Last Updated on January 9, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Two new editions of the gay Passion of Christ book were released in August 2021: a paperback with a new Last Supper cover and a hardcover version with the original Crucifixion cover.
The Last Supper appears on the paperback and Kindle versions of “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” with text by Kittredge Cherry and art by Doug Blanchard. The new hardcover edition is an elegant yet durable “library edition.”
The illustrated art book presents Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city as he lives out the dramatic events of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, and his arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. All 24 paintings in Blanchard’s original gay Passion of Christ series are included, along with commentary by Kittredge Cherry, prayers and short Bible passages.
“I’m happy to see the Last Supper on the cover because it’s one of my favorite paintings — and it’s also popular with readers,” Cherry said.
The special Last Supper edition of the Passion book is offered only on Amazon.com. It is available in paperback and e-book formats.
Instead of having a separate paper dust jacket like most hardcover books, the hardcover Passion book has the Crucifixion printed directly on the matte-finish “case laminate” cover.
Blanchard’s images show Jesus being jeered by fundamentalists, tortured by Marine look-alikes and rising again to enjoy homoerotic moments with God and friends. He stands up to priests, businessmen, lawyers, and soldiers—all of whom look eerily similar to the people holding those jobs today. His surprisingly diverse friends join him on a journey from suffering to freedom.
The new hardcover edition of the Passion book has the original cover with the Crucifixion.
The gay Passion of Christ series is popular with readers, who call it “accessible but profound.” Meanwhile conservative Christians have condemned it as blasphemy.
Blanchard is a gay painter and art history professor in New York City. Cherry is a lesbian author and art historian in Los Angeles. After the success of his first gay Passion of Christ paintings, Blanchard began a second Passion series with a dark-skinned Jesus.
The art and reflections are also available as a blog series and prints.
Why a gay Passion of Christ is needed
“We are sharing the gay Passion series to make Christ more accessible to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people and our allies,” said Cherry, founder of Q Spirit and Jesus in Love. The projects promote artistic and religious freedom by supporting LGBTQ spirituality and the arts. “Christ’s story is for everyone, but queer people often feel left out because conservatives use Christian rhetoric to justify hate and discrimination,” she said. A video combines the paintings with her talking about why they are important.
The gay Jesus himself appears surprisingly approachable in Blanchard’s art. “Christ is one of us in my pictures,” Blanchard writes in the book’s introduction. “In His sufferings, I want to show Him as someone who experiences and understands fully what it is like to be an unwelcome outsider.”
Readers call it “accessible but profound”
The gay Passion of Christ series is popular with readers, who call it “accessible but profound.” Here are other typical comments:
“I just wish I had experienced this kind of queer-positive Christianity when I was a teen struggling with both my sexuality and my religion as a whole.”
— Matt Leary, Dover, PA
“I can’t go through Holy Week without recalling many of these images. They depict the Holy Week that is in my heart.”
— Elisa Lucozzi, associate pastor, Saint Johnsbury, VT
“As a heretic Christian turned Buddhist, I was moved to tears by your artistic vision.”
–John Gish, retired teacher, Key West, FL
“I love these paintings not just for how ‘radical’ they are, but for how much I see them as being absolutely in line with traditional Christian understandings of Christ and of Easter.”
— CJ Barker, activist, Marin County, CA
The book is lavishly illustrated with color images of all 24 paintings in the gay Passion of Christ series.
The book is “transformative in the most profound sense of the word,” says Michael Bronski, Harvard professor of gender and sexuality. “Whether you are religious or not, it is impossible to read ‘The Passion of Christ’ without having your basic beliefs shaken and expanded.”
LGBTQ religious leaders also praise the book. “I was deeply moved by this retelling of the Easter story,” says Rev. Troy Perry, founder of Metropolitan Community Churches. Soulforce founder Rev. Mel White calls it “an amazing read,” Rev. Patrick Cheng welcomes it as “a beautiful work of contextual theology,” and Rev. Chris Glaser describes it as “a great contribution.” Mary Hunt of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual declares, “The divine leaps from these pages into open hearts.”
About the author and artist
Kittredge Cherry and Doug Blanchard at the gay Passion of Christ exhibit in Taos, New Mexico, in 2007
Kittredge Cherry was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its National Ecumenical Officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches. In 2005 she created Jesus in Love to support LGBTQ spirituality and the arts and show God’s love for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. It has grown to include a popular blog and e-newsletter. She earned degrees in journalism and art history from the University of Iowa, and a master of divinity degree from Pacific School of Religion.
The New York Times Book Review praised Cherry’s “very graceful, erudite” writing style. She has written seven books, including “Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations
Selections from Blanchard’s Passion also appear in “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More
The book was launched in May 2007 with an exhibit at JHS Gallery in Taos, New Mexico. The completed Passion series was displayed together there for the first and only time in a group exhibit titled “Who Do You Say That I Am? Visions of Christ, Gender, and Justice.” Blanchard’s series became the show’s superstar, with almost half of the 24 panels in his series getting snapped up by collectors. Now they are scattered all across the world.
Douglas Blanchard teaches art and art history at the Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. He was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in 1982 and remains an active Episcopalian and self-described “very agnostic believer.” He earned a BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute, an MA in art history from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MFA cum laude from the New York Academy of Art. His art is exhibited and collected worldwide.
He spent four years painting the gay Passion. He started in summer 2001, but it took on new meaning on Sept. 11 when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center near his studio on New York’s Lower East Side. He used the series to grapple with his own faith struggles as a New Yorker who witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Links related to the gay Passion of Christ
*Advocate.com: “Artist Doug Blanchard’s haunting contemporary paintings of the Passion of Christ are an emotional reminder of the courage it takes to resist the powers that be.”
*Facebook u-turns to allow gay Jesus crucifixion ad (Gay Star News)
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This post is part of the gay Passion of Christ series by Kittredge Cherry on the Jesus in Love Blog at Q Spirit.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Aug. 25, 2021.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
