Here comes the latest storm in a teacup - with what looks like a genuine and malicious attempt to create friction between Christians and homosexuals.A publicly funded homosexual and lesbian arts festival in Glasgow is featuring a play called Jesus. Queen of Heaven.
Anyone with the scantiest bit of theological knowledge - which I assume the author has - would understand the possible offensiveness of using the term "Queen of Heaven" irrespective of the link to Jesus. Given the difference of opinion between Catholics and Protestants, the title of this play seems uniquely to conspire to create maximum offence, irrespective of views about transexuality.
Needless to say the usual suspects have queued up to picket the production. Whilst the LGBT press have a field day having discovered homophobia among "fundamentalist Christians" who find the idea offensive.
Personally I find myself offended by the title but relaxed about its performance. The author, actors and the 25 strong audience will have to answer to God one day, just like the rest of us. I still feel sullied for watching The Life of Brian and realise that I should have walked out long before the blasphemous crucifixion scene.
A long time ago I learnt that trying to make any pictorial depiction of Jesus was asking for trouble. I remember at my Plymouth Brethren Sunday School they used, as a visual aid, Holman Hunt's famous painting "I stand at the door and knock", but they "whited out" the face on the basis that no one knew what Jesus looked like. I actually find much of the iconography in Catholic and some Protestant churches quite offensive.
A few years back a woman turned up at our church with a gift from her attic - it was a picture of a blue eyed man with long blonde flowing locks. It was, she assured us, a picture of "Jesus". Several members of our congregation took offence. Best not to go there.
Meanwhile The Independent reports a claim that an earlier exhibition at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art as part of the same festival, visitors were encouraged to write comments on a Bible (something incidentally that I do all the time).
My advice to organisers of this festival is to seriously think about our minority communities. How would a similar portrayal of the Prophet or Guru Nanak go down? Would Sikhism and Islam allow anyone to desecrate their holy books? Of course not. So why offend Christians? There are many better things to be getting on with.
If anyone who has actually SEEN the play would like to comment, especially if they are a committed Christian, I'd like to know what they made of it - but don't go just to comment.
Anyone with the scantiest bit of theological knowledge - which I assume the author has - would understand the possible offensiveness of using the term "Queen of Heaven" irrespective of the link to Jesus. Given the difference of opinion between Catholics and Protestants, the title of this play seems uniquely to conspire to create maximum offence, irrespective of views about transexuality.
Needless to say the usual suspects have queued up to picket the production. Whilst the LGBT press have a field day having discovered homophobia among "fundamentalist Christians" who find the idea offensive.
Personally I find myself offended by the title but relaxed about its performance. The author, actors and the 25 strong audience will have to answer to God one day, just like the rest of us. I still feel sullied for watching The Life of Brian and realise that I should have walked out long before the blasphemous crucifixion scene.
A long time ago I learnt that trying to make any pictorial depiction of Jesus was asking for trouble. I remember at my Plymouth Brethren Sunday School they used, as a visual aid, Holman Hunt's famous painting "I stand at the door and knock", but they "whited out" the face on the basis that no one knew what Jesus looked like. I actually find much of the iconography in Catholic and some Protestant churches quite offensive.
A few years back a woman turned up at our church with a gift from her attic - it was a picture of a blue eyed man with long blonde flowing locks. It was, she assured us, a picture of "Jesus". Several members of our congregation took offence. Best not to go there.
Meanwhile The Independent reports a claim that an earlier exhibition at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art as part of the same festival, visitors were encouraged to write comments on a Bible (something incidentally that I do all the time).
My advice to organisers of this festival is to seriously think about our minority communities. How would a similar portrayal of the Prophet or Guru Nanak go down? Would Sikhism and Islam allow anyone to desecrate their holy books? Of course not. So why offend Christians? There are many better things to be getting on with.
If anyone who has actually SEEN the play would like to comment, especially if they are a committed Christian, I'd like to know what they made of it - but don't go just to comment.
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4 comments:
Afternoon David
Why did you consider the final scene of life of brian blasphemous?
Look forward to your comment!
Because it rediculed the cruxcifiction. Not very funny at all.
Although I think most of The Life of Brian very funny and not at all blasphemous, I have always been very uncomfortable with the crucifixion scene - maybe not because it ridicules the crucifixion but because it makes fun out of the horror that was crucifixion - as you say David, not funny at all and therefore offensive to me, even if not blasphemous.
Dear David,
I've been meaning to respond to your post about my play for a long time, and really just to thank you for it too.
The crucial thing to tell you is that i did not intend to cause offense either with the title or the publicity image either.
There is so much to say about this... perhaps I could just pass on a comment made by a religious person who actually saw the play and wrote this letter about it to the Glasgow Herald.
Thanks and good wishes
Jo Clifford
Dear Sir
It happens that my wife knows the actress and playwright Jo Clifford and so, with some trepidation on Saturday night she took me – a born heterosexual - to see Jesus, Queen of Heaven.
We were challenged by protestors at the door. I suggested that perhaps the Bible contains the Word of God but is not necessarily entirely of that Word. And even Paul said that in Christ there is “neither male nor female” (Galatians 3).
They said the play and my defence of it was “Dragging God through the sewage of sodomy.” I did, however, acknowledge the integrity of their witness, to which one responded in a touchingly spontaneous way that he hoped I’d enjoy the play.
In the theatre we were seated as participants at the Last Supper - bread and drink spread on the tables. Enter Jesus, the transsexual Queen of Heaven, who started accurately and sensitively to tell Bible stories.
What unfolded was profound and mind-blowing liberation theology. For who are any of us to say that a human being born cross-gendered or otherwise “gay” is not equally in the “image of God”; not equally free to celebrate and enjoy who they are?
Jo Clifford’s play closed with all of us present choosing to receive from her the sacrament of Holy Communion. Even the several other Quakers that I saw in the audience participated – and we Quakers don’t do something like that, even in a conventional church, unless we really feel inwardly moved.
I am sorry if this letter will sound blasphemous to some. Yes, Jesus, Queen of Heaven is disturbing, but that is precisely what makes it is first rate theology. Perhaps it is time for some of us straights to get used to that … otherwise we’ll never let Jesus down from the Cross.
Alastair McIntosh, Glasgow
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