Review: Gay Perspective

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FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness

GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe

SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:  A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods

THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil

TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams




CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers

THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell

IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey

Unpublished manuscripts

About ordering

Books on Gay Spirituality:

White Crane Gay Spirituality Series

  Articles and Excerpts:

Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness

Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"

About Liberty Books, the Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996

The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate

A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality

Why gay people should NOT Marry

The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage

Toby and Kip Get Married

Wedding Cake Liberation

Gay Marriage in Texas

What's ironic

Shame on the American People

The "highest form of love"

Gay Consciousness

Why homosexuality is a sin

The cause of homosexuality

The origins of homophobia

Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness

What is homosexuality?

What is Gay Spirituality?

My three messages

What Jesus said about Gay Rights

Queering religion

Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men

Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?

The purpose of homosexuality

Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality

What the Bible Says about Homosexuality

Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men

Varieties of Gay Spirituality

Waves of Gay Liberation Activity

The Gay Succession

Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?

The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter

Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium

Easton Mountain Retreat Center

Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism

The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey

The upsidedown book on MSNBC

Enlightenment

"It's Always About You"

The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara

Gay Spirituality

Curious Bodies

What Toby Johnson Believes

The Joseph Campbell Connection

The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)

Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy

The Two Loves

The Nature of Religion

What's true about Religion

Being Gay is a Blessing

Drawing Long Straws

Freedom of Religion

The Gay Agenda

Gay Saintliness

Gay Spiritual Functions

The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.

The Sinfulness of Homosexuality

Proposal for a study of gay nondualism

Priestly Sexuality

Having a Church to Leave

Harold Cole on Beauty

Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption

Not lashed to the prayer-post

Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality

Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process

Notes on Licking  (July, 1984)

Redeem Orlando

Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar

Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson

Mystical Vision

"The Evolution of Gay Identity"

"St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul."

Avalokiteshvara at the Baths

 Eckhart's Eye

Let Me Tell You a Secret

Religious Articulations of the Secret

The Collective Unconscious

Driving as Spiritual Practice

Meditation

Historicity as Myth

Pilgrimage

No Stealing

Next Step in Evolution

The New Myth

The Moulting of the Holy Ghost

Gaia is a Bodhisattva

The Hero's Journey

The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016

The  Gay Hero Journey (shortened)

You're On Your Own

Superheroes

Seeing Differently

Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil

Allah Hu: "God is present here"

 
Adam and Steve

The Life is in the Blood

Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"

Seeing with Different Eyes

Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom

What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?

The Vision

The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside

A  Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside

The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis

The Techniques Of The World Saviors

Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby

Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection

Part 4: A Course in Miracles

The Secret of the Clear Light

Understanding the Clear Light

Mobius Strip

Finding Your Tiger Face

How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated

About Alien Abduction

In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke

Karellen was a homosexual

The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance

Intersections with the movie When We Rise

More about Gay Mental Health

Psych Tech Training

Toby at the California Institute

The Rainbow Flag

Ideas for gay mythic stories

People

Kip and Toby, Activists

Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.

Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement

About Hay and The New Myth

About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"

About Michael Talbot, gay mystic

About Fr. Bernard Lynch

About Richard Baltzell

About Guy Mannheimer

About David Weyrauch

About Dennis Paddie

About Ask the Fire

About Arthur Evans

About Christopher Larkin

About Mark Thompson

About Sterling Houston

About Michael Stevens

The Alamo Business Council

Our friend Tom Nash

Second March on Washington

The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"

Book Reviews

Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:

Gay Perspective

Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe

Gay Spirituality

Gay Identity and 
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness

Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman








Secret Matter

Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction

updated








Getting Life in Perspective

A Fantastical Romance

The Fourth Quill

originally published as PLAGUE

The Fourth Quill is available as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie Moreland. Click here

Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo

with Walter L. Williams

Two Spirits  is available as an audiobook  narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here

Finding Your Own True Myth:

The Myth of the Great Secret III









In Search of God  in the Sexual Underworld












The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

This was the second edition of this book.

Other reviews of Gay Perspective

Read Toby Johnson's review of Boisvert's Sanctity and Male Desire

In recent years, queer scholars have been paying a great deal of attention to religion.  This may seem odd, or perhaps even perverse, considering the negative attitudes of most religious traditions with respect to all things homosexual or even slightly queer.  Some might say this is an honest attempt at struggling with our most oppressive demons, while others might opt for a more cynical explanation, arguing that it is all simply a dead-ended attempt at further collective delusion.  As Toby Johnson would no doubt claim, perhaps "being gay" and "being spiritual" fit together quite naturally, like Gilbert and Sullivan.  Or more appropriately, in this case, like top and bottom.

There now exists a fairly well-defined field of study called gay spirituality.  Its practitioners tend to fall into two camps: those concerned with scripture and the rehabilitation of biblical texts that have been historically dismissive and intolerant of homosexuality, and what could be called the Higher Consciousness group, more in the tradition of Edward Carpenter and Harry Hay, who believe that gays (and yes, even lesbians) share a unique vocation as spiritual guides and change agents.  In most cases, this latter group tends to draw its inspiration from pre- or non-Christian androgynous traditions.  Theodore Jennings and Toby Johnson represent rather well, each in his own way, these two complementary outlooks.

 

 Jennings' The Man Jesus Loved is, by far, the more scholarly of the two books.  Though its central theme is not totally original, the book has garnered a modest amount of attention in claiming that Jesus was gay and that he had a lover, something shocking, if not downright blasphemous, for most fervent Christians. A professional theologian and United Methodist clergyman, Jennings provides what he terms "a gay reading" of the New Testament scriptures by exploring in detail some of their more mysterious yet compelling homoerotic narratives, such as the centurion's lad and the naked youth in the Garden of Gethsemane.  For Jennings, the teachings of Jesus were powerfully subversive of traditional gender and family arrangements, primarily those that were ascetic or body-denying in nature, and his own open and generous lifestyle was defiantly affirmative of same-sex desire.  To the question of whether Jesus was gay, he answers rather cautiously by asserting that "Jesus' primary affectional relationship was with another man, one who is called in the Gospel of John "the disciple Jesus loved" and the reading of the references to this relationship that makes the most sense is one which infers a relationship of physical and emotional intimacy, a relationship that we might otherwise suppose would be the potential subject of erotic mediation, of sexual expression." (p. 233)

It's precisely this sort of careful crafting that makes Jennings' argument so compelling.  But who exactly was the so-called disciple Jesus loved?  Tradition has it that it was John the Evangelist.  There are other suspects, however, and Jennings explores the pros and cons of all of them: Lazarus, Andrew, Nathaniel, Philip, Thomas, Joseph of Arimathea, among others, perhaps even someone not named.  Jennings' conclusion is that he can't conclude with certainty.  This does not mean, however, that the quest, in and of itself, was not an exciting one.  That, in fact, is the most engaging thing about this book.  It leaves no stone unturned.  It takes a holistic view of New Testament teachings on sexuality, specifically their homoerotic dimensions, and it builds a solid case for a man-loving Jesus.  If that isn't enough to excite any queer, I'm not sure what would.

Jennings' writing is lucid, reasoned, precise, and well referenced, and his argumentation is nothing if not persuasive.  All the appropriate New Testament passages, canonical and not, find themselves dissected.  This is the sort of book that, by some strange and wonderful twist of fate, you hope might fall into the hands of all those self-righteous and insufferable televangelists, only to be the cause of their sudden demise by heart attack (a most unchristian thought, I readily confess).  Though the book does bite back, it is a quiet masterpiece of reasoned discourse: calm, soothing, and brilliantly thorough in its theological analysis and implications.  You cannot help but admire its fine and elegant structure.  Jennings' inspired method of not doing the texts violence, of letting them speak at their most obvious level of discourse, works wonders.  You walk away fully confident that Jesus was a gay man, that he lived openly with "the beloved disciple," and that who it was does not ultimately matter.  If only, however, everyone were as calm and rational — and ultimately convinced — as Jennings.

For that is the problem.  Not everyone will be convinced, try as you may.  But then again, why should you even want to?  There can be no doubt that, down through history and still today, the Judeo-Christian scriptures have been a (if not the) major source of institutionalized homophobia.  The efforts of those scholars, such as Jennings, who systematically and eloquently refute such argumentation are therefore important and needed.  We cannot let the religious bigots, of whatever denominational persuasion, lay exclusive claim to the biblical terrain.  Our lives can depend on it.  Other scholars, however (and I admit I am one of them), are becoming increasingly impatient with the constant need for scriptural refutation, playing, as it were, the game of the enemy, wasting time engaging them on their turf, always being on the defensive.  Is it not better to move beyond the bible, to begin crafting a spirituality emerging from our own lives, one not requiring some scriptural justification or blessing, as feminists have been doing for so long?  If Jennings can prove that Jesus was a man-loving man, all the more power to him and, by extension, to all of us.  But to the church-going homophobe, will it really make any difference?  Doubtful.  Is it not perhaps time to move on?

 

To Toby Johnson, the answer is a resounding "yes."  For him, all religion is a metaphor, and this is succinctly and engagingly expressed in Gay Perspective.  The author of Gay Spirituality and former editor of White Crane Journal, Johnson has long been a staple in the field.  His gamble in this most recent book is to argue, somewhat too prosaically, that gay men possess a unique "perspective," a special intuition that, by virtue of their marginality, makes them particularly susceptible to spiritual insight.  Unfortunately, such observations, though they may ring true at the level of anecdote, are all too often coupled with quick-and-easy clichés.  He writes, for example: "There are certain talents that seem to come with being gay: the ability to decorate a room or to assemble an outfit, for example.  These talents come from what we earlier called gay intuition.  Also among these gay talents are mythopoesis, religion, and the creation of liturgy and ritual." (p. 130)  While it may be sadly true that the world possesses an over-abundance of liturgy queens, it is highly doubtful that they all partake equally of the collective pool of good taste.  Such statements unfortunately tend to discredit Johnson's main argument about the distinctive cultural role of gay men, which, though it remains a battered tenet of much gay spirituality, he still manages to defend with eloquence, insight, and much vigor.

Johnson's approach is that of the eclectic pedagogue.  With chapter titles such as "Things our Homosexuality Tells Us About:," he discusses a surprising mix of topics running the gamut from Life to God, while passing through Sex and Religion.  All the biggies, in fact.  Throughout, he sticks to his core argument that gay men are "blessed" in some very special way, the carriers of a higher (and no doubt more refined) form of consciousness.  There are some perceptive, if slightly off kilter insights, such as when he refers, in chapter 9, to the Mystical Body of Christ: "All of us are organs in the Body of Christ.  Following this metaphor, we might say gay men play the role of the penis of the body of Christ (and lesbians, that of the clitoris of this sexually androgynous body)." (p. 198)  Christocentrism aside, this might well be a gay man's fantasy.  It certainly provides erotic food for thought.  This is what Johnson does best.  You may disagree with him, consider his ideas outlandish, you can't help but resonate to their inner logic and appeal.  We all know we're different as queers, without really being able to put our finger on why.  Johnson puts his whole hand -- all five fingers -- on, or rather into, it.                    

For a gay man looking for pride in who and what he is, and particularly for young just-came-out men, Gay Perspective comes as a godsend.  It is a passionate, defiant, and challenging piece of work.  Thankfully, Johnson gives straight men a run for their money, laying blame for much of the world's problems at their cocky and insecure feet.  Few authors have dared to tackle this issue head-on, but he does so with all the aplomb and verve one would expect from an intelligent gay man.  He even asks sardonically: "Doesn't it sometimes seem that homosexuality might be the cure for all the problems of straight men?" (p. 90)  I can hear a deafening echo of affirmative gay voices from sea to shining sea.  Spiritually, however, Johnson is not without his favorites.  A Catholic by upbringing (he spent several years in seminary with two different religious orders), he now practices Buddhism, with a splash of New Age flavor (his glowing reference to A Course in Miracles is telling in this regard).  In the latter part of his book, he spends several chapters expounding the non-dualistic Buddhist way, thereby suggesting that it and the so-called "gay perspective" are one and the same.  Though this may be a valid spiritual insight, it further dilutes his earlier defense of gay intuition as something critical, marginal, and ultimately subversive of both mainstream culture and religion.

There can be no doubt that, through these texts, Jennings and Johnson make important and relevant contributions to a queer understanding of the dynamic that is religion.  In itself, this is laudable, considering the natural dislike, if not outright fear, that many gay men tend to exhibit when it comes to this topic.  Jennings' The Man Jesus Loved will endure, if only because of the boldness and eloquence of its thesis.  Johnson, however, is not to be neglected.  What he has succeeded in doing, in Gay Perspective and in his earlier works, is to anchor solidly the gay experience in the language and mythos of spiritual enlightenment, certainly no small task.  If Theodore Jennings' Jesus is delightfully queer and sexual, then Toby Johnson is the guy who makes him resonate with post-modern, cosmic vibes.     

All of which brings us back to the dilemma of gay spirituality.  Will Jesus being gay, or queers being more enlightened, really make a difference in our lives?  For the gay man, believing or not, perhaps; for the homophobe, one can only hope.  In fact, that's what gay spirituality is really all about at heart: conversion.  An old fashioned religious idea if there ever was one.     

 
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