Kittredge Cherry, author of the wonderful Jesus in Love Blog, has just recently published an article at Huffington Post about her remarkable book, The Passion of Christ, A Gay Vision, with paintings done by the extraordinary artist, Doug Blanchard. There is no more fitting source for inspiration during this Holy Week than the images and texts of this truly unique work, re-envisioning Jesus as a gay man, persecuted and despised.
The article itself has received over 4,000 likes (correction, it's now gone up to nearly 8,000 likes in less than 24 hours), which is gratifying. Unfortunately, the 1800 comments to the article are filled with such un Christian vitriol, bigotry and hate that it is probably harmful to the soul to read too many of them. However, Kittredge is asking for support from any friends of her work. So if you have a free moment, please drop by Huffington Post and add a supportive comment of your own.
For those readers not familiar with the book, here is it's website:
Kittredge Cherry's Facebook Page - with her latest commentary below:
Jesus acted up when he saw something wrong. Nothing made him angrier than religious hypocrisy. He turned over the tables where unholy profits were made. Churches can raise big money by claiming that some other group is an unholy threat: lepers, immigrants, queers. They call LGBT love an abomination, but such fundraising tactics are the real abomination!
A modern-day Christ figure disrupts business and distracts church-goers on Day 2 of Holy Week reflections on “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” at the Jesus in Love Blog.
6 comments:
Many thanks! Your support here and elsewhere is much needed and much appreciated! We’re up to 10,000 likes!
Your efforts and creative work are even more appreciated, Kitt.
Richard/Jayden, I now understand a comment you left at my blog a day or so ago about this. I'm very sorry this has happened, to Kittredge, who is a fine person and a fine disciple of Christ. She has my support. I doubt that leaving a comment on the thread will in any way alter the hate people want to spew in the name of their (highly selective and very off-center) religious beliefs. I'll very definitely like the article, however.
Thanks, Bill. At least all the negative publicity spread news of the book far and wide, even as far as Dagestan and the outer Caucasus!
Thanks, Jayden and Bill, for your support. Your positive comments don’t necessarily change the minds of those who spew hate, but they do make sure that hate is NOT the only opinion expressed… and may influence the “silent majority” who read both sides.
Also the sheer volume of comments (2,200) and likes (10,000) led Huffington Post to invite me to do a live webcam interview about the Passion book. You can see it by going to Huff Post Live at this link and scrolling down to
New Book Explores The 'Gay Vision' Of Jesus Christ Rev. Kittredge Cherry discusses her new book.
I think there is an assumption that as a gay man I should in some ways find these paintings more vital than other works of art; they do not. Why do I need a special 'gay vision' when there are Christian works of art which touch my spirit more than any of these? Just one point; why must the Christ have the perfect body, is it our gay obsession with physical beauty? How shallow it seems when we compare it to those later religious works by Titian or the Altarpieces of Grunewald.
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