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The backlash from the controversial sermon preached by a junior research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College has been met with silence from the heads of the Church of England.
Drawing worldwide condemnation and driving congregants to calls of heresy, Joshua Heath’s take that Jesus had a trans body using artwork from the Renaissance era has not put the Anglican Church in a good light.
Statements about the Lord’s figure “urge a welcoming rather than hostile response toward the raised voices of trans people,” have been ignored by church leadership instead of condemned in the strongest of ways.
“In Christ’s simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest [is] the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath said on Nov. 20 as reported by the Daily Telegraph.
Even more telling is the church’s complete silence on the matter.
So far, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby nor Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the church’s numbers one and two respectively, have made a public comment on the matter.
To date, dean of Trinity College Rev. Dr. Michael Banner is the only person to comment on the situation, and he came to Heath’s defense for the sermon.
The sermon drew international condemnation from Christian leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II’s own chaplain from 2008-2017, Gavin Ashenden.
“What Christianity teaches us is that Jesus gets to make us more like him, that’s the deal,” Ashenden said. “And whenever you find somebody making Jesus more like them, that’s not the deal.”
Ashenden has previously left the Church of England and became a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
“So, what happened in Cambridge was an inverse process and a perverse process, and we shouldn’t be surprised, because the academy is like that sometimes,” Ashenden continued. “They don’t know when to stop.”
Evangelist Franklin Graham also condemned the teaching calling it “repulsive and shameful.”
With silence emanating from the leadership of the Church of England in the midst of an international controversy, is it any surprise Christianity is now in the minority throughout England and Wales?
Original Article Posted Nov. 28, 2022:
The division within the Christian church continues to wreak havoc on those looking for the truth that the church is supposed to offer.
In recent years, denominations including Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and scores of others have affirmed within their congregations that homosexuality, transgenderism and same-sex marriage are not sins.
Now, as the devil tries to deceive societies across the world to abandon God’s Word for the ideologies of man, Joshua Heath, a junior research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College, is discussing the idea that Jesus had a “trans body.” Heath claims that the side wound of Jesus in several Renaissance and Medieval paintings “takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance.”
“In Christ’s simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath continued.
Parishioners at the church lashed out immediately at Heath’s suggestion, with some walking out yelling, “heresy” at him.
While the backlash has been severe from this claim—some congregants burst into tears at the words of Heath—the dean of Trinity College, Dr. Michael Banner, came to Heath’s defense, claiming Heath raised “legitimate” discussion points in his sermon in a letter viewed by The Telegraph.
“For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism.”
Banner added that he “would not issue an invitation to someone who I thought would deliberately seek to shock or offend a congregation or who could be expected to speak against the Christian faith.”
As reported by DailyMail.com, one anonymous congregant wrote a letter to the dean saying, “I left the service in tears. You offered to speak with me afterwards, but I was too distressed. I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.
“I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ’, a new heresy for our age.”
In an attempt for damage control, Trinity College quickly released a statement addressing the outrage: “The College would like to make clear the following,” a spokesperson for Trinity College said, “Neither the dean of Trinity College nor the researcher giving the sermon suggested Jesus was transgender. The sermon addressed the image of Christ depicted in art and various interpretations of those artistic portrayals,” the spokesperson said. “The sermon’s exploration of the nature of religious art, in the spirit of thought-provoking academic inquiry, was in keeping with open debate and dialogue at the University of Cambridge.”
As churches worldwide replace unerring, sound, biblical doctrine for LGBTQ ideology, those looking for answers from God are placed at risk. These beliefs, as espoused in Heath’s comments and made in the name of inclusivity and acceptance, go against the Word of God. To believe that a person was born into the wrong body denies the perfection and holiness of God. The entire faith in a omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God is based on His righteousness, holiness and moral perfection. His Word says He knows a person before they are formed in the womb and has a plan for each one of them.
By accepting the tennets of homosexuality and transgenderism, churches are saying that God is not perfect. That He erred in the creation of these individuals. This belief causes the pillars upon which the Judeo-Christian faith is built upon to collapse. If the Word says God created them man and woman, but that is wrong, what is to stop the devil from convincing people Jesus did not in fact die on the cross?
Those who look for their identity within their own and others’ sexuality will never find it. A human’s identity is revealed to them in Christ alone. By loving them and sharing the truth of the gospel, Christians can fight the spiritual principalities trying to destroy these people lives.
But when churches accept the morality of the flesh and not of God, they are condemning those who need salvation to the same fate that awaits Satan. Churches must be the ambassadors of Christ and teach the unaltered, unerring and perfect Word of God. Because God does not make mistakes, and the people living these lifestyles contrary to His Word are not mistakes either, they are His children whom He loves and wishes to see redeemed. {eoa}
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