Last Updated on January 10, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Queer identity mixes with Christian faith in the surprising, sometimes controversial art of New York artist Erich Erving. His work revolves around LGBTQ identity, sexuality and the Bible, seeking to welcome outcasts as Jesus did.
Erving’s projects include his ongoing “Bona Breviary of the Fabulosa Innocents” and an Evensong worship service in Polari, the secret language of British gay subcultures. Using images of deceased male porn stars as a starting point, the alchemy of his artistry transforms them into etchings of saints with the same name. In his breviary, they are accompanied by prayers and scriptures translated into Polari, a language that is too queer to be acceptable.
Polari often switches male names and pronouns to female. For example, in Polari Jesus tells his followers:
“Be ye therefore absolutely fantabulosa, even as your Auntie which is in heaven is absolutely fantabulosa.”
The same scripture in the King James Bible is, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
Polari itself is often considered improper and irreverent. Erving scandalized conservatives when his Polari version of the Evensong prayer was sung by student priests at Cambridge University.
Despite objections from right-wing Christians, Erving received critical acclaim for his first solo show, when his breviary and related work were exhibited at Shoestring Studio in Brooklyn in 2017. The exhibit included a record player spinning a vinyl record with a choral performance of his Polari Evensong at Yale Divinity School.
“Erving’s work is not at all an attack on Christianity, but a very genuine expression of the artist’s faith…. The racy imagery does nothing to detract from the serenity and reverential quality of its iconography. In fact, one is tempted to call this raciness a precondition for the show’s sincerity. It is difficult to picture a more successful show of contemporary sacred art,” said a review at Tribes Magazine.
Erving’s work is discussed in the 2019 book “Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language” by linguist Paul Baker.
Art by Erving is included in the permanent collection at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in Manhattan. A graduate of Columbia University, he displays his work online on his Instagram account “Sparkle and Munge.” The title means “Light and Darkness” in Polari. In addition to his role as printmaker at Shoestring Press, Erving is a clergy spouse whose husband works as a curate at a church.
Polari Evensong upsets conservatives
Erving’s Polari Evensong was held at Cambridge University’s Westcott House, a leading theological college for the Church of England, for LGBTQ History Month in 2017. It includes lines such as:
“O Duchess, open thou our lips.
And our screech shall show forth thy praise.”
After widespread news coverage and intense criticism, the college principal apologized and said that the Polari worship service was “hugely regrettable.”
Others defended worshiping God in Polari: “If God cannot be prayed to in Polari, I don’t see how God can be prayed to in any language…. If Polari is a form of speech people use, then it must be capable of connecting with God’s presence: if not, I worry that this calls into question the universal scope of God’s action in Christ,” wrote University of Notthingham literature professor Jem Bloomfield.
Comparable criticism surrounded efforts to translate the Bible into another language spoken by an oppressed group: Ebonics or African American English. For example, some accused author P.K. McCary of blasphemy for putting scripture into the language of her community for her community in “Black Bible Chronicles” and “Rappin’ With Jesus.”
Etchings of fabulosa saints
The centerpiece of Erving’s “Bona Breviary of the Fabulosa Innocents” is a book, bound in plaid cloth, with alternating pages of text and etchings. He does etchings of nude or semi-nude saints based on deceased male porn stars who share their names.
“The Beheading of John the Baptizer” by Erich Erving
“The Beheading of John the Baptizer” shows a man with a gold halo and his mouth half-open in ecstasy and/or pain. A red ribbon is tied around his neck, evoking both the blood of beheading and the ribbons worn to show awareness of the HIV/AIDS virus that cut short thousands of gay lives.
A dazed man in snug underwear reclines, legs spread, in “The Conversion of Saint Paul.” A bareback horse bucks in the background behind him. The etching brings gay sexuality into dialogue with the Biblical account of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Paul persecuted Christians until he saw a blinding light and heard the voice of Jesus from heaven. He was so stunned that he fell to the ground. Many artists over the centuries have painted the dramatic moment, usually with the horse that Paul was riding when he fell.
“The Conversion of Saint Paul” by Erich Erving
Erving has stated that he seeks to understand the Bible in light of what Jesus said in John 10:16. This scripture is also beloved by many in the LGBTQ Christian community: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
When translated into Polari, the key phrase “they shall hear my voice” becomes “they shall aunt nell my cackling fakement.” Erving builds upon this intriguing, slyly humorous phrase in his breviary and the related exhibit.
“They Shall Aunt Nell My Cackling Fakement” by Erich Erving
Bible welcomes queers in lost gay language Polari
Paul Baker, a linguist specializing in Polari, writes about Erving’s work in his 2019 book “Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language.” His analysis of the Polari Evensong notes:
“Just as Jesus had welcomed people who were outcasts and on the fringes of society (such as widows and sex workers, who were often overlooked by organized religions during his time), a Polari Evensong would be a bold move in terms of welcoming queer people in a way that had never before been attempted….
I was sent a recording of the evensong and it sounds beautiful — heavenly even. The words are sung in such a highly stylized way that it takes a while to realize that any Polari is being used — the effect is one of peace and reverence.”
Baker, a professor at Lancaster University, is also the author of “Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang.”
Musical chanting at the Polari Evensong can be heard briefly in the video “Polari: A short documentary about the lost language of gay men” (starting at 10:30 minutes into the video).
Polari has been called “the lost language of gay men.” It is a code language or “cryptolect” used in British gay subcultures at least since the time of Oscar Wilde in the 19th century until the repeal of sodomy laws in 1967. Its origins can be traced back to the 17th century “molly slang” used by English men who had sex with other men. Speaking Polari was both a necessity and a form of initiation. It enabled LGBTQ people to identify each other, build relationships and communicate while hiding from others at a time when the crime of homosexuality was punished by imprisonment. Sometimes Polari speakers also used it to openly flaunt their queer identity.
Polari mixes words from many sources, including Italian, Romani, Cockney rhyming slang, and Yiddish. Stigmatized people on the fringes of society spoke it. Polari is especially associated with gay men, drag queens, female impersonators and transwomen, but it was also used by some lesbians, actors, circus and fairground workers, merchant sailors, criminals and prostitutes. Some Polari words have entered mainstream usage, such as butch (masculine) and camp (deliberate exaggeration to amuse others).
A Polari version of the entire King James Bible has been produced by the Manchester chapter of the Sisters of Perpetua Indulgence, a protest and street performance charity that uses drag and re-purposed religious imagery to promote tolerance of LGBTQ communities.
Erving converted or “transduced” text from their Polari Bible to create the Polari Evensong service. The order of worship from Westcott House explains, “’Polari Evensong’ is a liturgical experiment in which we may explore what happens when a language of, for and from the fringe, a language that may be considered transgressive, is used to express worship and prayer. It is an attempt at queering the liturgy of Evening Prayer, locating the queer within the compass of faith, and recovering for Christian tradition a sense of its own intrinsically subversive jouissance.”
When religious texts are translated into Polari, the result can be unexpectedly beautiful and poetic. Most people don’t understand Polari, so the words become as mysterious as a Latin Mass. Listen to the video of the Polari Bible read in the style of English actor Kenneth Williams or sense the playful majesty of the opening lines of the King James Bible in Polari:
“In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was nanti form, and void;
and munge was upon the eke of the deep.
And the Fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas.
And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.”
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Top image credit:
“Saint Chas” by Erich Erving
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This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) spiritual and religious imagery. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in August 2019, and was most recently updated on May 29, 2023
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
