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Table of Contents Search Site Home Also on this website: Toby
Johnson's books: TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe SECRET
MATTER: updated, revised & expanded edtion from Lethe Press
with Afterword by Mark Jordan PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING. Books on Gay Spirituality:
Articles
and Excerpts: Read
Toby's review of Samuel Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of
Consciousness Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco" The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality Why gay people should NOT Marry What's ironic Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness What Jesus said about Gay Rights Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium Easton Mountain Retreat Center Andrew Harvey &
Spiritual Activism "It's Always About You" Joseph Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara What is Enlightenment? What is reincarnation? Emptiness & Religious Ideas Experiencing experiencing experiencing Going into the Light Meditations for a Funeral Meditation Practice The way to get to heaven Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva John Boswell was Immanuel Kant The Joseph Campbell Connection Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy Gay Spiritual Functions The Sinfulness of Homosexuality Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism "The Evolution of Gay Identity" "St. John of the
Cross & Religious Articulations of the
Secret Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil Allah
Hu: "God is present here" The Life is in the Blood What
are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel? The mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis The Techniques Of The World Saviors Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby How Gay
Souls Get Reincarnated In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta. Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out" About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic Book Reviews Be Done on Earth
by Howard E. Cook
Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer The Way Out by Christopher L Nutter The Gay Disciple by John Henson
Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bougeois Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman
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The Jesus We Never Knew
 The Kairos: A NovelBy Paul E. Hartman 320 pages, paperback $12.50 978-0615495095 Available from www.CarpeKairos.com Also available from amazon.com Reviewed by Toby Johnson, author of The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell The Kairos is a modern day suspense-thriller set in Jerusalem, then the Seattle Washington area, then deep Alaska. The book description on the back half-jokingly (I think) calls it "Religious Horror" for Christian Fundamentalists. Whatever the horror, it is certainly a thriller. The action keeps moving and the story moves right along with it. The novel's a page turner and an enjoyable fast read. But the hero isn't a government spy, but a religious one, that is, a seeker after truth and a biblical exegete trying to understand and tell the truth about the "real" Jesus Christ. And it's a Jesus we didn't know about. Kairos is a Greek word meaning an opportune time, a time when God breaks into history. The discovery of new information about the life of Jesus, for instance, could result in a kairos moment when everything everybody thought has to change, and comes to have a new and greater meaning in present time. That's how it is used in this book. Kairos is also reminiscent of two other Greek words, Kyrios and kouros; the former means Lord (as in the prayer Kyrie Eleison -- Lord, have mercy), the latter means a standing youth (as in early Greek sculpture). The puns are both surprisingly appropriate. For the history-changing moment the main character of the story hopes to bring about involves just who Jesus, as Lord, was as a young man. The protagonist, Dr. Lute Jonson, has been keeping a secret for years. In his study of the dead Sea Scrolls, he came across references to the life of Jesus as a teenager. The texts reveal he lived in the Qumran community, where the Essenes, the mystical sect of Judaism, are thought to have had a sort of monastery, and that he was thought of as divine because of his ability to work miracles, but he was also a rebel who challenged Jewish sexual taboos by carrying on a same-sex relationship with the boy who'd later be the Apostle John. As the novel opens, Dr Jonson is leaving Jerusalem--with the hidden texts--to announce their content to the world. Why and how he never quite makes it is the adventure of the story. For obviously the "power that be" are not going to allow such a revelation. The book then is about the stranglehold the institutionalized Church keeps over the real truth of Jesus's teachings. It's a good novel with a fascinating idea: how would the Christian--and non-Christian--world react to the news that Jesus had a sex life, and that it wasn't quite kosher. In the effects in the lives of a couple of characters, readers are shown hints: a devout Christian woman is horrified at the idea of Jesus as not virginal, a sexually repressed scholar is elated, but confused and frightened by the revelation. The shocking climax of the story is unfortunately realistic and believable, but in ending the book as he does, Paul Hartman avoids having to deal with the worldwide reaction. (I won't spoil the plot by explaining this.) Since this is a novel and since the premise of Jesus's sexuality is probably possible, but not likely to ever be revealed, there's no need to address that worldwide reaction. And the author turns the plot inward to offer a kind of spiritual, mystical message about the nature of religion. Throughout the story, Lute Jonson keeps reminding himself that a fundamental message of all faith must be: Fear not. And that's the message the book ultimately conveys: Fear not. It wouldn't matter in the life of an individual or in the history of the world if things changed radically, i.e., if there were a kairos moment in our day -- because, in faith, there really is nothing to fear. That we understand that is itself a kind of kairos.  Wrestling with JesusBy D.K. Maylor 465 pages, paperback $18.95 978-1461087489 Available from WrestlingWithJesus.net Also available from amazon.com Reviewed by Toby Johnson, author of The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell Wrestling with Jesus offers an imaginary and whimsical dialogue with a new age Jesus who shows up in response to the author's writing a long complaint letter to Jesus regarding Christian teaching and interpretation of the Bible. In the spirit of Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God, D.K. Maylor's book allows Jesus to restate his teachings for modern times. And Maylor's Jesus has quite a sense of humor. A lot of the book reads like a standup comedy duo, with Jesus making outrageous, mostly silly and funny, but occasionally profoundly meaningful puns and jokes. For all its whimsy and lightheartedness, the book demonstrates the author's extensive study of Christian and pre-Christian history. An ongoing theme is that the story of Jesus as it has come down through history seems a confabulation of myths and Mystery religions in the Roman-Hellenistic empire of New Testament times. Jesus Christ, the God of Christianity, was as much Osiris or Mithras as he was the Nazarene teacher. Maylor and his buddy Jesus have a field day--and a revelation of spiritual meaning--deconstructing the traditional Christian doctrine of Jesus as the sacrificial scapegoat who saves mankind by appeasing Yahweh's wrath with his crucifixion. And, of course, the analysis makes great sense AND offers a much better interpretation of "salvation." Jesus quotes A Course in Miracles, rails against the multiple and egregious abuses down through Church history, reexplains the Bible and the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, incorporates Hindu and Buddhist ideas of spirit and consciousness, reinterprets the meaning of afterlife, and cites Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. The message of this real meaning of Christianity rings true. For all the times the Jesus in this book cracks jokes and makes bad puns, his explication of spirituality is logical and appealing and inspiring. The book is some 450 pages long, but it reads fast and it's hard to put down because there are just so many good ideas rushing by. If there's a flaw in the presentation, it's that the whimsical dialogue setup allows for sudden changes of topic and some ideas get raised that aren't fully followed through on--but that's a minor complaint. There is so much material in this book, it calls for several readings. Maylor's Jesus espouses a kind of modern, Buddhistic, mystical transformation of consciousness to discover that self and ego--the things that seem so important to modern day Americans--are really illusory constructions of the mind. What we human beings really are is fields of consciousness conjuring up a world that seems a nightmare vision because we shirk our responsibility to wake up and take charge of our lives, instead choosing to live in the past or the future in regrets and dreams rather than in the true power of the present moment. The skepticism and ridicule of conventional religion then results in a rich spiritual teaching, appropriate to the 21st Century. This is a marvelous book. Maylor's Jesus avoids talking about what are called in American politics "social issues." The question of Jesus's sexuality (or homosexuality) never comes up. Jesus doesn't address abortion or contraception or same-sex marriage or prayer in schools or teaching Intelligent Design--though it isn't hard to see that this modernized Jesus would address such issues with loving kindness and no stiff-necked hard-heartedness. I loved this book and want to recommend it. It stirred up so many wonderful feelings and insights for me. Both of these books offer reinterpretations of the Jesus story and discover new meaning and richness in doing so. That we can even think such thoughts is evidence of the ongoing evolution of consciousness and the transformation of religion and myth as human beings mature. Modern science and historical awareness have changed how we understand religion. Recreating religion as a carrier of wisdom frees us all from the horrors of the past and, ironically, saves religion by recasting it as a high culture art form with a deep and important message about how to live intensely and awarely in the present moment. |
Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.
Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness was published in 2000.
His Lammy-nominated book GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.
