A Queer Messiah: Can You Handel It?

So now we’re queering The Messiah.  For Christmas.

I suppose it’s only natural after we queered the Easter Story during the Olympics with the “Is it or isn’t it?” Last Supper travesty (hint: it was), then Christmas was only natural.

Goodness knows, we’ve commercialised it and domesticated it to the ”nth” degree. I mean how much more could we commodify it? Turns out a little bit more.

Handel’s famous, moving piece, sung over so many centuries in celebration of the coming of the Messiah, (whether sung in a ropey way by many a local choir, or in a moment of transcendence by a gifted, professional outfit), has now been queered.

And just in case we’re in the “Is it, or isn’t it?” stage, here’s what the London producers of the queer The Messiah had to say:

and….drag queens.  That’s the standard it would seem these days.  Hey everybody, library readings for children… and drag queens!  Community barbecue to celebrate our national day … and drag queens. I mean, where will it end?  Drag car racing… and drag queens?

Messiah meaning king and all that, I wonder if they got the irony.

When the program came to the attention of the chaplain to the late former, er, actual Queen, Dr Gavin Ashenden, he had this to say, as reported in the Catholic Herald:

 They could write their own text and their own music, but perversity is never very creative, and in any case we now know that the great delight taken by the cultural revolution is in blaspheming and perverting beauty and holiness, so of course they would make a beeline for Handel‘s Messiah.

A queen beeline even.

That’s the deconstructive methodology right there. In fact that’s human rebellion against God in every way. Take what is good and give it a slight twist. We’ve been queering things since the Garden.

And it’s infantile too. Take something sober, serious and soul-searching and turn it into a game. In some senses that’s why were are seeing such a pushback against some of the extremes of so-called ‘woke’. It’s so tiresomely infantile.  What creative element, what original thinking can you come up with? Nothing, we’ll just take the stuff that you created and stomp on it for a bit.

It’s not wonder that so much modern art that is supposed to “say something” is gauche, empty and facile.  It’s deconstruction the whole way. And when you don’t have a constructive bone in your body – or your collective imagination – that’s the result.

Dr Ashenden goes on to say:

The exquisite beauty of the music and the sacred resonance of the text are ideal material for blasphemy and perversion if that is your primary motivation. The careful cosmetic choice of words suggesting that the crusade for sexualised hedonism is more inclusive than the love of God for broken people is a triumph of propaganda over truth.

Ideal material for blasphemy and perversion.  He’s right. Truth and beauty just cannot be left alone by those who prefer lies and ugliness. Once again, the Garden.

Here we are, a culture that is lost and adrift, with so many people aching for transcendence. And one of the great transcendent creations in the Western world is reduced to the immanent frame. Stripped of its noble and ennobling power. The language twisted to give a queer interpretation, oh … and drag queens.

Recently my wife and son and I went to hear – and see – The Australian Chamber Orchestra playing Bach and Arvo Part at the Sydney Opera House. It truly was a moving experience. Dancers from the Sydney Dance Company and the great UK counter-tenor Iestyn Davies.

It was the story of three gardens, the garden of temptation (Eden), the garden of salvation (Gethsemane), and the garden of consummation (the city garden of the book of Revelation).  It was transcendent. Transcendent enough that at the end of it it seemed as if peopler were unsure how to respond.

It felt sinful to get up from that moment and pour out onto the step of the Opera House and Circular Quay, all crowds and boats and ice cream vendors.  We wanted to stay there and soak in the last vestige of the heavenly.

Perhaps The Australian Chamber Orchestra, led by the brilliant Richard Tognetti, will lead us out of the path of sick irony and into the path of weal and guilelessness.

Perhaps.  For this is the promotional photo for The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s recent performance, Cocteau’s Circle:

… and drag queens.

Don’t get me wrong, it would have been an interesting performance. Their sheer brilliance at interpreting the times and events of life is peerless. But somehow in the mix of it all, I wonder if the realisation ever lands home for such types that having touched the zenith of truth and beauty, they so often veer away from it and settle for the nadir of the lie and ugliness.

It’s a reminder indeed of how mixed and broken we are. Created in the image of God as magnificent co-creators and stewards of all that is good and right and true. But also … and drag queens.

Perhaps there’s a sliver of light in this dark tunnel. Perhaps Christians in the West will eventually pull the safety brake on all of the excess at Christmas and settle into happier, healthier and holier practices that speak of a transcendent Messiah to the immanence of our secular neighbours searching – yet again – for something more this Christmas.

The organisers of the Queer Messiah had this to say:

We do not intend this pastiche of Handel’s Messiah to insult any religious and/or non-religious individuals but rather aim to reposition the Messiah story so that it may better resonate with a 21st-century queer audience.

Sadly they will fail on both counts. People will be insulted (no need to be outraged, remember, but okay to be vexed). So that’s going to happen.

But just as sadly, the good news of Messiah come to seek and save the lost will itself be lost among a group of people that desperately needs to experience the transcendent truth of the gospel message, the only message that will truly resonate with their souls.

The Messiah story does not need to be repositioned. It needs to be received. When you turn your face from the Messiah time and time again, and reject in principle and practice the created order of life and seek to queer such truth away, then transcendence and beauty disappear.

Or as Elvis Costello laments in his wonderful All This Useless Beauty:

Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they’re the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn’t even exist
It was just an ideal — is it such a surprise?

… and drag queens.