Monday, June 15, 2015
Notre Dame Prof: Church has Long History of Transgendered Saints Featured
By: Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist
Prof. Candida Moss
Candida Moss is a Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame University. On June 11, Thomas Williams, also a professor at Notre Dame, in an article for The Christian Review Website, did a good job exposing recent outrageous claims made by Moss regarding negative reaction to Bruce Jenner’s supposed “transformation” to a woman:
Moss excoriates “religious conservatives” that have issues with Jenner’s transgenderism, asserting that “the trans community has no shortage of religious icons” in the history of Christian martyrs and saints.
The weird thing is, out of the 10,000 or so saints in the Roman Catholic Church, Moss could only dredge up five to help make her case, and (unsurprisingly) none was a transsexual.
In fact, none was anything like Bruce Jenner at all.
Moss excoriates “religious conservatives” that have issues with Jenner’s transgenderism, asserting that “the trans community has no shortage of religious icons” in the history of Christian martyrs and saints.
The weird thing is, out of the 10,000 or so saints in the Roman Catholic Church, Moss could only dredge up five to help make her case, and (unsurprisingly) none was a transsexual.
In fact, none was anything like Bruce Jenner at all.
Saint Thecla (of whom there is virtually no historical record) cut her hair short and dressed like a man to avoid getting married, since she wanted to devote herself full time to God. Joan of Arc dressed like a soldier and led the French troops against the English in the 100 Years War. Wow, just like Jenner.
Then there’s Saint Perpetua, who had a dream that “involved becoming a man and fighting an Egyptian in the arena.” Just like Jenner.
Saints Sergius and Bacchus, on the other hand, were military men arrested for being Christians, forced to dress as women in “an effort to humiliate” them. The two men embraced the humiliating ordeal out of love for God, and were subsequently put to death. Obviously, they, too, suffered from gender dysphoria.
And… Moss’s list ends there. Remarkably, she finds it to be sufficient evidence to conclude that ancient Christian authors “saw gender boundaries as porous, and effort was required to avoid crossing them.”
It’s a good thing that Moss went into religious studies rather than law, since her paper-thin “case” would never have made it anywhere near a courtroom.
On the other hand, it is surprising that the parents of University of Notre Dame students, who presumably send their children there at least in part for its Catholic identity, would shell out over $60,000 a year so that their kids can be subjected to the theories of an ideologue like Candida Moss…
This was not the first time Professor Moss has publicly championed patently absurd and heretical notions. As the article above points out, Moss even, “ attacked Pope Francis for being anti-woman and made the eyebrow-raising claim that “in the beginning” God made human beings neither male nor female, but “androgynes.”
Far worse, however, is Moss’ latest book , The Myth of Persecution. As the Amazon description states:
Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.
According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity’s inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the “Age of Martyrs” is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.
In addition, Moss appeared on The O’Reilly Factor defending the bizarre notion that Jesus was a socialist and that nobody can enter Heaven unless they sell all of their possessions and give them to the poor. It apparently never occurred to Candida that the logical consequence of this view is near universal damnation.
The real story here is not so much the shocking, scandalous, and absurd claims of Moss as the fact that this woman is still allowed to teach at the University of Notre Dame. Consider her book. Can one imagine a Jewish University keeping a professor on staff who dismisses the Holocaust as “exaggerated”, “invented” and “forged” “fiction?” Yet this supposed Catholic university keeps a professor on staff who basically calls all of the early Christians liars and perpetrators of a hoax to serve their own agenda. In that case, why believe Christianity at all? Why devote your life to being a “professor” of the New Testament and Early Christianity? The answer is clear: to attack it.
Notre Dame has long since lost any credibility as a Catholic university, but by keeping Dr. Moss on staff they harm not only themselves but the Church at large. The media gladly uses shills like Moss to attack the Church. They give her plenty of air time, proudly listing “Theology Professor at University of Notre Dame” under her chattering face as she spits venom at all Catholicism stands for. In the “bad old days” before Vatican II people who held Moss’s views would be lucky to be allowed to clean toilets at Notre Dame much less anywhere near a classroom. However now, in our enlightened age of “academic freedom” Catholics now pay the salary of a rabid anti-Catholic to teach their Catholic children at a Catholic University.
If anyone wishes to send respectful thoughts regarding Dr. Moss’ continued employment to Notre Dame Theology Department, here is the contact page.
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