Soon after I set out to write a book about psychedelics, it became obvious what I would have to do: Trip, and then write about what it was like. True, I could have relied on the testimony of others, but that seemed less than satisfying. Ever since the 11-year-old me read George Plimpton’s account of playing football in “Paper Lion” (1966), I’ve believed that the most absorbing way to convey an experience is to have it yourself and then try to describe it from the inside. Best of all is to have it yourself for the first time, which is the only time the comprehensive wonder of any experience is available to us.
But while it may have been obvious that I would have to trip in order to write “How to Change Your Mind,” it wasn’t at all obvious how I would write about that experience, one often described as, well, indescribable. William James famously wrote that mystical experience — perhaps the closest analogue we have of a psychedelic trip — is “ineffable”: beyond the reach of language. I couldn’t count on a common frame of reference, since not all of my readers would be familiar with the exotic psychic terrain onto which I wanted to take them. Boring readers was another worry. Perhaps the second closest analogue of a psychedelic journey is the dream, and there is no surer way to drive people off — even your loved ones! — than to tell them your dreams. I’d also read enough “trip reports” online and in books to be acutely aware of the literary risks — what Arthur Koestler, a skeptic after his own psychedelic experiments, described as “pressure-cooker mysticism” and “cosmic schmaltz.”
As I began to write my book, the accounts of my trips loomed up ahead like a range of tall, possibly insurmountable peaks. And matters only got worse when I began having the trips I intended to recount, a series of guided psychedelic journeys on a variety of different chemicals, including LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca and a substance called 5-MeO-DMT. This last one, which is ingested by smoking the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad, was, I’d been told by a friend, “the Everest of psychedelics,” a trip she promised would obliterate not only all sense of self (as many psychedelics can do) but also all reference points of time and space. How do you possibly construct a narrative without the essential ingredients of person, time and place? What’s left?
Taking notes during my journeys proved futile. I couldn’t summon the will, and the very effort seemed like a violation of my guides’ first commandment, which was to surrender to the experience. So instead I asked them to write down anything I might say. This yielded a handful of mostly useless notes, consisting of vague superlatives like “Spectacular!” or gnomic utterances like “I don’t want to be so stingy with my feelings.” The evening after each journey I spent several hours transcribing everything I could remember, which on psychedelics is a lot. I produced 10 to 15 single-spaced pages in which I tried to render the images, sensations, insights, events and appearances (of people and places) as literally as I could, resisting the urge to interpret, comment, assess or otherwise shape.
When it came time to write the travelogue section of the book, I reread those files with a sinking feeling. Here was a detailed transcript of a stream of consciousness, but a hopelessly anarchic one liable to reverse course without notice, splash wildly, overflow its banks and then simply vanish, circling down a gyre of nothingness. I wasn’t sure I could make sense of its contents, let alone someone less invested in the workings of my mind. I did find some striking images in my notes — being trapped head-to-toe in a black steel cage, watching a vine snake its way up the bars to reach the sun and realizing “a plant can’t be caged” — but what in the world did these images mean, if anything? And some of the profundities I’d recorded in the immediate aftermath of the experience — such as the supreme importance of love, an epiphany I’d had on LSD — now seemed embarrassingly thin, platitudes best suited to a Hallmark card. I was reminded of an experience Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. had on ether, in which he discovered, and managed to write down, “the one great truth which underlies all human experience.” His notes, which he’d struggled to jot down in his drugged state, read: “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”
Now, there are two ways to regard such an observation. The first is obvious, at least to our sober selves: as risible proof of the emptiness of chemically mediated “insight.” O.K., fair enough. But might it be worth our while at least to try to imagine a mental state in which the smell of turpentine actually explains something? A state in which all our metaphysical ideas simply dissolve in the presence of overpowering sensory experience? That, it seems to me, is something for which the smell of turpentine is a decent metaphor.
What I realized, reading over my own dubious epiphanies, is that there is an inside and an outside to a psychedelic experience, and that one way to write about it would be to honor both perspectives more or less simultaneously. I wouldn’t take sides, in other words, but would instead attempt to cultivate a measure of intellectual generosity, a kind of negative capability, toward my mental doings, however bizarre, and at the same time frankly acknowledge the reader’s skepticism, which in fact I shared. I would be of two minds. (This is a little like the memoirist, who recounts the naïveté of her younger self from the more knowing perspective of the grown-up author. But here it is not time but type of consciousness that separates the two voices.)
So when I got to my LSD epiphany about the supreme importance of love, following a series of encounters with my wife and son in which I was overwhelmed with gratitude for their existence, I paused in the narrative to reflect on the problem at hand, dilating on the delicate line between profundity and banality. I confessed to the reader that the nakedness of the emotions I was describing, undefended against the pitiless glare of irony, made them embarrassing to write about. Irony was certainly an option, à la Koestler’s cosmic schmaltz. But while irony might have protected me from ridicule, it wouldn’t have been faithful to what I had felt and experienced — which had the power of a revealed truth.
Image
CreditArmando Veve
What do you do with an insight like “love is everything”? I wondered aloud. “Is a platitude so deeply felt still just a platitude?” No, I decided: “A platitude is precisely what is left of a truth after it has been drained of all emotion. To resaturate that dried husk with feeling is to see it again for what it is: the loveliest and most deeply rooted of truths, hidden in plain sight.”
So in the end I did take sides, crediting the psychedelic experience rather than my abashed sober self’s take on it, but not before nodding to the reader’s doubts about my reliability (or sanity). Perhaps a more sure-footed writer would have stuck to his psychedelic guns, remaining inside the visionary logic of the experience, but when I tried to write it that way, the narrative lost all friction, making it impossible for anyone but a mystic or psychonaut or ardent New Ager to grab hold of it.
Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
may, but at the length truth will out.
—Launcelot Gobbo, Act II, Scene 2, Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
When Calvin Harris H.W.M, was asked about what’s the takeaway, that students should get from taking the Cultural HistoryClass?
He said: That depends on the Student –
“Good students gain an insight into their own reality.
Great students will gain a new perspective on the universal and what is ‘real.’
Master students will hack apart the current form of reality to Manifest the ‘Real’.”
Brooke Hampton’s words sum up our journey. When he said: “I am pieces of all the places I have been, stitched together by song lyrics, book quotes, adventure, late night conversations, moonlight, and the smell of coffee.”
Calvin Harris’s master class Cultural History coming in March 2019.
Ibram Kendi breaks down what it really means to be the smartest person in the room. For more information: Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University
Some believe that Lazarus of Bethany was the “beloved disciple” of Jesus — and maybe even his same-sex lover. His feast day is Dec. 17.
Scholars theorize that Lazarus was also the unnamed “one whom Jesus loved,” also known as “the beloved disciple,” referenced at least five times in the Gospel of John. The term implies that Jesus was in love with him, and perhaps they shared the kind of intimacy that today would be called “gay.” Bible experts suggest that Lazarus was the unnamed naked man who ran away when Jesus was arrested in Mark 14:51-52. He may also have been the nameless “rich young ruler” who asks Jesus how to find eternal life in all three synoptic gospels.
Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus in a dramatic miracle told in John: 11. The Bible identifies him as a man living in the village of Bethany with his sisters Mary and Martha. Lazarus falls ill, and the sisters send a message to Jesus that “the one you love is sick.”
By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been dead in his tomb for four days. Jesus weeps at the tomb, then calls, “Lazarus, come out!” To the amazement of all, Lazarus is restored to life. Lazarus coming out of the tomb has been seen as a symbol for LGBTQ people coming out of the closet by many LGBTQ people of faith.
Lazarus in art
“Crucifixion”
by Christopher Olwage
Lazarus also appears in a gay-affirming crucifixion painted in 2015 by New Zealand artist Christopher Olwage. The artist shows a group of men reacting in various ways to Jesus on the cross. All are figures that Bible scholars believe may have had male-male sexual relationships. Lazarus bows his head in sorrowful prayer beneath a rainbow hood. John kneels and throws his head back as he gazes up at Jesus. The Centurion and the servant “who was dear to him” stare out at the viewer from both edges of the frame. For more about Olwage’s art, see the previous post Gay Jesus painting shown in New Zealand: Christopher Olwage paints LGBT Christian scenes.
Detail from “Stripped of Linen, Stripped of Lord” by Eric Martin, 2012
Gay artist Eric Martin devoted himself to learning about and depicting the nameless nude who ran away when Jesus was arrested in “Stripped of Linen, Stripped of Lord” and other paintings. For more info, see my previous post “Seeking the ‘naked young man’ of Mark’s gospel.”
LGBTQ books on Lazarus
The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament by Theodore Jennings is a comprehensive book that explores the possibility of Lazarus as Jesus’ lover — and all the other major queer theories about the beloved disciple. Other identities proposed for the beloved disciple include John the Evangelist and even Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus.
More queer ideas about Lazarus come from the controversial Secret Gospel of Mark, a recently discovered gospel that goes into homoerotic detail about Jesus’ relations with the “naked youth” who is often identified as Lazarus. The lost gospel was discovered in 1958 by Morton Smith, professor of ancient history at Columbia University, and described his his book The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark. Recently Secret Mark has been discredited as a possible hoax in books such as The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark by Stephen C. Carlson.
“Jesus loved Lazarus, Mary and Martha. What drew Jesus to this very non-traditional family group of a bachelor brother living with two spinster sisters? Two barren women and a eunuch are Jesus’ adult family of choice. Are we to assume they were all celibate heterosexuals? What if Mary and Martha were not sisters but called each other ‘sister’ as did most lesbian couples throughout recorded history?”
This potentially queer triad of two “sisters” and their “brother” is portrayed in a 16th-century painting of Mary, Martha and Lazarus by the Spanish artist known as the Master of Perea.
Lazarus between sisters Martha and Mary by the Master of Perea (Wikipedia)
Raising of Lazarus excerpt from “Jesus in Love: At the Cross”
In my “Jesus in Love” novels, the beloved disciple is John, while Lazarus is a young gay friend. To honor Lazarus on his feast day, I will close with the scene from my novel “Jesus in Love: At the Cross” where Jesus describes raising Lazarus from the dead:
I had counted on getting instructions from the Holy Spirit as soon as I reached the tomb, but no word came. The finality of the tomb scared me. When people healed in my presence, it was their own faith that made them whole—but that wasn’t happening now. Lazarus had crossed the line and no matter how much faith he had, his soul seemed severed from his corpse.
I crouched on the earth in sorrow and supplication. The crowd around me began to murmur. “Look how much he loved him!”
Then came the inevitable naysayers. “Nah—if he really loved him, he would have kept him from dying.”
The tears that I had been holding back overflowed. I blocked out the sounds and sights around me and felt the grief that seemed to be tearing a hole in my divine heart. The impact of my tears on the earth set up a tiny vibration. I tuned into it and recognized the husky whisper of the Holy Spirit. I was surprised that I couldn’t distinguish Her words, but then I realized that She wasn’t talking to me.
Lazarus’ soul was listening intently. I was able to decipher part of the Holy Spirit’s message to him: “Arise, my darling, my beauty, and come away.”
I sighed as I let my friend go. “Okay, take him wherever You will,” I prayed.
Suddenly part of Lazarus’ soul reconnected with the physical world, like a boat dropping anchor. I knew what it meant.
I dashed to the tomb and tried to roll the stone away, but it was too heavy for me. “Let him out!” I shouted, pounding on the stone. I directed my fury against death itself, which took my beloved cousin, but wasn’t going to get away with Lazarus, too.
Martha came up behind me, speaking gently. “Rabbi, there’s already a stench. He died four days ago.”
“Love is as strong as death,” I replied, gritting my teeth as I strained hard against the stone. “Stronger!”
Then John stepped up and positioned himself to push along with me. He placed his long, gnarled fingers next to my younger ones on the stony surface. I turned to look in his eyes. We were reconciled in a single glance. Moving as one, we heaved the stone aside and unsealed the tomb.
The cave gaped open, revealing a darkness as opaque as soot. There was indeed a stink—and a rustling sound, too.
“Lazarus, come out!” I called.
Everyone gasped as a slim figure wrapped in grave clothes hobbled out of the tomb. Strips of linen cloth prevented him from moving his arms and legs much, and his face was covered by a linen scarf. It puffed in and out slightly with each breath. The wind blew the stench away, leaving the air fresh.
I touched Lazarus’ shoulder gently. “It’s me, Jesus,” I said as I began to unfasten his headscarf.
___
Top image credit: Lazarus in a detail from “Crucifixion” by Christopher Olwage
This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality.She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history.She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
John the Evangelist is commonly considered to be Jesus’ “Beloved Disciple” — and possibly his lover. His feast day is Dec. 27.
The love between Jesus and John has been celebrated by artists since medieval times. And the idea that they were same-sex lovers has been inspiring queer people and causing controversy at least since the 16th century.
John was an apostle of Jesus and is the presumed author of the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation and the Epistles of John. The Bible describes their warm relationship on multiple occasions. John left his life as a fisherman to follow Jesus, who nicknamed him “Son of Thunder.” John participated in many of the main events in Christ’s ministry. He was one of the three who witnessed the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration and Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane.
The unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved” is referenced five times in the gospel of John (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:22, 21:7, 20). Church tradition identifies him as John himself. Other identities proposed for the Beloved Disciple include Lazarus, Thomas, Mary Magdalene and even Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Because the Beloved Disciple is left unnamed, each believer is free to imagine or be that beloved disciple in their own way.
After Jesus was crucified, John went on to build a close, loving relationship with his younger disciple and scribe, Prochorus, bishop of Nicomedia. Tradition says that John was the only one of Christ’s original 12 apostles to live to old age, and the only one not killed for his faith. He died in Ephesus around 100 AD.
Whoever he or she was, the Beloved Disciple reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, resting his head on Jesus’ chest. No other male disciples were present at the crucifixion. From the cross, Jesus entrusted the Beloved Disciple and his mother Mary into each other’s care.
Did Jesus and John share an erotic relationship?
There is even a medieval European tradition that John and Jesus were the bridal couple at the Cana wedding feast. Jesus performed his first miracle at Cana by turning water into wine. The Bible tells the story in John 2:1-11 without ever naming who was getting married.
“John the Apostle resting on the bosom of Christ,” Swabia/Lake Constance, early 14th century. Photo by Andreas Praefcke. (Wikimedia Commons)
The idea that Jesus and his Beloved Disciple had a sexual relationship dates back at least to the early 16th century, when English playwright Christopher Marlowe was tried for blasphemy on the charge of claiming that “St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma.” In 1550 Francesco Calcagno, a citizen of Venice, was investigated by the Inquisition for making the heretical claim that “St. John was Christ’s catamite,” which means a boy or young man in a pederastic sexual relationship with an older man.
Many modern scholars have expressed belief that Jesus and his Beloved Disciple shared a an erotic physical relationship. They include Hugh Montefiore, Robert Williams, Sjef van Tilborg, John McNeill, Rollan McCleary, Robert E. Goss and James Neill. A thorough analysis is included in “The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament” by Theodore Jennings, Biblical theology professor at Chicago Theological Seminary. He finds the evidence “inconclusive” as to whether the beloved disciple was John, but it leaves no doubt that Jesus had a male lover.
“A close reading of the texts in which the beloved disciple appears supports the hypothesis that the relationship between him and Jesus may be understood as that of lovers. As it happens, both Jesus and the beloved are male, meaning that their relationship may be said to be, in modern terms, a ‘homosexual’ relationship,” Jennings writes (p. 34).
12th-century image shows Jesus coaxing John
One of the earliest images of John and Jesus together is a little-known 12th-century miniature, “The Calling of St. John.” It depicts two scenes: Christ coaxing the disciple John to leave his female bride and follow him, and John resting his head on Jesus’ chest. Jesus cups the chin of his beloved, an artistic convention used to indicate romantic intimacy. The Latin text means, “Get up, leave the breast of your bride, and rest on the breast of the Lord Jesus.”
“The Calling of Saint. John,” a 12th-century miniature
Jesus embraces the Beloved Disciple in medieval art
Now-iconic images of the loving embrace between John and Christ apparently originated during the early 1300s in German convents in the Rhineland and Swabia. These were devotional images intended to help viewers deepen their connection to Christ. Prolific artists created many versions. Today one of them is housed in the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio.
“Christus Johannes Gruppe” (Christ John Group) by the unknown Master of Oberschwaben, oak sculpture, 1320.
The subject is known as “Christus Johannes Gruppe” (Christ John Group) or Johannesminne (love of John), with minne being a Middle High German word for erotic-emotional love. Many of these images were actually created for women, not men, to contemplate. Most if not all of the Johannesminne statues were altarpieces for Dominican convents and nunneries.
The history, eroticism, appeal and impact of these devotional images is explored in “The Late Medieval Andachtsbild,” an unpublished essay by Daniel G. Conklin, a retired Anglican priest in Berlin. He writes,
“One common characteristic of the Johannesminne is that the figure of John seems a bit gender-ambiguous, i.e. it looks like he might be a “she.” Considering the place where these images arose and were beheld, it takes no great stretch of the imagination to envision the effect of the Johannesminne on a cloistered young woman who was well versed in the Cistercian “bridal” mysticism of St. Bernard of Clairvaux…. The Johannesminne is an image of profound tenderness embued with a kind of gentle eroticism. As an altarpiece it must have been a constant reminder of the connection between the Lord’s Last Supper and the celebration of the Mass and it surely reinforced the pious conviction that in the Eucharistic bread and wine the risen Christ “dwells in us and we in him” in a profound and intimate way.”
Conklin goes on to identify homoeroticism as one source of the image’s enduring power:
“The popularity of the Johannesminne – then and now – may also stem from the fact that this is an image involving love and tenderness between two adult males. The fact that this Andachtsbild arose in monasteries, communities of same-sex individuals, probably comes as no surprise. Its power to awaken faith and delight in close communion with Christ is perhaps not its only appeal. The Johannesminne has become perhaps even more appealing in our day in which people of the same gender in committed relationships seek some form(s) of faith confirmation of who they are and whose they are. The Johannesminne may very well serve as a mirror as well as a model for many, not only same-sex oriented persons.”
In Germany the Johannesminne image remains so important that it has even been made into a postage stamp. Its influence may also live on in today’s popular “Sacred Heart of Jesus” icons, which show the physical heart of Jesus in his chest. Conklin explains:
The Johannesminne as an altarpiece not only visualized the intimate communion of the Eucharist, but also seems to have been one of the essential sources for the unfolding of the “Sacred Heart of Jesus” mysticism which developed later, but had its beginnings in this Andachtsbild. The beholder could imagine John, i.e. the beholder him/herself, hearing the heartbeat of Jesus while leaning on his chest. The communion is that “close.”
Another early sculpture in this style is “St. John Resting on Jesus’ Chest,” circa 1320, which is housed at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp. It can be seen online at the Web Gallery of Art. The sculpture was created by Master Heinrich of Constance for the the Dominican convent of St. Catherine’s valley in Switzerland. Wikimedia Commons displays a set of 10 statues of Johannesminne in Germany at this link.
In contemporary times “Johannesminne” was sketched by Tobias Haller, an iconographer, author, composer, and vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx. His sketch is based on the Johannesminne sculpture in the convent at Heiligkreuztal in Altheim, Germany. Haller is the author of “Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality.” Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints. He and his spouse were united in a church wedding more than 30 years ago and a civil ceremony after same-sex marriage became legal in New York.
John’s intimacy with Jesus at the Last Supper continued to fascinate artists as the centuries passed. Examples from the 1500s include an Albrecht Durer print and a sculpture at the Italian basilica known as Sacro Monte di Varallo (Sacred Mountain of Varallo).
Detail from “The Last Supper” by from the Small Passion by Albrecht Durer, 1511
In the 1600s French painter Valentin de Boulogne presented a more humanistic view of Jesus and John. His painting uses dark shadows to heighten the emotional impact.
“St. John and Jesus at the Last Supper” by Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632) (Wikimedia Commons)
In the 1800s the intimate bond between the two men is emphasized in “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” by the French painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858).
“One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” by Ary Scheffer
Jesus tenderly kisses John’s forehead before giving him communion bread in a vintage French religious medal from the 1930s. It is available at the Fred’s Prayer shop on Etsy.
Over the centuries many artworks have illustrated the deep love between Jesus and his Beloved Disciple. Many of the historic images appear to show John as much younger than Jesus, but their age difference is de-emphasized and they both look like grown men in most of the newer images. Perhaps the reason for the change is growing awareness of the church’s complicity with pedophile priests, combined with the with the need for modern gay couples for find religious affirmation.
One of the newest images is “Beloved Disciple” by James Day, a student working towards a Masters of Arts in Theological Studies at Episcopal Divinity School in Boston. His focus is queer theology and liturgical arts. Day’s painting of the “Beloved Disciple” hung in the EDS Chapel in fall 2016.
The wedding between Jesus and his beloved disciple is one of the LGBT Christian themes explored in monumental nude paintings by gay New Zealand artist Christopher Olwage. He gives a sacred gay interpretation to the wedding feast at Cana. Olwage is an LGBTQ activist and gender-bending ballet dancer who reigned as Mr. Gay World in 2013.
“The Wedding of Jesus and John ‘the Beloved Disciple’ at Cana” by Christopher Olwage
John also appears in a gay-affirming crucifixion painted in 2015 by Olwage. As Beloved Disciple, John kneels and throws his head back as he gazes up at Jesus on the cross. This “Crucifixion” shows a group of men reacting in various ways to the execution of their beloved Jesus. All are figures that Bible scholars believe may have had male-male sexual relationships. Next to John is Lazarus, who bows his head in sorrowful prayer beneath a rainbow hood. The Centurion and the servant “who was dear to him” stare out at the viewer from both edges of the frame. For more about Olwage’s art, see the previous posts Gay Wedding of Jesus and John at Cana and Gay Jesus painting shown in New Zealand: Christopher Olwage paints LGBT Christian scenes.
Another recent work is the 2012 icon “Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by Laurie Gudim. Based in Colorado, Gudim is an artist, Jungian psychotherapist and progressive Episcopalian. Her work uses a motif dating back at least to the 13th century.The long artistic tradition depicts John as the Beloved Disciple resting his head on the breast of Jesus. It can be seen in an early 13th-century stained-glass window at the Cathedral of St. Etienne at Bourges and in “Christus Johannes Gruppe” (Christ John Group) by the unknown Master of Oberschwaben. This sculpture spent many centuries in an Augustinian convent in Inzigkofen, a town in the region of Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany. A museum in Berlin acquired in it the early 20th century, and it is now housed in the Bode Museum of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
A variety of contemporary artists have done new interpretations of John and Jesus together. They include “Christ the Bridegroom” by Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar known for his innovative icons. Author-priest Henri Nouwen, famous but struggling with a secret gay identity, commissioned it in 1983. He asked for an icon that symbolized the act of offering his own sexuality and affection to Christ. Research and reflection led Lentz to paint Christ being embraced by his beloved disciple John, based on an icon from medieval Crete.
“Henri used it to come to grips with his own homosexuality,” Lentz said in an interview for my book “Art That Dares,” which includes this icon and the story behind it. “I was told he carried it with him everywhere and it was one of the most precious things in his life.” Nouwen’s goal was celibacy and he did not come out publicly as gay before his death in 1996. The icon takes the Biblical theme of Christ as bridegroom and joins it to the medieval motif of Christ with John. The resulting image expresses their intimate friendship with exquisite subtlety.
Atlanta artist Becki Jayne Harrelson painted another especially loving version of Jesus and the Beloved at the center of her “Last Supper.” Unlike the classic icons of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple, her painting shows the two obviously adult men gazing at each other and holding hands. She is a contemporary lesbian artist who uses LGBT people as models in her religious art. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, she uses art to express her passion for justice. Her story is also told in “Art That Dares.”
Another icon celebrating the love between Jesus and the beloved disciple was painted by Jim Ru (below). It was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.
In recent years some artists have adapted the classic iconography to other racial and ethnic groups. For example, John Giuliani’s “Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” shows the figures in the native dress of the Aymara Indians, descendants of the Incas who still live in the Andean regions of Chile, Peru and Bolivia. Giuliani is an Italian-American artist and Catholic priest who is known for making Christian icons with Native American symbols. He studied icon painting under a master in the Russian Orthodox style, but chose to expand the concept of holiness to include Native Americans, the original inhabitants of the Americas.
“Jesus and the Beloved Disciple” by John Giuliani, 1996
One more picture of Jesus and his beloved must be mentioned, even though permission was not granted to display it here on the Jesus in Love Blog (yet) at Q Spirit. It is well worthwhile to click the title to see this stunningly beautiful photo of Jesus and his Beloved Disciple as black Africans:
Fani-Kayode (1955-1989) was a Nigerian photographer who explored themes of sexual and cultural difference, homoerotic desire, spirituality and the black male body, often in collaboration with his late partner Alex Hirst. Their last joint work was “Every Moment Counts” from 1989. In it a beloved disciple leans against black Christ figure who wears pearls over his dreadlocks as he gazes toward heaven. “The hero points the way forward for the lost boys of the world – the young street-dreads, the nightclub-chickens, the junkies and the doomed,” Hirst explains on their website.
Beloved Disciple in poetry and music
Various poets have written about the love between Jesus and John from a gay or queer viewpoint. A gay man prays, wondering if Jesus felt sexual attraction to John, in a poem by longtime LGBTQ church activist and poet Louie Clay (né Louie Crew).
What did you feel when your beloved John
lay across your lap casually?
He wrote these lines raising the possibility of a queer Christ in his 1980 poem “Lutibelle Prays: William Werc’s Prayer.” In 1974 Clay founded Integrity USA, the national Episcopal LGBTQ organization. The whole poem is posted at this link.
Another poem that addresses the homoerotic love between Jesus and John as is “The Third Dance of Christmas: A Fiddle Dance for St. John’s Day” by a poet who wants to be known only as Joe. It begins:
Queer poet Jim Wise references John in “Seminarians,” an unpublished poem from his “Queer Psalter” collection:
After a long day of
watching him preach
his gospel, which was
nothing more than
begging people to
actually give a damn
about one another,
we wanted to be his
Beloved John, his Lazarus,
his place to lay his head.
Contemporary America singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens merges homoerotic desire and spiritual longing in the song “John My Beloved.” Many listeners hear references in the song to the love between Jesus and his disciple John as well as to modern gay sexual encounters. The song is available on a YouTube video and the album from his album “Carrie and Lowell.”
Beloved Disciple excerpt from Jesus in Love: A Novel
I also wrote about John as the beloved disciple in my novels “Jesus in Love” and “At the Cross.” In honor of John’s feast day, I post this scene from “Jesus in Love: A Novel.” Jesus, the narrator, remembers the day he met John:
I became distracted by the not unwelcome presence of somebody standing close behind me, closer than necessary in the loosely packed crowd. I sensed that it was John, and spun around to see him planted there like a tall cedar tree. He leaned against me, eyes flashing. “I can’t wait for the Messiah to come. I’ve seen him in visions.”
“Really? Tell me what you remember.” It was exciting to find someone who was aware of God’s efforts to communicate.
“The Messiah is like a gentle lamb who sits on a throne with a rainbow around it. And yet his eyes flame with fire, and a sharp sword comes out of his mouth to strike down evildoers.”
“The truth is large,” I said.
“Are you saying my vision isn’t true?” he challenged.
“No, I’m not saying that. I expect that you will see more.”
When John smiled, his faced crinkled into a fascinating landscape of wrinkles. His eyes felt black and mysterious like the midnight sky as they roamed over me. “Do you want a prayer partner tonight?” he asked.
If anyone else had asked, I would have said no, but I looked again at John’s handsome, bejeweled soul and his long, sinewy body.
“Sure,” I agreed impulsively.
Only then did I notice that the Baptist had finished preaching. John steered me toward the caves where the Baptist and his inner circle of disciples lived. Lower-ranking disciples were ready with water vessels and towels to assist everyone with ritual purification before we ate a spartan meal of locusts and wild honey. One of them approached me.
“Wash up, and we’ll get together after supper,” John said as we parted.
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Top image credit: Detail from Study for The Last Supper by Becki Jayne Harrelson
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality.She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history.She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
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by Theodore Jennings is a comprehensive book that explores the possibility of Lazarus as Jesus’ lover — and all the other major queer theories about the beloved disciple. Other identities proposed for the beloved disciple include 
by Stephen C. Carlson.
” where Jesus describes raising Lazarus from the dead:
, famous but struggling with a secret gay identity, commissioned it in 1983. He asked for an icon that symbolized the act of offering his own sexuality and affection to Christ. Research and reflection led Lentz to paint Christ being embraced by his beloved disciple John, based on an icon from medieval Crete.
,” which includes this icon and the story behind it. “I was told he carried it with him everywhere and it was one of the most precious things in his life.” Nouwen’s goal was celibacy and he did not come out publicly as gay before his death in 1996. The icon takes the Biblical theme of Christ as bridegroom and joins it to the medieval motif of Christ with John. The resulting image expresses their intimate friendship with exquisite subtlety.
.” Jesus, the narrator, remembers the day he met John:
