Johnnie Moore, vice president at Liberty University, writes of how he astounded his colleagues by suggesting that Jesus may have stopped to take a crap by the side of the road, on the way to Jerusalem. Granted, he didn’t use the word ‘crap’ but more provocatively, he also posited that Jesus may even have suffered the ravages of diarrhea. His article goes on to point out that Christians often don’t think of Jesus as fully human. I would heartily agree.
This is true. We often do not remember that Jesus is both fully human and fully God. However we must also see the truth that Jesus' humanity is not the same as our humanity. Jesus was not tainted by sin. None of us know what that feels like or what it is like to live like that. Think about it. Every thought pure. Every action the right one. Jesus is perfect and without flaw.
Now I suppose that Professor Moore’s musings might seem edgy and possibly even blasphemous to the average evangelical fundamentalist, but I would like to suggest that he is playing it way too safe.
When Jesus took on human flesh, He submitted himself to the same biological limitations all of humanity have. Jesus got tired. Jesus had to sleep. Jesus had to eat. If a person has to eat, they most certainly have to excrete biological waste. No problem.
If Christians truly believe that Jesus was 100% human (never mind that combining this with 100% God seems like somewhat sketchy math) then they must consider his sexuality. And there, believers find themselves skating on dangerously thin ice. So much fundy fervor is devoted to repressing and controlling sexuality that to think of their blessed Jesus as having a sex drive is simply too awful to bear.
Yes, let's discuss Jesus' sexuality. Nothing in the Bible is about repressing sexuality. The Bible does not teach that sex is evil and should be avoided. That was what stodgy old men and women did who wanted to control others. Anyone who reads the Song of Solomon and still thinks that God doesn't want humans to enjoy sex, they are an idiot. The issue is that God, who created sex, wants us to use His gift to us properly.
If the good Professor wanted to truly be daring, then he should have asked: “Did Jesus ever have wet dreams?” Did he masturbate? Imagine Mary finding a soiled tunic and cornering Joseph. “Joe, he’s been at it again. You really need to have a talk with him about purity and not yielding to lustful thoughts.”
Not getting into whether or not masturbation or having wet dreams are sins, I think Green is really asking a different question. Green thinks that they are sins. Therefore the Bible answers Green's questions.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God - 2 Corinthians 5:21
So in case you are missing the argument: Jesus had no sin so he would never sin sexually.
And that’s just for starters. Did the Savior of the World ever play childhood games of doctor with the little girl who lived in the house next door? As an adolescent, did he ever get erections at embarrassingly inopportune moments? Did the woman at the well catch Jesus checking out her cleavage? Now it’s true that Jesus preached against looking at women lustfully, but, as we all know, many of those who publically rail against certain ‘sins’ often are privately indulging in those very things.
So if you want to know if Jesus would have done a certain action, you need to first figure out if that action is a sin. If so, then Jesus did not do it. The teaching of the Bible is not that sin is definitional of being human. Jesus came to free us from sin so we can be at our at our optimum.
About now, any True Believers reading this probably have their eyes rolled back in their heads and are fainting like the heroine of a Victorian novel, but buckle your seatbelts, I’m not nearly done.
Green overestimates his arguments.
When sexuality is such an integral part of the human experience, why is it that Jesus is portrayed in a sterile, sexless manner? What was his orientation - straight, gay, or bisexual? Was he asexual, or is that just the image presented to us because the gospel accounts have been neutered and sanitized?
Jesus is everything we are not. Jesus is not limited or controlled by lusts and passion. That is what being a sinner is. Jesus was not married and fulfilled the Law perfectly. This means that Jesus never sinned in His thoughts or deeds. This isn't being neutered or unnatural. We are the ones who are broken and messed up - not Jesus. That doesn't not mean that sex is evil but must be enjoyed in the correct the context. Jesus was not in that context so He did not.
If anything, the evidence would point to a gay Jesus. It’s amazing how those who claim to take the Bible as literal and factual skip right past references to ‘the disciple who Jesus loved’ (John 20:2) and the fact that at the Last Supper, Jesus and John appeared to have had a bit of a cuddle party (John 13:23). Not to mention Judas kissing Jesus tenderly (Matthew 26:49 ISV). Could Judas have been a spurned lover who betrayed Jesus as an act of revenge?
And here is the faceplant. Given that Jesus was a a first century Jew who observed and taught Torah, all of Green's speculation is pointless. The text does not say that Judas kissed Jesus tenderly and Jesus and John were not cuddling at the table! The text does not give that.
It is a curious thing that evangelicals who are so stridently anti-gay, sing the sappiest romantic love songs to Jesus in their worship services. Odder still, manly men of God are instructed by the Apostle Paul to view themselves as part of the ‘Bride of Christ.’ Hardly traditional marriage, but I digress…
The church is the "Bride of Christ" not or a single individual and there is no sexual connotations implied or stated.
So here’s a thought I pose to my Christian readers: If you want to ignore the evidence pointing towards a man-loving Jesus, then perhaps the ‘lost’ years of Jesus are your salvation. Maybe the portion of his life which is so conspicuously absent from the gospels has been censored because Jesus was in fact a skirt-chasing, card-carrying member of the hetero tribe. Were his juvenile records sealed by some ecclesiastical court? What if instead of being ‘about his Father’s business’, he was getting busy with Galilean hotties in the back seat of a chariot? As horrific as this idea might be to you, surely it is less traumatic than the idea that Jesus might have been… gay!
No, a gay lifestyle is no better or worse than a fornicating lifestyle. Adultery is just as bad as homosexuality. Having sex with anyone besides your heterosexual spouse is sin. Period. End of story. Premarital sex is not in God's good and perfect will. This is what scripture teaches. Jesus is without sin. Issue solved.
Now I know dear Christian reader that you will object to this lifeline I am holding out to you.
Indignantly you will cry, “Jesus wasn’t a fornicator!”
To which I will reply:
“Oh yeah? Prove that he didn’t have sex!”
I just did. You are welcomed.
What’s that? Not a valid argument? Can’t prove a negative? Thanks, I’ll remember that next time I hear “You can’t prove that God doesn’t exist.”
Green's verbage is not a valid argument. It's a faceplant.
Written for DC by J.M. Green
I'll be praying for J.M. Green. Is Jesus better him, you, and me? Yup!
Debunking Christianity: Just How Human Was Jesus?, by J.M. Green
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