Holy Cross defends professor who wrote book saying Jesus was a ‘transgender’ ‘drag king’

In an earlier article, we discussed the pure blasphemy written by Catholic professor Tat siong Benny Liew in the book “Queering Closets and Perverting Desires: Cross-Examining John’s Engendering and Transgendering Word across Different Worlds.”

Liew teaches “New Testament” and “Sex, Money, Power, and Sacred Texts” for the Religious Studies department of Holy Cross College.

Students from the Catholic and Jesuit College of the Holy Cross are being taught by someone who subscribes to perversion that endorses homosexuality, eroticism, sado-masochism, incest, androgyny, and sexualizing the Word of God. To read exactly what Liew wrote, please see here.

A petition was posted on TFP Student Action which urged the Jesuit college to stop teaching “drag king” blasphemy against our Lord. Over 16,000 people agreed and signed the petition calling for professor Liews removal.

The Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, Reverend Robert J. McManus, published a statement in the local Catholic newspaper calling on Holly Cross to request Liew disavow his highly offensive statements.

Of Liew, Bishop McManus wrote that his writings “cast doubts on the male sexuality of Jesus Christ based on Professor Liew’s seriously flawed analysis of some texts of the Gospel of St. John. I am deeply troubled and concerned to hear that someone who holds an endowed chair in New Testament studies at the College of the Holy Cross has authored such highly offensive and blasphemous notions. Such positions have no place in the biblical scholarship of a professor who teaches at a Catholic college and who, as such, should be supportive of the college’s Catholic identity and mission.”

And of Father Boroughs, the bishop wrote, “Academic freedom certainly plays a critical role in the intellectual life of a Catholic institution of higher learning like Holy Cross. However, how that academic freedom is exercised, particularly in the fields of theology or religious studies, cannot provide cover for blatantly unorthodox teaching. Clearly, the biblical conclusions that Professor Liew has reached in his writings are both false and perverse.”

The bishop added, “Holy Cross has a duty to, at least, ask Professor Liew if he rejects the biblical positions he penned some 10 years ago or if he supports and defends those positions today. If he disavows them, then he must state so publicly, so as not to create confusion about the nature of Christ. If he does not, then it is my duty as the bishop of Worcester to clearly state that such teaching is a danger to the integrity of the Catholic faith and, in prudence, warn the Catholic faithful committed to my pastoral care that such unorthodox teaching has no place in a Catholic college whose mission is to promote and cultivate the Catholic intellectual tradition.”

Holy Cross is a Jesuit college and is not controlled by the Worcester diocese that Bishop McManus leads.

Although we have criticized the pope, the sexual immorality running rampant with Catholic leaders, and other idolatrous parts of the Catholic faith, Bishop McManus took a stand against such blasphemy, which is more action than anyone at the university took.

The dismissive institutional statement said the book was originally “meant to foster discussion among a small group of Biblical scholars exploring marginalization.”

And Reverend Philip L. Boroughs, the president at Holy Cross, said he disagreed with the book but, knows Professor Liew to be a “dedicated teacher and an engaged scholar,” and that “he is a man of faith.”

Professor Liew was defended by the university as they have dismissed the local bishop as well as the 16,000 people who petitioned for the professors removal, and plan to carry on without even asking the teacher to disavow his extremely offensive writings.