Marvel Jesus, the Olympics, pizza with Stormy Daniels, and what Christianity forgot about the Last Supper
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS DEADPOOL 3 SPOILERS
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS BIBLE SPOILERS AS WELL
Growing up as an evangelical kid, I was often told stories of Christians being persecuted by way of stoning, beheading, and, of course, the Colosseum, where they met saintly ends by way of lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!). Like most stories surrounding early Christianity, these tales contain elements of truth, myth, legend, and downright fiction. It is hard to say exactly how much of what these Christians generally faced, but there is zero doubt that much of it was exaggerated. Martyrdom became a badge of honor to some and something to avoid by others.
One story I didn’t hear in Sunday School was about a group of early Christians that approached a Roman governor seeking persecution. It appears this particular group of folks decided that the only way to truly honor their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was to meet a similar end as the Messiah. Everyone else around them was allegedly getting slaughtered for their faith, and they were feeling a little left out of all the fun. It has been well known amongst academics that some Christians would intentionally goad other citizens of Rome, or even soldiers, to provoke them into a confrontation so they would be put to death “for their faith.” Kind of like an OG version of suicide by police, when someone commits a crime to be unalived by a cop. Well, having no luck, this little band of lads went directly to the governor demanding that he get with the f+cking program and kill them already for believing in Jesus. Arrius Antoninus, the governor in question, was not particularly interested in helping these fools get their self-imposed street cred. Instead, he is quoted as saying, “If you want to die, you wretches, you can use ropes or precipices.” Some accounts say that this was all that these zealots needed, and they jumped off a cliff en masse to their untimely self-inflicted persecutions.
As it turns out, the scriptures are correct about at least one thing, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and Christians will, when given a chance, find persecution in just about anything.
Happy Holidays! = persecution
Queer people breathing = persecution
Kevin Smith existing = persecution
Drag queens reading books = persecution
Sonya Massey said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” before being shot by the police; well, that has led to crickets from the far-right. It seems that anything that gets close to something that could even be conceivably deduced as legitimate persecution, they are suddenly silent on and instead are siding with the Roman Guard… I mean the police.
Even those early Christians who sought out persecution did so because they hoped to be a witness to the world. Instead, most modern Christians seem to actively accuse everything of being some form of disparagement but then actively seek to protect themselves, which is a direct antithesis to anything the scriptures have to say about the matter. Jesus clearly stated that if you are persecuted, you should use this as a moment to bear witness about who Jesus is, not to avoid these moments (Matthew 10:16–18). But these folks don’t care about what Jesus has to say. Instead, they look for scandal where none exists, betraying the very nature of Christianity to follow a man who uses the Bible as
Unholy Sh+t
Matthew 26:17-30
Special Olympics Edition
This past weekend was a whirlwind; over a month ago, I had announced I would be going on a brief tour with Stormy Daniels, which we lovingly called Tarts and Vicars: an evening of comedy with Stormy Daniels and Father Nathan Monk. Almost immediately, I was being harassed by alleged followers of Jesus on both the right and the left for my association with a “sinful woman.” Now, I would like to make it very clear that I do not object to her profession, and neither did Jesus, but that hasn’t stopped modern Christianity from losing the entire f+cking plot. There are very few things that Jesus was more explicit about than his love for sex workers. He was constantly defending and associating with them, and those around him found it all quite scandalous, including his frenemy, Judas Iscariot. Jesus was anointed with oil by a “sinful woman” as she washed his feet with her hair. There are two accounts that are presumed by some to be the same story found in Luke 7:36-50 and John 12:1-7. In Luke’s version of the story, the woman is not named, but in the gospel of John, she is referred to as Mary, the sister of Lazarus. If both of these accounts are the same story, that means that the woman who was a sex worker was the sister of Jesus’ best friend (see: roommate) and she was considered a close confident of Jesus as well. It should be noted that neither of these accounts is about Mary Magdalene, who was not a sex worker; you can read more about how that little historical mistake was made here.
Regardless of the fact that Jesus was homies with hookers, I was in trouble for because one of my good friends happened to have worked in porn.
Our second show of the weekend took place in an old Roman Catholic Church that had been converted into a bar and venue. When the show was over, Stormy and I joined some folks for a drink and pizza at the pub in the basement of the repurposed parish. One gentleman who was there was a man from Baton Rouge who traveled hundreds of miles to see the show. We were also joined by Michael Knote, the founder of Have a Gay Day. This organization provides meals, emergency housing, and other social services to those experiencing homelessness in Dayton, OH. As we sat around this bar, sharing stories over a pint and cheese sticks, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that this much more closely resembled the event known in pop culture as the Last Supper than any depiction of Da Vinci.
The Last Supper was on my mind a lot that weekend, as the outrage began to pour in from such notable figures as D.J. Tanner and Marjorie Taylor “Sandy Hook was a false flag” Green. What was the great offense that they must defend the Lord from today, you might ask? The opening ceremony of the Olympics, where a group of drag queens performed a reenactment of Bacchanalia, or the festival of wine, often associated with the Greek god Dionysus. Far-right armchair theologians quickly rushed to accuse the Olympics of mocking their faith. The images they saw flashing on their screens, they mistakenly assumed, were a mockery of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper fresco. Instead, what they were actually seeing is that Christianity has so oft borrowed, been influenced by, or downright stolen from other cultures to the point that this modern interpretation of Bacchanalia appeared to them to be a parody of Jesus and the disciples. The demands for an apology by the “I’m not a snowflake” and “f+ck your feelings” crowd were almost laughable if it wasn’t so f+cking embarrassing.
As I grappled with all these feelings, I deeply wanted to write about them, but I just couldn’t find the right words. This all seemed so absurd, and the real parody is whatever we call Christianity today. I was genuinely at a loss.
Over our show weekend, I actively avoided the internet as much as possible so as not to receive any spoilers about Deadpool and Wolverine. First thing Monday morning, my daughter, who was on tour with me to help with ticketing and merch, along with a family friend, went to the movies. Strapped with popcorn and candy, we entered the movie theatre. As portrayed in the original trailer, Deadpool exclaims during one scene, “I am Marvel Jesus!” This moment, too, could have been perceived as a mockery of Christianity. What I had presumed would be a one-off line was a major theme throughout the film. There were numerous Christological references, including the Crucifixion of Wolverine, Deadpool repeatedly asserting that he is, in fact, Marvel Jesus, and a beautiful moment where, together, Deadpool and Wolverine sacrifice themselves to save the world but are raised from the dead.
Deadpool makes it very clear that he wants to save the world because, in doing so, he will also save his chosen family: a rag-tag group of misfits comprised of a taxi driver, biker gang members, mercenaries, mutants, coke addicts, and his stripper girlfriend. The film ends with an iconic shot of Wolverine finally meeting all of Wade Wilson’s people, his community, as they dine around a table, breaking bread together.
I am sure I cried nearly as often as I laughed during the movie. But this final scene took my breath away. As I got into the car, I finally found the words.
Without question, Da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper is a masterpiece. Few works of art are more relevant or recognizable. Additionally, one would be hard-pressed to find a work that is more copied, parodied, or critiqued. It has led to wild speculations and conspiracy theories. Yet, of all the things that Leonardo’s painting is, there is one thing it is certainly is not: historically accurate. So many folks act as if his 15th-century work is a Polaroid of the actual events, but it is far from it. Even the title of the piece is a bit of a misnomer; the events of the institution of the Eucharist were not the last of anything; it was the beginning. This was the first supper and meant to act as an example to Christians of how we are supposed to act toward our fellow humans.
This event is more accurately described in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Mystic Supper. It was not intended to be the end of Jesus’ ministry but the beginning of ours. The word Jesus used that is often translated as “remembrance” more accurately translates to “recall” or “summon.” Jesus was saying that whenever we celebrate the mystery of this supper together, we call him back into our midst and that he is present with us in the broken bread and the wine. It is about creating a tangible global community where we gather together during the good times and the bad to recall the work that we are called to do: care for the orphans and widows, feed the poor, visit the prisoner, seek justice, and welcome the stranger.
I can’t help but laugh that evangelicals are mad at this perceived slight against “their faith,” considering that the Last Supper depicted by Da Vinci isn’t even theirs. The painting resides at Santa Maria delle Grazie (Holy Mary of Grace), a Roman Catholic Church in Milan, Italy. Most evangelicals wouldn’t even consider Catholics to be real Christians, but yet claim that this painting is somehow part of their faith, a faith that they departed from after Marty Luther put is 95 Problems on a door in Wittenberg. And speaking of having 95 Problems, for Da Vinci, a bitch ain’t one because he was gay or possibly asexual. The jury is a bit out on this bit of history. An accusation of sodomy was leveled against him in his early twenties, but he also wrote about how he thought that sex was really icky. Then again, he more specifically said that the act of procreation was gross, and so some assume that this means that he believed that only straight sex was disgusting. Either way, if Da Vinci were alive today, he would likely be a member of the Rainbow Mafia, the C.I.GAY, alphabet soup, or whatever other boring trope-y titles the alt-right likes to use for us queer people. The point is, none of those who are currently outraged would sit down and break bread with him, either. They would just accuse him of being a they/them.
They abhor the Catholic faith, unless convenient. They ignore the message of Jesus. They scream persecution unless it’s a black woman actively invoking the name of Jesus before she is gunned down by the police in her own home. They act as if Da Vinci personally sketched the Mystic Supper, but they wouldn’t share a meal with the man if he were alive today. They kick and scream about cancel culture when their new messiah is facing the consequences of his own action, but then demand that the Olympics be canceled because it hurt their feelings that Bacchanalia looked too much like their perception of communion. They have entirely lost the f+cking point of what it means to follow Jesus and the very purpose of the meal that Jesus shared with his friends. The drag queens at the Olympics, the dinner that Deadpool and Wolverine shared with their friends, along with the pizza and pints that we had in the basement pub, those events looked much more like the supper Jesus shared with the disciples than the doodles of Da Vinci.
I don’t think that those who are outraged by what they saw at the Olympics are mad because of it mocking their faith, but instead because it called them out. How many of them can say that they have broken bread with drag queens, gay men who provide food to the poor, or strippers fighting for the preservation of democracy? Jesus did, but they don’t. Instead, they are fighting for a sanitized version of the Bible where the rules matter more than the point. They have shut the door on everyone that Jesus loved, and now Christianity more resembles the crowd that screamed “crucify him” because he “eats and drinks with sinners (Matthew 9:10-17, Mark 2:15-22, Luke 5:29-39), but Jesus didn’t call them sinners, he called them friends (John 15:15).
“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” - Matthew 21:31
I truly believe these folks that see their persecution in LITERALLY EVERYTHING just want to be victims of anything because most of them have never suffered a fucking second of their lives FOR ANYONE. Their idea of suffering is "Happy Holidays!" 😑🤦♀️ so yeah, they're going to scream and yell about anything they think they can get victimized for. It's fucking ridiculous 😒
PS I love your brains. Every time I try to explain something you do it better. So, thanks for that beautiful brain you're toting about. ❤️
As always, this is beautifully written and on point.