The Gospel is Queer

Sunday, September 21, 2025

The Rev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp

Executive Director, LOVEboldly

Queer Christian

The Gospel is Queer

When one reads that the Gospels are Queer, there’s a rush to indict Jesus and his disciples as a homoerotic group of men who always seem to be around other men. That’s a negative stereotype built on toxic masculinity.

The Gospels aren’t Queer because men traveled together in large numbers. The Gospel is Queer because Jesus routinely transgressed the norms of gender, sexuality, and culture in his words and actions.

The Gospels reveal that Jesus was a Palestinian Jewish man who had been raised as the son of a carpenter. He lived in a time when Palestine was under the occupation and rule of the Roman Empire. With one or two exceptions, his closest followers were drawn from the low, maybe middle, classes of society. They were unskilled laborers, skilled fishermen, and artisans. Jesus spoke Aramaic and seems to have known Hebrew. He speaks fluently with multiple Roman officials and so seems to have been conversant in Latin. Cultural expectations would have been that he become a carpenter like Joseph or to enter another skilled trade. In the oppressively masculine culture, Jesus would have been expected to take a wife and have children. Save his wife and children, Jesus’ close connections would have been men.

But this isn’t who the Biblically revealed Jesus becomes; in fact, he betrays almost every one of these cultural practices. His close followers include men, women, and gender-expansive folks. He associates with people who are positioned culturally higher and lower than he is, and he routinely interacts with people considered ritualistically unclean or societally excluded because of psychological or physical disabilities.

Reflection

How has Jesus been transgressive for you?

How do you transgress expectations of you and/or your identities?