The Gay Gospels: Good News for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People [Kindle Edition]

This is a book full of celebration, affirmation and empowerment. As much a practical as a theoretical work, each chapter ends with either a "self-defence" or a "self-affirmation" section.
For me the central point of this book is that the life and teachings of Jesus are of tolerance, inclusion, and love. My response to much of the book was to punch the air with delight and to laugh out loud saying "yes, yes, yes!"
I'm not even a Christian and you don't need to be to a great deal of enjoyment from this book.

Keith Sharpe provides an accessible, engagingly-written and joyfully provocative interpretation of what the bible and Jesus say (and don't say) about same-sex attraction and practice, and also trans people.

The unique selling point of the book is its division in two parts: the defensive testament and the affirmative testament. The defensive testament takes the prevalent "terror texts" used to marginalise LGBT people, and demonstrates (theologically) the erroneous nature of contemporary and "traditional" interpretation. The affirmative testament is an enchanting uncovering and celebration of LGBT-affirming stories in the bible, with chapters on Jesus' sexual orientation and his relationship with his beloved disciple, the touching love of the centurion for the male servant who probably started out as his sexual slave, and so on. Each chapter of the two testaments closes with either a self-defense or self-affirmation summary to help LGBT people remember and respond to criticism and attack.

For me, there are two particularly powerful aspects of this book. The first is the reminder that Jesus wasn't in favour of the monogamous nuclear family: in fact his teaching undermined the hierarchical patriarchal economic units that constitute the family in biblical times and today. The scandal of contemporary "Christianity" is the conservative elements of the Christian church who have managed to pass off the opposite of Christ's reported words, an ideological construction for social control and exclusionary practices, as "Christian family values".

The second particularly compelling element of the book is the chapter on textual abuse in which Sharpe reveals the way in which patriarchal Christian churches engage in deliberate "selective interpretation or misinterpretation of isolated biblical texts to give a decontextualised prejudicial contemporary meaning" (p77).

Sharpe ably shows that there is absolutely no biblical basis for discrimination against and demonisation of LGBT people: on the contrary, our community was affirmed and celebrated in the old and new testaments. This book is not an apologetic plea for nicer treatment of unfortunate deviants: it is a fiery denunciation of the historical and continuing abuse of LGBT people, contrary to Christ's teaching, by people mendaciously claiming to emulate Christ. As such, it is mandatory reading for all LGBT people and Christians everywhere.

This book is certainly a valuable collection of defensive and affirmative arguments around gay people and the bible. It has a bibliography which seems to cover a good selection of works dealing with these themes, but there is no index to the work. The structure of the book in chapters which are very topic-focused offsets the lack of an index to some extent, however a good index would have made the necessary links between issues, and their principal proponents, which inevitable get scattered across the various chapters.

But my main concern about this work is what I perceive as carelessness regarding its final production. While I acknowledge the author's intention not to produce an academic work, the author and publisher should at least have ensured that the version(s) of the bible from which they quote is clearly stated. This really does matter as any analysis of particular terms in the bible should be related to the bias which is known to exist in many translations - bias which can arise from the time of their compilation as well as from specific viewpoints held by the translators. As the work presently stands, we are shown texts, some in more archaic language than others (suggesting a rather 'mix and match' approach), with no clue as to the 'party line' which might underpin any particular extract.

A second example of poor proof-reading occurs on page 63 where it is stated: "In the first part of 2 Corinthians chapter 6 Paul is criticising Christians in Corinth for taking each other to court..." This should be 1 Corinthians chapter 6. This is an important error when you consider that 1 Corinthians ch 6 is one of the classic 'texts of terror' frequently used against gay people. To get this reference wrong is potentially highly misleading to a reader who is exploring the subject for the first time, especially when the book promotes itself as a resource to be used when arguing with opponents.

This could have been an excellent resource which brings together a collection of contemporary arguments and debates in one place; but it fails to land some of its punches because of careless production factors. It needs to be re-published in a revised edition which is fully accurate and properly referenced.

Philip Jones