Elton John’s view of Jesus and life
There is an article on Fox News about an interview in Parade magazine with Elton John. I must commend his efforts of now using his money and talent in a positive way but couldn’t help feel sad when he described his many past relationships.
You can read the article here …
In the interview Elton explains what he believes about Jesus:
“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” John told the Sunday supplement. “On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.”
I think in some respects he is correct. Jesus was very forgiving and it is shameful that people are so cruel. Being gay should not be a reason to execute someone. But I think he is wrong about Jesus being gay. We really have no evidence to support this position other than reading between the lines and assuming that because he was single and had some close male friends he must have been gay. During my time at College I had many close male friends and was single but that didn’t mean I was gay.
The reason I mention this story is because I think it is a great illustration of how people create a “Jesus” that is very much like themselves. In the past the quest for the historical Jesus has simply resulted in many different images of Jesus that turn out to be super versions of the historian who does the exploration. This doesn’t mean it’s not possible to discover the real historical Jesus but just that we have to be very careful to let the evidence speak rather than simply making the evidence fit our own preferred image of Jesus Christ.
Elton’s image of Jesus is distorted to end up looking like a super Elton John. It is very important to discover the true nature of Jesus and just making Jesus fit our own image will not do at all.
