OK, though I can’t say for certain, he’s not. However, bear with me on this, it’s an interesting theory.
First I've gotta explain the Trinity… which is way too complex for twitter
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
Suffice to say that God is not male (despite what you may have heard) and is in fact all genders and none simultaneously
Jesus is God made flesh, God embodied as human. As a human man, yes, but also…
And the reason that people have been playing with Jesus' gender in art and theology and all that for centuries, is that Jesus gives us REASON to.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
So, of course, as we expand our understanding of gender in the modern world, we expand that to trans stuff too.
So the whole point of Jesus is that he comes for ALL of humankind. We are told that we are all capable of, and supposed to work towards, being "christlike" – after all, Jesus is the embodiment of a genderless (or genderfull) God. The point is not that Jesus is a man, but a HUMAN.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
Jesus is the human incarnation of a God who is all genders and none, all at the same time; a God that has created each of us in their own image – all of us, of every gender – and therefore Jesus is not simply "male", but "human", and theologians have long recognised this.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
Understanding that Jesus isn't merely "male", theologians have often described Jesus as a "mother" – most famously Julian of Norwich, who wrote in the 1300's, said: "Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother."
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
This idea of the sacrament as breast milk was not unique to Julian – many theologians drew the connection between these life giving things – even reflecting Rabbinic understandings of the Manna from Heaven as breast milk to create a long thread of understanding.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
Julian says: "The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open side, and show us there a part of the godhead and of the joys of heaven, with inner certainty of endless bliss."
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
And by "portal", I do, of course, mean vagina.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
And that's what the oh so contentious sermon said – "look, medieval christian art saw Jesus' side wound as a vagina. Let's talk about that."
We say that Christ died so that we could live. The Bible says it a lot.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
Many theologians, living in a time where death in childbirth was common, and childbirth itself could be horrifically painful drew the connection between Christ's physical death on the cross and childbirth.
With that in mind, when an opening in a body brings forth water and blood, and in the midst of that water and blood comes new life… it's fair to think of it as a vagina.
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
So medieval artists, depicting that moment, depicted Jesus' side wound as such. It was a thing. pic.twitter.com/Mc7Yh282Iu
But this thread is already very long…
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
One day I'll do a whole thread on how it actually is Big Trans Vibes for God to shrink down to a single "gender" and body to walk among us as Jesus, and how weird that must have been for Jesus to suddenly be "male" and not "the genderweird vibe of God" but that's for another time
— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) November 30, 2022
— Evi Magnolia (@Kevbosio) December 1, 2022
I had to include that last picture. The pun was too good. It’s an interesting theory and it’s definitely eye opening to centuries of Christianity that I at least have never heard of by people who are supposed to preach the word, not opinion. (And my grandfather’s a preacher)
