Holy Cross Defends Professor Attacked as Blasphemous Who Said Jesus was a drag king

[mdgspencer]

Holy Cross defends professor under attack for his writings on Jesus and sexuality

This has been put into the Catholic News forum because the College of the Holy Cross has traditionally been a Catholic college, operated by the Jesuit order.

“Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew, chair of New Testament Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., said Jesus was a ‘drag king’ who had ‘queer desires.’ He also claims the Last Supper was a ‘literary striptease’ and that Jesus was not a man, but gender fluid,” an article from Fox News reports

Criticism has escalated over his views, the local bishop protesting that this professor’s writings have “cast doubts on the male sexuality of Jesus Christ… I am deeply troubled and concerned to hear that someone who holds an endowed chair in New Testament studies at the College of the Holy Cross has authored such highly offensive and blasphemous notions.”

 

[AlNg]

“Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew, chair of New Testament Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., said Jesus was a ‘drag king’ who had ‘queer desires.’ He also claims the Last Supper was a ‘literary striptease’

However, Father Burroughs has defended him as a man of faith.

 

[billy15]

Good on His Excellency for speaking up! To see Bishop McManus’s full statement, click here. I know that Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of South Bend recently spoke up over controversey at the University of Notre Dame. It’s really great to see more bishops standing up for truth and for their flocks. Catholic colleges should be expected to be bastions of orthodoxy, not blasphemy, as Bishop McManus stated. Here’s more from his statement:

Academic freedom certainly plays a critical role in the intellectual life of a Catholic institution of higher learning like Holy Cross. However, how that academic freedom is exercised, particularly in the fields of Theology or Religious Studies, cannot provide cover for blatantly unorthodox teaching. Clearly the biblical conclusions that Professor Liew has reached in his writings are both false and perverse. …

In light of the controversy caused by Professor Liew’s writings, Holy Cross has a duty to, at least, ask Professor Liew if he rejects the biblical positions he penned some ten years ago or if he supports and defends those positions today. If he disavows them, then he must state so publicly, so as not to create confusion about the nature of Christ. If he does not, then it is my duty as the Bishop of Worcester to clearly state that such teaching is a danger to the integrity of the Catholic faith and, in prudence, warn the Catholic faithful committed to my pastoral care that such unorthodox teaching has no place in a Catholic College whose mission is to promote and cultivate the Catholic intellectual tradition.

 

[billy15]

Do you mean you want to read what Professor Liew said in his writings that set off this controversey? Or what Fr. Boroughs said in his comment?

 

[billy15]

Of course. You might have to do some digging for the official statements from Fr. Boroughs, but nothing in the OP’s link casts any doubt on the veracity of his comments.

As for Professor Liew’s writings, those are easily accessible. As it turns out, the criticism is well warranted and the mass media was not sensationalistic on this particular story.

To see the original article from the student newspaper, click here.

To read from Professor Liew’s disturbing text, you can find that here (p. 258). Here’s a snippet:

"I am suggesting that John’s constant references to Jesus wanting water (4:7; 19:28), giving water (6:35), and leaking water (19:34) speak to Jesus’ gender indeterminacy and hence his cross-dressing and other queer desires…

“I am, in effect, suggesting that Jesus’ rhetorical excesses are meant to represent the cross-dresser. John is indulging in such literary excesses that his Jesus is performing male transvestitism rather than masculinity.”

There’s also a very disturbing passage that I cannot even repost here. It’s that disgusting and blasphemous, and you’ll find it at this link, from the bottom of page 265 through page 266.

Bishop McManus was absolutely right in what he said in his statement. Let’s hope that Professor Liew disavows what he wrote in these books, as the bishop asked.

 

[AlNg]

Anyone can check that what was written is actually worse than what was reported.

 

[billy15]

Heh, I don’t think I could’ve said it better. It really is its own special brand of idiocy. I’m glad Professor Liew was finally called out on it, but I’ll be even happier if he admits his error and transmits Catholicism faithfully to his students.

 

[ChunkMonk]

And yet the Church will not end her relationship with the college, parents will continue to send their children there, and Hell will keep on eroding at our foundations. The shepherds have fled and wolves are in the fold.