(image courtesy www.naij.com)
By Spencer D Gear
You might ask: What weird questions you ask? Are you serious? Yes, I am, because of what follows.
It is becoming predictable how depraved liberal theology can become in desecrating who Jesus Christ is. But this one must come close to the top of the list of false teachings. Take a read of this article in The Telegraph [UK] in which a feminist theologian at Manchester University, Susannah Cornwall, claims that “Jesus may have been a hermaphrodite, claims academic“. A hermaphrodite has both male and female sex organs.
I had better define theological liberalism first. How better to do that than to incorporate its definition from one of the prominent opponents of liberalism, Dr. J. Gresham Machen from Christianity & Liberalism (1923:2):
This modern non-redemptive religion is called âmodernismâ or âliberalism.â Both names are unsatisfactory; the latter in particular, is question-begging. The movement designated as âliberalismâ is regarded as âliberalâ only by its friends; to its opponents it seems to involve a narrow ignoring of many relevant facts. And indeed the movement is so varied in its manifestations that one may almost despair of finding any common name which will apply to all its forms. But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is rooted in naturalism â that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (emphasis added).
These are some of Cornwallâs points from The Telegraph:
- It is âsimply a best guessâ that Jesus was male;
- In her blog she states that she specialised in âresearch and writing in feminist theology, sexuality, gender, embodiment, ethics and other fun things like thatâ.
- In her paper, âIntersex & Ontology, A Response to The Church, Women Bishops and Provisionâ, she promotes the view there is no certainty that Jesus did NOT have an intersex condition, with both male and female organs.
- She makes the outlandish statement that âIt is not possible to assert with any degree of certainty that Jesus was male as we now define malenessâ. Has she been reading Minnie Mouse comics instead of the Bible?
- We cannot know if Jesus had a body that appeared externally to be male, but he might have âhiddenâ female physical features. This proposal is that Jesus could have been a hermaphrodite.
Are sons male or female?
There is not a single piece of evidence in the New Testament to support Susannah Cornwall’s claim that Jesus was not male. Speculation by liberalism is classical fare. It demonstrates that Cornwall does not take any notice of what the New Testament states.
The birth of Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son” (Matthew 1:23). Sons are male, but that seems to escape Cornwall’s academic abilities. Jesus step-father, Joseph, had no intercourse with Mary “she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25). Sons are male.
I’ll just about die of theological heart-failure when I hear liberals like Cornwall take the Bible seriously. The evidence is right before her, but she doesn’t seem to have any qualms about inventing her false teaching.
In an extraordinary paper she stated:
âThere is no way of knowing for sure that Jesus did not have one of the intersex conditions which would give him a body which appeared externally to be unremarkably male, but which might nonetheless have had some âhiddenâ female physical featuresâ.[1]
Dr Cornwall argues that the fact that Jesus is not recorded to have had children made his gender status âeven more uncertainâ.
She continues: âWe cannot know for sure that Jesus was male â since we do not have a body to examine and analyse â it can only be that Jesusâ masculine gender role, rather than his male sex, is having to bear the weight of all this authority.â
Letâs check some further evidence. When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, the devil said to him, âIf you are the Son of GodâŠâ (Matt. 4:6). He did not describe him as the daughter or hermaphrodite of God.
What was the purpose of Johnâs Gospel?
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30-31).
Dr Cornwall, are you blind or are you pushing your own agenda that is contrary to what the Scriptures state? You are imposing on the Scripture your presuppositional uncertainty of Jesusâ masculine gender. The Bible is unequivocal. Jesus is the Son. He is a male. There is no doubt about it as we see also thatâŠ.
New Testament Greek uses the male pronoun to refer to Jesus
In a follow-up, brief article to refute Cornwallâs theology, Rev. Dr. Peter Mullen[2] wrote:
The gospels were written in Greek and they always use the male pronoun to refer to Jesus. Not once do they use the equally available feminine or neuter pronouns. So the gospel writers seem to have assumed that Jesus was a man. And if masculinity is recognised by particular characteristics, there is a pretty huge pile of circumstantial evidence. In the infancy stories, Jesus is referred to as a male child. On his ritual pilgrimage to the temple when he was twelve, he is described as a boy. So can we hazard the suggestion that he grew up to become a man? I donât think they had sex change operations in first century GalileeâŠ.
No irreverence meant, but I think if Jesus were in Manchester today and could read Dr Cornwallâs thesis, he would laugh out loud.[3]
Was Jesus circumcised as a male or female?
Luke 2:21-24 states:
On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. 22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, âEvery firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lordâ), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: âa pair of doves or two young pigeons.
Notice these features from this passage in Luke 2:
1. Jesusâ human parents were having this child circumcised eight days after birth. Was the child a male, female or hermaphrodite? This was the Jewish tradition that is articulated in Genesis 17:12-14 and Leviticus 12:2-3. These verses from the Law of Moses, the Pentateuch, confirm that Jewish circumcision was only for a male child.
2. This circumcision is confirmed by Luke 2 to be following the âLaw of Mosesâ, which is âthe Law of the Lordâ, and was applied to male babies.
Dr. Cornwallâs argument for Jesus as a possible hermaphrodite is again found wanting. Sheâs into practising her liberal, feminist invention.
The inventions of liberal theology
C. S. Lewis once wrote:
All theology of the liberal type involves at some pointâand often involves throughoutâthe claim that the real behavior and purpose and teaching of Christ came very rapidly to be misunderstood and misrepresented by His followers, and has been recovered or exhumed only be modern scholars. The idea that any man or writer should be opaque to those who lived in the same culture, spoke the same language, shared the same habitual imagery and unconscious assumptions, and yet be transparent to those who have none of these advantages, is in my opinion preposterous.[4]
In an interview with J. I. Packer when he was teaching at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada, he said that he expected congregations in The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, which are
being fed on liberal theology will continue to wither on the vine as they have done for the last half century. Liberal theology, without the gospel, proves to be the smell of death rather than of life.[5]
While Common Cause[6] is a minority group today that is committed to orthodox doctrine in the Anglican Church of North America, Packer expects that will change âas liberal churches get smaller and smaller and become in turn a minorityâ.
Dr. Susannah Cornwall is an example of a liberal, feminist theologian who invents things about Jesus. This kind of thinking kills churches and denomination. She is promoting a false doctrine of Christology and is therefore defending heresy.
Conclusion
Paul, the apostle, instructed Titus that false teachers âmust be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teachâand that for the sake of dishonest gainâ (Titus 1:11).
This is the instruction that must be given to false teachers such as Susannah Cornwall. They must be exposed and silenced. It is not a GUESS that Jesus was a male. It is an invented false teaching by Dr. Cornwall. The biblical evidence is that Jesus is a male, a son.
I refer you to my article, âIs liberal theology heresy?â
Notes:
[1] Cited in the article by John Bingham, ‘Jesus may have been hermaphrodite, claims academic’, The Telegraph, 2 March 2012, available at:Â http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9116974/Jesus-may-have-been-a-hermaphrodite-claims-academic.html (Accessed 16 March 2012).
[2] This article stated this about the Dr who wrote the article: âThe Rev Dr Peter Mullen is a priest of the Church of England and former Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journalâ.
[3] Peter Mullin 2012. Jesus was a man: look at the evidence, Dr. Cornwall, The Telegraph [UK], 2 March. Available at: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100141058/jesus-was-a-man-look-at-the-evidence-dr-cornwall/ (Accessed 16 March 2012).
[4] C. S. Lewis 1981. âModern theology and biblical criticismâ, now titled, âFern-seed and elephantsâ, available at: http://orthodox-web.tripod.com/papers/fern_seed.html (Accessed 16 March 2012).
[5] David Virtue 2008. âLiberal theology without the gospel has the smell of death: J. I. Packerâ, 25 January. Virtueonline, available at: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7564#.T2K2UHnwqnK (Accessed 16 March 2012).
[6] Anglican Churches from four states in the USA form âCommon Causeâ, which is âcommitted to working together for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom. âWe are united in Biblical truth and love of the Anglican worship tradition and are striving to improve relationships with faithful Anglicans worldwideââ. Available from VirtueOnline at: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/print.php?storyid=4087 (Accessed 16 March 2012).
Copyright © 2012 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 1 May 2016.