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August 2010
Jesus in Love Newsletter
LGBT spirituality and the arts
In This Issue
Ex-gay genocide
Anne Rice & church
Bearded woman saint
St. Boris and George
Queer Martha & Mary


glbt spirituality & arts
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Jesus in Love serves gay, lesbian, bi and trans (glbt) people who have spiritual interests, and our allies. We promote queer spirituality and the arts, with an emphasis on books and images. We believe that God loves all people, including sexual minorities. We believe that the creative process is sacred. We hope that the new visions, especially the gay Jesus, will free people to experience the divine in new ways and lead to a more just world.
Greetings!

Scholars and saints bring us queer new ways to see the world this month, while author Anne Rice makes news for quitting the church because it's "anti-gay." All this, and a bearded woman, too.
Ex-gay movement as genocide

The Broken Image by Christine Bakke
The ex-gay movement fits the definition of genocide as outlined by the UN, according to startling new scholarship.

Using UN documents, professors Sue  Spivey and Christine Robinson present genocide as a continuum with "social death" at one end and mass murder at the other.  The UN definition of genocide includes "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group."

If causing serious MENTAL harm is genocide, then art by ex-gay survivors illustrates the genocidal damage. More info

(Credit: "The Broken Image" by Christine Bakke)
To Anne Rice: Christians can be pro-gay

Anne Rice
Bestselling author Anne Rice announced recently that she is quitting Christianity because she refuses to be anti-gay and anti-feminist.

Lesbian Christian author Kittredge Cherry wrote an open letter to Ms. Rice.  It begins, "Believe it or not, you can be Christian AND support gay rights and feminism!"

Dialogue continues in the comments at the Jesus in Love Blog.  More info


St. Wilgefortis: Bearded woman

Saint Wilgefortis
St. Wilgefortis prayed to avoid marriage to a pagan king -- and her prayers were answered when she grew a beard! 
 
People have honored this virgin martyr since the 14th century, but today's skeptical scholars suggest that her story is sheer invention.  More info

(Credit: St. Wilgefortis sculpture in Prague, Curious Expeditions)
Boris and George: United in love & death

St. Boris and George by Robert Lentz
The love between Saint Boris and George the Hungarian ended tragically in 1015 in medieval Russia.  Boris was a married prince who had enormous love for his servant George.  

Legend says that when assassins attacked Boris, George flung himself on the body of his prince, exclaiming: "I will not be left behind, my precious lord!  Ere the beauty of thy body begins to wilt, let it be granted that my life may end."  More info

(Credit: "Saints Boris and George the Hungarian" by Robert Lentz, trinitystores.com)
Mary and Martha: Sisters or lesbians?

Mary and Martha by Bernardino Luini
Mary and Martha of Bethany were two of Jesus' closest friends.  The Bible calls them "sisters" who lived together, but reading the Bible with queer eyes raises another possibility.  Maybe Mary and Martha were a lesbian couple.  

They formed a nontraditional family at a time when there was huge pressure for heterosexual marriage.  More info

(Credit: "Mary and Martha" by Bernardino Luini)
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(Image credit: Keetsa)
Click to see more highlights from the Jesus in Love Blog:

Cartoon shows GLBT rights on the cross

Same-sex marriage ban overturned

Enjoy your summer and your place in the diversity of God's good creation.  Remember the Biblical promise, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease" (Genesis 8:22).
Kittredge Cherry
JesusInLove.org
NEW and timely


Save Me - DVD
Directors:
Robert Cary
Starring:Chad Allen
DVD ~ Release Date: 2009-01-20

List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $13.81
Buy Now

Story of a young gay man who undergoes ex-gay therapy, but ends up finding romance with a guy he meets at the ex-gay retreat center.  Told with compassion for both gays AND conservative Christians. 




Ex-Gay No Way: Survival and Recovery from Religious Abuse
by Jallen Rix EdD by Findhorn Press
Paperback
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $11.79
Buy Now

An expose of abuse perpetrated by the ex-gay, reparative therapy movement, as told by a man who survived and healed from it.





Christ in the Margins
by Robert Lentz by Orbis Books
Paperback
List Price: $20.00
Our Price: $12.40
Buy Now

Features 40 Lentz icons, including such queer favorites as Harvey Milk, Mychal Judge, Christ Sophia, Perpetua and Felicity, and Brigid and Darlughdach.





Queer Women and Religious Individualism
by Melissa M. Wilcox by Indiana University Press
Hardcover
List Price: $65.00
Our Price: $65.00
Buy Now










Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice)
by Roger A. Sneed by Palgrave Macmillan
Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2010-03-30
List Price: $85.00
Our Price: $57.37
Buy Now






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