May 29, 2003

BY RICHARD N. OSTLING

The campaign to have U.S. Protestant churches accept homosexuals has taken a radical new turn with a Chicago scholar's claim that Jesus not only approved same-sex relationships, but also was involved in one.

Many will find his claims of an actively homosexual Jesus ''blasphemous,'' admits Theodore W. Jennings Jr., author of The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament.

Jennings heads gay and lesbian studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary, a school of the United Church of Christ. The church's Pilgrim Press published the book.

The book fits the United Church's policy of ''extravagant welcome'' toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and the pride it takes in having ordained a pioneer gay minister in 1972. Jennings is a minister of the United Methodist Church, which officially opposes same-sex activity.

Jennings says the opponents can cite only ''five isolated verses'' in the Bible. Preferring simplicity to credibility, he ignores those verses and the weightiest American treatment of them: The Bible and Homosexual Practice, published by the Methodists' Abingdon Press and written by conservative Presbyterian Robert A.J. Gagnon of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Asked about Jennings' theory, Gagnon says ''the idea that Jesus was a homosexual or engaged in homosexual acts is complete nonsense'' and no ''serious biblical scholar'' has ever proposed this.

Though Jennings belittles a mere five verses, he largely depends on just a few biblical words concerning the disciple ''lying close to the breast of Jesus'' at the Last Supper (John 13:23,25, 21:20). This unnamed follower ''whom Jesus loved'' is often thought to be the writer of the Gospel of John or one of his sources.

As Jennings imagines it, this disciple was ''lying in [on] Jesus' lap--that is, snuggled up to Jesus.''

Jesus ''loved'' all his colleagues, but Jennings thinks this one friendship was ''expressed by physical and personal intimacy--what we might today suppose to be a homoerotic or a 'gay' relationship.''

Most likely it was ''sexual in character,'' he says, though the Bible doesn't describe the ''specific practices'' the pair used to ''celebrate'' physical intimacy.

Gagnon says Jennings misunderstands ancient culture. Banquet guests would recline while eating, so the man ''lying close to the breast'' was simply located next to Jesus, with no homoerotic implication.

Jennings' related contention that Jesus approved same-sex couples stems from the healing of the centurion's servant (Matthew 8:5-13). Jennings contends that the servant was the centurion's ''boyfriend'' and that Jesus didn't denounce their relationship. Episcopal priest Thomas Horner argued this in Jonathan Loved David, from the Presbyterian Church book house.

Gagnon responds that there's no reason to suppose Jesus endorsed the centurion's lifestyle and that it's unlikely he was homosexual, because the parallel account (Luke 7:1-10) says Jewish elders commended the centurion.

AP