Sir Elton sparks ‘gay Jesus’ debate (From Bournemouth Echo)

Sir Elton sparks ‘gay Jesus’ debate

8:00am Saturday 27th February 2010 in

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SIR Elton John has called Jesus a “super-intelligent gay man” in a controversial interview. The singer was talking about lesbians in the Middle East during an interview in an American magazine published last Sunday.

“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” he said.

“On the Cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. “I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East – you’re as good as dead!”

At the Metropolitan Community Church in Bournemouth, whose primary outreach is to the lesbian and gay community, the Rev Dwayne Morgan said: “I certainly agree that Jesus was a loving, caring person who wanted the good of all people.

“But, unfortunately, the Church is not always seen by society as being as compassionate as he was.

“As for him being gay, if Jesus was God and God created all people in God’s own image, then I imagine that God must in some way be straight and gay, black and white, male and female. “What’s important about Jesus is not his sexual orientation, his gender or the colour of his skin. It’s that he was a human, God in flesh like us, showing us what God is like in ways we could understand.”

Among churchgoers I spoke to about Sir Elton’s interview was Gordon Wright, a retired college lecturer who attends Ferndown United Church.

Mr Wright, who used to live a gay lifestyle, told me that God had “changed his inner being” after becoming a Christian.

“The reason I think Elton John said Jesus was gay was because it would help to morally support his own lifestyle,” he told me.

“But there is nowhere in the New Testament where Jesus would indicate he was a homosexual. In Leviticus 20 v 13 and 18 v 22, it clearly says: ‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman.’ “Jesus came to fulfil the Old Testament law and there is no way his lifestyle would be contrary to the verses in Leviticus.”

At St Peter’s in Bournemouth, the Rev Ian Terry said he enjoyed Elton John’s music, but suspected that his knowledge of the Gospels could be a bit patchy.

“What is clear in the Gospels is that Jesus attracted both women and men as followers, and had trusting friendships with both,” Mr Terry told me. “We are not told anything about Jesus having active sexual relationships, nor even sharing overt sexual attraction. “The Apostle John was known as ‘the beloved disciple’ and Mary Magdalene dries Jesus’ feet with her hair after washing them with perfume. “If there were repeated instances of these levels of closeness, with either gender, a case might be made for an orientation one way of the other, based on a balance of probabilities. “But a ‘one off’ in each case, is evidence of nothing other than that – two ‘one offs’ as it happens, balancing each other in orientation terms. “Jesus shows God in each of us, and affirms that divine image and likeness.

“Each of us therefore, can be inclined towards seeing Jesus as a ‘bit like me’, and I guess that includes Elton John.”