Top Church of England clergymen have refused to comment on the recent sermon at Trinity College, Cambridge, which fueled international backlash for talking about the “trans body” of Jesus Christ.
The Reverend Dr Michael Banner, who serves as dean of Trinity College, recently came to the defense of Joshua Heath, a junior fellow at Cambridge University, who proclaimed from the Trinity College chapel pulpit during an evening service that he did not Erotic depictions of Jesus’ penis in historical art “urge a welcoming rather than a hostile response to the raised voices of trans people.”
“In the simultaneously male and female body of Christ in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest [is] the body of all bodies, so your body is also the trans body,” Heath said on November 20, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Neither Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who is the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, nor Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, his second-ranking cleric, condemned or otherwise commented to Fox News Digital on the controversial sermon which he also compared the wound on Jesus’ side to a vagina.
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Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby speaks during a Service of Prayer and Reflection for Queen Elizabeth II at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on September 9, 2022, one day after her death at the age of 96.
(Photo by PAUL CHILDS / POOL / AFP)
“I’m afraid the Archbishop is traveling at this time and is not available for comment,” a Welby spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Welby’s office directed Fox News Digital to contact the Church of England press office, which did not respond to a request for comment.
A Cottrell spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “Archbishop Stephen has no comment to offer on this.”
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, above, recently said that declining rates of Christianity in the UK are “not a huge surprise”.
(Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
Heath, whose doctorate in divinity was supervised by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, claimed in his sermon that in one of the medieval paintings he showed the congregation, the spear wound in Jesus’ side “takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance.” . In another, he pointed out how blood from his side flows into his groin.
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Heath claimed that in the 14th-century Luxembourg Bonne Prayer Book, the depiction of the wound in Jesus’ side “takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance”.
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Williams, who served as the highest-ranking Anglican cleric from 2002 until Welby took office in 2012, also did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Cambridge University did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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The sermon reportedly brought outraged churchgoers to tears, shouting “Heresy!” echoed through the chapel as some outraged worshipers left in disgust. Banner later responded to a letter of complaint from an offended parishioner stating that Heath’s sermon generated “legitimate” speculation.
Heath noted that in Jean Malouel’s 13th-century Pietà, blood from Jesus’ side flows into his groin.
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Heath’s sermon drew condemnation from figures including Gavin Ashenden, who served as Queen Elizabeth II’s chaplain from 2008 until resigning in 2017.
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“What Christianity teaches us is that Jesus can make us more like him, that’s the deal,” said Ashenden, who left the Church of England to join the Roman Catholic Church. “And anytime you find someone who makes Jesus more like them, that’s not the deal.”
“So what happened at Cambridge was a reverse and perverse process, and we shouldn’t be surprised, because academia is like that sometimes,” Ashenden continued. “They don’t know when to stop.”
Heath’s doctorate in theology was supervised by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury.
(AFP via Getty Images)
Evangelist Franklin Graham also criticized Trinity College for hosting the sermon, calling it “repulsive and shameful”.
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Christianity rates in England and Wales have fallen in the last decade to the lowest number on record, according to government statistics released last Tuesday.
