Last Updated on January 5, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Michael Bernard Kelly was an internationally renowned queer theologian, author, educator, activist, retreat leader and spiritual counselor based in Melbourne, Australia. He died on Nov. 14, 2020 at age 66. He is best known as creator of the “Erotic Contemplative” lecture series and author of “Christian Mysticism’s Queer Flame.”
Kelly (July 27, 1954 – Nov. 14, 2020) publicly challenged the church’s mistreatment of LGBTQ people by co-founding Australia’s Rainbow Sash Movement in 1998. He taught as an adjunct research associate at the Centre for Religious Studies of Monash University in Melbourne. He was ordained and served as a bishop within the Independent and Old Catholic traditions. His activism for LGBTQ religious rights was grounded in study and contemplative practice.
Kelly was a guest speaker at a wide variety of universities and religious institutions around the world, including Union Theological Seminary in New York, the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, Quest in London, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, Dignity San Francisco and Founders Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles. He was scholar-in-residence at Easton Mountain Retreat Center in upstate New York in 2005-06, and led many retreats there.
New in 2023: Artist sketches icon of Kelly
Kelly appears with symbols of his LGBTQ ministry in a new icon by Maine artist James Day. He drew it in 2023 as a preliminary sketch for a future full-color icon. Kelly holds a eucharistic wafer, and this holy bread of life bears the image of a same-sex couple kissing. “This grows out his various writings about the sacredness of sexuality and his focus on the queer world,” Day told Q Spirit. “My hope is that people will understand the connection between same sex love and sacrament.”
A swirling rainbow appears behind Kelly to signify his leadership in the Rainbow Sash Movement. The background also includes the Southern Cross constellation, which appears in the sky above his native Australia. He is depicted in a bishop’s chasuble and miter to show his religious role, while his name appears on his halo with the title “Dr.” to emphasize his academic side as author and educator.
He studied liturgical art and queer theology at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earning a Master of Arts degree in theology before returning home to central Maine. When not caring for care for his aging mother and disabled partner, he puts his hands to a variety of visual and fiber arts, primarily focused on queer spirituality.
Books by and about Kelly explore his spirituality
Reflections on his life and work are gathered in “Into Your Hands: Essays Inspired by Mystic, Prophet, and Activist Michael Bernard Kelly,” edited by Andrew Brown with the close involvement of Kelly’s family and friends. This collection includes academic essays, personal and theological reflections, and tributes to both honor and celebrate the personal impact that Kelly had on the lives of many, and to preserve and advance his work in the areas of spirituality, sexuality and activism. It launched on June 19, 2022 and is published by Clouds of Magellan Press.
A transcript of his “Erotic Contemplative” lecture series was published for the first time in November 2021 for the first anniversary of his death. The book is titled “The Erotic Contemplative: Reflections on the Spiritual Journey of the Gay/Lesbian Christian.” In addition to the six lectures, it includes a study guide to the series prepared by Kelly. LGBTQ people are encouraged to reclaim and reimagine their spiritual lives in this profound guide.
After decades devoted to integrating spirituality with LGBTQ experience, he focused in his final years on making his work freely available online for new generations and a wider audience. He relaunched his classic “Erotic Contemplative” lecture series in a newly digitized format in 2019. He placed the full lecture series, totaling eight hours, online for free at the Erotic Contemplative YouTube channel. Kelly also revised the companion study guide. It was published in 2020 as an e-book and made available for free download as a PDF file.
Kelly was also eager to tell the world that his book “Christian Mysticism’s Queer Flame: Spirituality in the Lives of Contemporary Gay Men” became newly affordable with the release of a paperback edition in 2020. His other book is “Seduced by Grace: Contemporary Spirituality, Gay Experience and Christian Faith.” Kelly’s body of work is marked by intellectual rigor, academic quality, and spiritual depth based on lived experience and solid contemplative practice.
Kelly followed a spiritual call to come out as gay
Born on July 27, 1954, to a devout Irish Catholic family, he was raised in Melbourne. His personal, spiritual, theological and educational background remained mostly within Roman Catholic contexts. Inspired by Francis of Assisi, he joined the Franciscans at age 17 after high school graduation.
Tension between his faith and his sexuality led him to leave the order two years later. More details about this and other parts of his life story are covered in his essay “Over the Rainbow” in his book “Seduced by Grace.” For the next 17 years he worked within the church as a religious education specialist, campus minister and lay chaplain in Catholic schools and universities, both in Australia and the United States.
Michael B. Kelly, center front in a rainbow sash, speaks in front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne during a Rainbow Rite action (wearing the rainbow sash while seeking communion). The sign says, “Open the gate to justice.” Photo courtesy of Ivan Tchernegovski.
Then in 1993 he followed what he understood to be a spiritual call and came out publicly as a gay man. This bold move ended his 17-year career in Catholic education. Since then he committed himself to developing creative new forms of ministry with LGBTQ people.
Kelly makes an impact with “Erotic Contemplative”
The next year he recorded the six lectures in his “Erotic Contemplative” series. “In 1994 Dr. Joseph Kramer of Erospirit Research Institute in California asked me if I would record some reflections that might support and encourage gay and lesbian Christians in reclaiming and re-imagining their spiritual lives. I was honoured by the invitation and excited by the project,” Kelly said.
The lectures were recorded live in Oakland, California, in September and October 1994, and published by the Erospirit Institute in both video and audiotape formats the next year. All six lectures were digitized and re-released on the Erotic Contemplative YouTube channel in 2019 on the 25th anniversary of the original recordings.
Michael Bernard Kelly in a video still from his “Erotic Contemplative” YouTube series. This image comes from the first video, “The Truth of Our Experience.”
“The Erotic Contemplative” series had an important and lasting impact. It was hailed as “the most powerful and insightful study of gay spirituality that I know of,” by pioneering gay Jesuit priest John McNeill, author of the landmark 1976 book “The Church and the Homosexual.” The audience has included Trappist monks, feminist theologians, sex workers, LGBTQ activists, academics, priests and ministers from many denominations, and people both inside and outside Christian tradition.
The full transcript of all six lectures plus a study guide was published in November 2021 as “The Erotic Contemplative: Reflections on the Spiritual Journey of the Gay/Lesbian Christian.” The first lecture is “The Truth of Our Experience.” It is followed by “2. Re-Visioning Sexuality and Spirituality” and “3. Exodus and Awakening.” Next comes “4. The Desert and the Dark,” which was by far the most popular lecture on the original Erotic Contemplative YouTube channel. The final lectures are “5. Liberation and Union,” followed by “6. The Road from Emmaus.” A smaller book with just the study guide wass also available, providing a user-friendly set of 10 “Questions for Reflection and Discussion” for each lecture.
Kelly kept the original subtitle, with “gay/lesbian,” which was considered boldly inclusive at a time when “queer” was just beginning to be reclaimed and “LGBTQ” was unknown.
In the study guide he explained, “Much in these lectures remains relevant and even, I hope, important. It surprises me, for example, that 25 years on, no-one else has really attempted to do what I aim to do in these tapes—which is to reframe and reimagine the traditional Christian mystical path in the context of the lives of self-affirming, fully open, sexually expressive queer people of faith.”
Kelly’s books integrated queer sexuality and mysticism
Kelly expanded on these themes late in life with his book “Christian Mysticism’s Queer Flame.” It is based on Kelly’s doctoral thesis. He earned a doctorate in Christian mysticism from Monash University in Melbourne in 2015. Sexual and spiritual journeys of gay men today are illuminated by the Christian mystical tradition in this scholarly study. Kelly interviewed eight self-affirming gay theologians and spiritual leaders of deep, mature faith for the book. He examined their lived religion in light of the stages of mystical development as outlined by Evelyn Underhill and others.
“He argues that the (frequently) conflict-ridden negotiations of sexuality and spirituality give birth to, and fuel, the lives and faith journeys of gay men who refuse to relinquish either their sexual identities or sense of God…. What is remarkable about this book is its use of Christian mysticism as an analytical framework for interpreting the journeys of gay men of faith. The seamless marriage of the mystical and the ethnographic in one elegant volume truly sets it apart as a valuable resource with abiding relevance for readers interested in progressive theologies, Christian mysticism, gay spirituality, and queer studies,” Joseph Goh wrote in an in-depth review for the American Academy of Religion.
Kelly speaks about his spirituality in a “Portrait in Faith” video.
His other writings are collected in his first book, “Seduced by Grace.” A detailed review at White Crane Journal states: “A potent collection of thoughtful writings by Kelly, the noted Australian Catholic dissident, Seduced by Grace gathers essays, articles, letters and talks he has produced over almost a decade, from late 1998 to May 2004, that are at once an acutely accurate critique of the shortcomings of the Church and a poignant testimonial to the heroic spirit that has, at times, invigorated it.”
Michael Kelly: A friend who loved art
Michael was a personal friend and we were working on an interview for this Q Spirit blog in the last months before he died. Much of the content in this tribute comes from material he sent me to go with the interview.
He enjoyed reflecting with me about the role of art in his spiritual journey. “I have become very aware that we have very few images, symbols and icons of the Resurrection — compared with so many, many, many, images, rituals and symbols around the passion and crucifixion. I, too, have no shortage of those — and I love them dearly. However, at this stage of my life it is the Resurrection that draws me, and I want to focus on symbols and icons that express this,” he wrote in a recent email.
“Risen Christ” by James Day
Michael’s last words in this final email to me were about a resurrection image that was painted for him by James Day, the same artist who sketched the icon of Kelly. Previously he impressed Q Spirit readers with his “Pulse Christ” commemorating those killed at the Pulse gay bar in 2016. He sent Michael his painting of a warmly human Risen Christ. With dark skin and a crucifixion wound, Christ beckons the viewer to come closer.
After receiving Day’s painting, Michael wrote to me, “It is really quite a stunning image of the Risen Christ, and I am finding it to be a profound consolation and inspiration for me as I walk this path. It is a remarkable example of the power of spiritual art, of Jesus in love, of the grace you too so generously share with our communities.”
A final blessing for a “rainbow splendour gift from God”
Kelly died on Nov. 14, 2020 in a local palliative care unit after an illness. His funeral and burial took place on Nov. 23 on a beautiful part of the Australian coast he loved.
Michael Bernard Kelly’s gravestone (Photo by Grant Samson)
Visitors to Kelly’s grave in Sorrento, Australia, are amazed by the unique beauty of his gravestone. Intertwined white branches are carved into a black stone with an asymmetrical, rough-hewn shape. The inscription reads:
“Man of beauty, justice, priesthood, prayer
His final ‘fiat’ here in Boon Wurrung country.
My Beloved is mine and I am His.”
Note: The Boon Wurrung are an Aboriginal people whose homeland includes part of what is now Melbourne.)
Flowers and a rainbow sash grace Kelly’s grave in 2023, left by friends on the anniversary of his passing. Photo by Ivan Tchernegovski.
The gravestone is a work of art in itself, with drawings by local artist Anne Lawson. The trees etched into the stone are moonah trees, which are native to the the area around his grave in Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula. “Michael loved these trees – their twisted, windswept shapes and their limbs which become wonderfully gnarly and textured as they mature,” said his sister, Noelene Kelly. A Franciscan Tao cross is etched on the bottom right to honor Kelly’s enduring love for Francis of Assisi.
His friend Ivan Tchernegovski shared this blessing with Q Spirit:
Michael we are all sad to lose your company.
May you fall into the mind and heart of God where all there is only pure love for us all.
We honour, thank and celebrate your life especially in the Fringe Dwellers, Rainbow Sash and Emmaus Community.
May you enter into the realm of your ancestors…into the place of legends, reminiscing, storytelling and myth… may you long be remembered.
May you enter into the realm of our past gay visionaries and warriors.
We bless you as a true, once only, unique, rainbow splendour gift from God.
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Related links:
Queer Saint Michael Bernard Kelly by Eureka (Michael O’Hanlon)
Michael B. Kelly page at Clouds of Magellan Press
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Top image credit:
Preliminary drawing for an icon of “Dr. Michael Bernard Kelly” by James Day
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Nov. 15, 2020, was expanded with new material over time, and most recently updated on Nov. 14, 2023.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
I think the life of Michael continues to leave ripples across time.
Recently the funeral of Cardinal George Pell in the Sydney Catholic cathedral was marked by significant LGBT protests much to the ire of his conservative rump of funeral grievers. Memorial ribbons commemorating those affected by church sexual teaching and clerical sexual abuse to the point of suicide were repeatedly cut off from the cathedral fences. Pell’s legacy now can never be white-washed. I am sure, with rainbow colours emblazoned, Michael’s rainbow sash spirit would have been there even if it was a more secular affair.
Sometimes I sense that today’s LGBT freedom/civil rights movement fails to see the religious strands (not the only one of course) deep within its history. Progressive ministers of religion were often at the forefront of homosexual reform movements. First there was the Black civil rights movement nurtured within Baptist churches across the US. Then Black Liberation was followed by Women’s Liberation and then its grandchild, Gay Liberation. Michael was within this religo-political stream of liberation activism though some of his more secular compatriots at time did not support nor understand.
Another Michael spin-off was more personal; and such a strange ironic twist. You see, I was involved in Michael’s rainbow sash activities at the local cathedral that left many of us traumatized. I became dead on God and the church; the church nothing more than a powerful, human, self-interested institution. My spiritual, heart-to-heart connections of a lifetime were severed. I think Michael felt bad about this when I told him. Nonetheless he did say, “a healthy dose of atheism is not a bad thing”.
It was untimely that as Michael lay dying, locked away from many friends as covid spread, I became interested in the mystical path; a tradition full of heretics who are so easily misunderstood. Michael often spoke about this path from his Franciscan perspective though it did not strike me as really worth exploring. In hindsight I can see this was Michael’s constant power house.
It is hard to explain but most believers are caught up in orthodoxy (set belief formulas… “up in the head”, mind stuff) where orthopraxis is more about doing and just being in the presence of… And so, I took up the daily practice of stillness-meditation with no expectations; to be committed no matter what. I so dearly wished I could have shared these beginnings with Michael. Yet I feel like he has left the smallest of mustard seeds to grow without him.
Today I am doing a theology degree. Yes, it is an outdated dung heap but so full of such rich pickings of insight and meaning. I can never type myself as a believer nor a scientific-secularist. Life in its depths is a profound mystery of uncertainty and unknowability. None of us can even know what will happen in one second’s time! Why cannot we not just fall into it realizing we are part of it… to live fully, openly and lovingly in each moment? Anyhow that’s my goal.
I still sit daily in awe and reverence and humility as I guess Michael would.
Thanks Michael, for all you gave and your accidental small gift to me.
It’s wonderful to receive such an in-depth comment from someone who knew Michael B. Kelly well. I agree that his life continues to make ripples across time and space… bringing us into contact, among many other effects.
Yes, it’s hard for the LGBTQ movement to see the value of religion and for religious institutions to see the value of LGBTQ people. We’re caught in between — a lonely, difficult place, but also fertile ground full of opportunities.
I can relate to your experience of coming to the “mystical path” from a place of atheism. In my case I grew up in a mostly secular context. My father’s sudden death when I was in my mid-20s prompted me to seek answers from religion about life after death, leading to my conversion experience and my baptism as an adult at an interdenominational church in Japan. I wrote an essay about how Christianity gave me the courage to come out of the closet as a lesbian.
When I went to seminary, I felt similar to what you described: that it was outdated and I could hardly believe it myself that I had become a true believer.
I understand that you miss Michael and wish that you could have discussed all this with him. I love what you wrote: “Yet I feel like he has left the smallest of mustard seeds to grow without him.” May those seeds continue to grow!
Grieving the loss and grateful for the life and work of Michael Bernard Kelly. Gay Catholic, witness to the tradition, disciple of the Divine and another “Holy Irritant” to those who exclude the invited and demonize the different.
Creative imp of a dynamic spirituality which gave us the Rainbow Sash Movement and the language of the Erotic Contemplative.
Dance into the wedding feast of the lamb with the colours of the rainbow surrounding you and all who have lived the passion of human love in its rich diversity and expression.
Michael Bernard Kelly RIP
Thank you for this memorial. I am sorry to hear of his passing. I became acquainted with Kelly through his “Seduced by Grace” and through watching (several times) his Erotica Contemplative YouTube videos. What a wise master. May he rest in peace and may his wisdom continue to heal our world.