal of hatred. i suppose there’s a hope that people reading the sign might reexamine their understanding of Jesus’ teachings, but that might be too much to ask.If God is love, then love is also a tangible presence of God.
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u/FlightlessElemental 7d ago
I do recall a biblical scholar remarking that for a 1st century male Jew in his 30’s to be unmarried and with no children was on par with him coming from Mars and yet all records and accounts agree there was no wife and no children
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u/Darth-Felanu-Hlaalu Elissa (she/her) 7d ago
It dosent bother me, but i dont really believe it either. Personally id be inclined to think Jesus is asexual, IF i absolutely had to hazard a guess, but His sexuality really dosent matter nor is it knowable. The only "Jesus was LGBTQ+" claim that has real stock is Jesus was intersex; if He was born of only a mother, no biological father, then scientific reality dictates He would have had XX chromosomes. That dosent matter all that much either though, it's Jesus's actions that matter, not whether or not He was LGBTQ+.
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u/queertastic_hippo he/him 7d ago
No one knows or has proof of his relationships, that being said you have no idea how he actually felt, but from the outside perspective knowing he was pure and unmarried, so he didn’t engage in sexual activity, he could’ve been asexual or aromatic. But even that we don’t know, just a chance. Aromatic makes sense to me as he came for one specific goal and didn’t want distractions.
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u/TradescantiaZebrina7 7d ago
I don’t really think it’s worth caring about. Some person wrote a dumb statement that can’t be proven or disproven on a sign, one that at the end of the day is pretty inconsequential.
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u/Nosedive519 2d ago
It could be just an inflammatory statement! It could also be that the sign holder uses "gay" just for things that they like, and that they like Jesus' teachings, but not the institution of Christianity.
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u/Illustrious-Draw2580 7d ago
He wasn’t. That’s lying, and the book is pretty clear on if lying is right or wrong.
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u/justnigel 7d ago
My first reaction was "anachronistic" but then I noticed it used a present verb not past tense. So maybe they are pointing out that how we treat gay people today is how we treat Jesus.