A dean of the University of Cambridge in the UK has come to the defense of a young researcher whose sermon on Sunday about Jesus Christ having a ‘trans body’ is said to have left outraged worshipers ‘in tears’.
Dr Michael Banner, Dean of Trinity College, said Joshua Heath raised “legitimate” speculation in his Evensong sermon, during which the researcher claimed from the Trinity College chapel pulpit that non-erotic depictions of Jesus’ penis in history paintings “solicit a welcoming rather than a hostile response to the raised voices of trans people,” according to The Daily Telegraph.
“In the simultaneously male and female body of Christ in these works, if Christ’s body as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath said.
Heath, whose doctorate in theology was supervised by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, also said that in one of the medieval paintings he showed the congregation, the spear wound in Jesus’ side “takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance”. In another, he pointed out how blood from his side flows to his groin.
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Heath said that in the 14th-century Luxembourg Prayer Book of Bonne, pictured here, the depiction of the wound in Jesus’ side “takes on a distinctly vaginal aspect.”
(Public domain)
Heath’s homily during the traditional Anglican service left many in attendance, including children, “visibly uncomfortable,” according to an anonymous worshiper who sent a letter of complaint to Banner. Shouts of “Heresy!” he reportedly rang through the church as enraged worshipers left in disgust.
“I left the service in tears,” the faithful wrote to the dean. “You offered to talk to me afterwards, but I was too distressed. I despise the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.”
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Heath pointed out that in Jean Malouel’s 13th-century Pietà, blood from Jesus’ side flows to his groin.
(Public domain)
“I am especially scornful of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I despise the idea that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ’, a new heresy for our age,” he continued the churchgoer, adding that Heath’s “really shocking” sermon “made me feel unwelcome in the Church” and that his partner felt “violated”.
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In Banner’s response to the letter, which was seen by The Daily Telegraph, the principal defended Heath, saying his sermon “suggested that we might think of these images of the male/female body of Christ as providing us with ways to think about issues related to transgender issues today.”
Heath’s doctorate in theology was supervised by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
(AFP via Getty Images)
“For myself, I think the speculation was legitimate whether you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions about the transsexualism,” Banner said.
The dean added that he “would not extend an invitation to someone who I thought would be deliberately trying to shock or offend a congregation or who might be expected to speak against the Christian faith.”
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Dr Michael Banner, the Dean of Trinity College, said “Heath’s speculation was legitimate”.
(Hans Neleman via Getty Images)
“The College would like to clarify the following,” a Trinity College spokesperson said, according to The Daily Mail. “Neither the Dean of Trinity College nor the researcher who gave the sermon suggested that Jesus was transgender.”
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“The sermon addressed the image of Christ depicted in art and various interpretations of those artistic representations,” the spokesperson continued. “The sermon’s exploration of the nature of religious art, in the spirit of thought-provoking academic inquiry, was in keeping with the open debate and dialogue at Cambridge University.”
