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Anglican priest sparks controversy by claiming Jesus was gay
In a controversial comment in today’s Guardian, an Anglican priest claims Jesus was probably gay.
Rachael Healy
20 April 2012
In a controversial comment in today’s Guardian, an Anglican priest claims Jesus was probably gay.
Paul Oestreicher, chaplain at the University of Sussex and Canon Emeritus of Coventry Cathedral, said Jesus’s intimacy with his disciple John suggests a gay relationship between the two.
Oestreicher preached on the subject at a Good Friday service in Wellington, New Zealand. He revisited the sermon in the Guardian, saying: “Suffering was my theme. I felt I could not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at the hands of the church, over many centuries.”
He highlights the fact that John was the only man present at the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jesus asked his mother Mary to take John into her home as her son. Oestreicher said: “John becomes unmistakenly part of Jesus’ family.”
Ostreicher notes that Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi, and would have been expected to marry. Yet there is no Biblical evidence of his involvement in heterosexual relationships.
He continues: “Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have been truly human. To believe that would be heretical.
“Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual option simply seems the most likely.”
Oestreicher believes the subject had to be broached, “as an act of penitence for the suffering and persecution of homosexual people that still persists in many parts of the church.”
Acknowledging that his theory will shock many conservative Christians, Oestreicher writes that Jesus’s sexuality makes no difference to his significance in the church: “Spiritually it is immaterial.”
He urges the church to reconsider traditional views on sexuality, saying there would be “many more disciples” if Christianity was more open and loving.
Oestreicher is only the latest member of the clergy to claim Jesus may have been gay.
In 1967, in a lecture to Somerville College, Oxford, the Reverend Hugh Montefiore suggested that, because Jesus had remained unmarried – a social abnormality for a Jewish man at that time – he may have been homosexual.
Anglican priest sparks controversy by claiming Jesus was gay
In a controversial comment in today’s Guardian, an Anglican priest claims Jesus was probably gay.
Rachael Healy
20 April 2012
Paul Oestreicher, chaplain at the University of Sussex and Canon Emeritus of Coventry Cathedral, said Jesus’s intimacy with his disciple John suggests a gay relationship between the two.
Oestreicher preached on the subject at a Good Friday service in Wellington, New Zealand. He revisited the sermon in the Guardian, saying: “Suffering was my theme. I felt I could not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at the hands of the church, over many centuries.”
He highlights the fact that John was the only man present at the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jesus asked his mother Mary to take John into her home as her son. Oestreicher said: “John becomes unmistakenly part of Jesus’ family.”
Ostreicher notes that Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi, and would have been expected to marry. Yet there is no Biblical evidence of his involvement in heterosexual relationships.
He continues: “Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have been truly human. To believe that would be heretical.
“Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual option simply seems the most likely.”
Oestreicher believes the subject had to be broached, “as an act of penitence for the suffering and persecution of homosexual people that still persists in many parts of the church.”
Acknowledging that his theory will shock many conservative Christians, Oestreicher writes that Jesus’s sexuality makes no difference to his significance in the church: “Spiritually it is immaterial.”
He urges the church to reconsider traditional views on sexuality, saying there would be “many more disciples” if Christianity was more open and loving.
Oestreicher is only the latest member of the clergy to claim Jesus may have been gay.
In 1967, in a lecture to Somerville College, Oxford, the Reverend Hugh Montefiore suggested that, because Jesus had remained unmarried – a social abnormality for a Jewish man at that time – he may have been homosexual.
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