Scottish teachers union sparks outrage over plans for transgender Jesus play By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor
A Scottish teachers union’s decision to promote a controversial play depicting Jesus Christ as transgender in celebration of June, what LGBT activists call “Pride Month,” has outraged Christians who’ve long opposed the play, noting that “true biblical Christianity is becoming marginalized through political correctness.”
The union, called Education Institute of Scotland, which claims to represent around 80% of the country’s lecturers and teachers, plans to hold an LGBT event where they will feature excerpts of “The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven,” as the production is titled, according to The Christian Institute.
The play, which will be featured as part of a “Pride” event, “School’s Almost Out! Celebrate Pride,” on June 17, “invites us to imagine Jesus coming back to Earth in the present day as a trans woman,” the EIS says.
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The play’s creator, Jo Clifford, a man who identifies as female and says he also identifies his religion as Christian, says the play recreates biblical stories with a “different slant.”
“The play imagines a transgender Jesus coming back to the world today,” Clifford told BBC News in a previous interview. “She pitches a sermon and tells a few very familiar Gospel stories.”
Clifford added, “She has a communion, shares bread and wine with the audience, which is really a gesture of solidarity in the face of death, and she gives a blessing. So it’s a very important, very intimate show.”
In 2016, a Church of England church in Manchester hosted the controversial play a year after it featured in a publicly-funded LGBT event in Northern Ireland.
Former Church of England Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali responded to the play at the time, saying, “It is quite clear from the Gospels that the identity of Jesus is male, His ‘mum’ is Mary and he always refers to God as ‘Father,’ so to suggest otherwise is contrary to Christian teaching.”
