Who wrote The Hebrew Bible?! — advice for living in a changing world #LGBTQ #Faithfullylgbt

I do a lot on Twitter and yesterday found a YouTube link that a church account sent me.  Despite that I am good at ignoring things (possibly related to my practice of Buddhism), I got “hooked” and started watching the video.

It was a preacher saying that he was a Christian and followed the teachings of Jesus and that people tell him that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality — so far so good.

But then he backtracked and said that Jesus wrote the book of Leviticus in The Hebrew Bible. This is the chapter of the rules for starting a society that stipulate that man shouldn’t lie with man. Women, of course, are barely mentioned. Big surprise.

Jesus wrote parts of The Hebrew Bible? What!!! I stopped watching the video and did a quick search on who wrote The Hebrew Bible. I found a few different theories — but nothing about Jesus being the author of any parts of The Hebrew Bible.

I’m the first to admit that my math skills are scary-bad, but I can do a timeline and actually have many times in my writing life. Jesus, the person, was born in the year one A.D.  That means that Jesus wasn’t born yet when The Hebrew Bible was written.

Recently, I had a conversation with a liberal-minded Unitarian Universalist woman who told me that one of the churches she attends was having a schism over LGBTQ rights.  She emphasized that this was a Christian church.

I remarked that the people who suffer most are the children of parents who attend the church.  Children who are brought up to hate themselves often (worst case scenario) kill themselves or leave the church. I’m old enough to remember the stories of young people who jumped off bridges and their poor parents many of whom too late changed their minds about LGBTQ rights.

This is why people stay away from churches and why churches close.  Younger people tend to be more secure about their sexuality and less likely to sacrifice their children to hatred.

The world is changing and churches need to change with it.

To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.

 

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Spring has sprung — #notmyjesus

 

Looking back into the not so distant past, I recall wondering as I looked out the window — what if Spring doesn’t come back this year?  I didn’t wonder that this year, probably because I was busy — with my head in my laptop —revising my novel The Unicorn, The Mystery.

Having been raised secular (along with being a fan of Greek mythology), one of my favorite stories is about Persephone and her emergence from the underworld to be reunited with her mother Demeter.

I’m the first to acknowledge that I’ve had my issues with Christianity over the years.  What it came down to was that traditional religion just had too much baggage for me.  But that is changing.

But having been raised secular was freeing enough for me to once write a poem that said 

Jesus is a daffodil.

That’s it.  That’s all the poem said and, in my mind, all it had to say.

Just recently, I published a blog post about seeing the movie, Wild Nights With Emily, and how happy it made me as a scholar of Emily’s lesbian life.  I received a comment from someone who called himself “a reverend” about how upset it made him to think that Emily Dickinson was “gay.”

The movie is based on solid research regarding Emily’s relationship with her sister-in-law Susan and how that relationship was erased.  The comment (given its source) made me wonder if all – or most — of homophobia is based in religion.

Thankfully, religion is changing.  At the movie theater, I picked up a copy of The Philadelphia Gay News, which had an article about Drag Story Time at the Mt. Airy Philadelphia branch of The Free Library being protested by conservative Christians. My partner and I were delighted to  see the minister (McKinley Sims) of the Unitarian Church we attend on the cover of the newspaper as one of the counter protestors protesting the protestors and taking the side of the drag queen and story time. 

McKinley is on the bottom right of the photo (holding a big wooden cross) and his wife K.P. Is next to him holding a sign that says, “Christ is in all things, including drag.”

I was delighted that the a substantial graduating class of Notre Dame College walked out on speaker Mike Pence because of his anti-LGBTQ views. One of them coined the hash tag #notmyjesus. (For more informative, click here )

So let’s hear it for the people changing Christianity and changing the world!

 

Available through you local library, (including the Lovett Library branch of the Philadelphia Free Library where the protest was) THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders is also available through your local bookstore or online.

To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.

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