John was Jesus' 'beloved.' The big debate is whether Mary Magdeline and Jesus were an item. Have we been missing something?

I've been reading this wonderful book, "Northrop Frye Unbuttoned."

He brings up the speculation that Jesus was gay, based on the words of the Bible. It makes sense. Why else would Jesus have a 'beloved,' John, repeated over and over in the Gospels? It is an interesting observation to explore.

Frye wrote this decades ago, probably before the gay rights movement. He is the major literary critic of the 20th century. But not even the gay activists bring this up to counter St. Paul. That's quite funny.

What kept us off-guard from what is written in the Bible? Jesus is seldom taken literally. He deliberately confused everyone, contradicting everything he said, and acted in the most bizarre manner.

Women won't want to believe in a gay Jesus. Most women want to be Mary Magdeline, the reformed whore whom the man-of-love chose. This is to counter the misogyny of the Church, by showing that Christ actually liked women and would support the women's movement and the heterosexual.

The latest religious controversy, "The Da Vinci Code" has a vested interest in Jesus having kids to support the secret of Jesus true political intent to spawn the aristocracy in Europe. So Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper, with the androgynous figure beside the Messiah re-interpreted as Mary Magdeline, inspires hope that Jesus had a healthy sexuality toward women.

The Roman Catholic Church is filled with celibate priests, many of whom are gay and won't admit it. Denying ones own true sexuality has serious psychological consequences. Combine this theologically with the act of love that is an act of non-creation (homosexuality) delves into the problem of impotency, where all you can control is your meaning, not life outside of your mind; claiming an omnipotence with a male God who creates all by himself without help from someone else's womb.

Is it about heterosexuals looking the wrong way, looking for the meaning that they can accept? If they don't like the truth, simply destroy the authority on historical and literary grounds or run to traditional theology.

Its quite funny. Wasn't John the only disciple to have died a natural death? Wasn't he boiled in oil... and actually survived! Bit of symbollism there.

And Christianity has always been, culturally, about loving your fellow man, not woman. Why can't we love other men the way Jesus' did?

No wonder the definition of Christianity is 'a sexual hang-up.' Its about controlling life and Creation.

The Church as a community of loving men. How we've warped things the way we want and are afraid to face it. Jesus was God we insist, more God than man, so we don't have to think of his humanity outside of the 'ouch' of the cross.

Screwed-up about Creation. It fits.

The one base question of Christianity is: why was Jesus so confusing?

Everything he did was a puzzle, a contradiction, or some bizarre act that contravened the laws of nature. Nothing ever made sense, and yet he was in control of reality like no one else in history. It drove the mind's will-to-power nuts. And Jesus was threatening Judgment and all the rest.

How could Jesus manipulate Creation, in effect inert matter, with just a thought? Is the nature of Creation something that we are just 'not getting?' How can we get his power so we don't have to buckle under anyone's authority and control?

The dominant civilized mind's issue of control is the authority to choose meaning and impose it on others. The Church fits this bill.

The Church is the model for the tension and confusion over the nature of reality. It teaches that reality is only God, humans and inert matter. Then produces this bizarre story about Jesus' life to assume authority over reality that breaks all these rules, and cannot be hammered down in concrete terms. By keeping such insecurity so vivid and alive, and maintaining a monopoly on its meaning, the Church reigned for 2000 years.

When you put Jesus into a homosexual context, it fits with everything else that is bizarre about Christ and the evolution of the Church. Deny yourself, deny your sexuality, married people are below the clergy.

And there was Peter, the epitome of heterosexuality, with a wife, kids, a thriving fishing business, trying to figure out this anomaly of a powerful homosexual. No wonder it took the Pentacost to get the Disciples out of their confusion. Jesus was saying to love your fellow man. But they just wanted to screw all the women!

Of course, there is no gender in the spirit world. So Jesus was simply pointing that out. And on every level, Jesus was saying that our meaning about the nature of reality is all wrong. But we had to fit Jesus into civilized terms, which means heterosexual terms. And we have Genesis to back up the 'natural order' of things.

We want to create life from the knowledge we have. We are confused by the infinite meaning that wisdom creates. We think that the natural order of heterosexuality is 'wisdom' from God. No. It was merely this weird reality created for Adam to live through the mind, knowledge, to pick and choose his own meaning, instead of through wisdom, which is truth, love and reality... the heart. This is the structure of this laboratory we call civilization, mind-man, knowledge culture, out of sync with actual spiritual reality.

Jesus basically shows how far off base civilization is in its perception of what reality is. Being gay fits the Jesus pattern perfectly. And no one really takes Jesus or the Bible literally. Not even the fundies. We will listen to St. Paul. We still reject Jesus. We will choose the meaning, the meaning we like.