To purchase God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality on Amazon, click here.

The myth that the Bible forbids homosexuality — the myth of “God versus Gay” — is behind some of the most divisive and painful conflicts of our day.   In this courageous, erudite, and game-changing book, scholar and activist Jay Michaelson shows that not only does the Bible not prohibit same-sex intimacy, the vast majority of its teachings support the full equality and dignity of gay and lesbian people, from the first flaw it finds in creation (“It is not good for a person to be alone”) to the way religious communities grow through reflection and conscience.  In short, Michaelson says, religious people should support equality for gays and lesbians not despite their religion — but because of it.

With close readings of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the latest data on the science of sexual orientation, and a sympathetic, accessible, and ecumenical approach to religious faith, Michaelson makes the case that sexual diversity is part of the beauty of nature, and that the recognition of same-sex families will strengthen, not threaten, the values religious people hold dear.  This is an important book for anyone who has wrestled with questions of religion and homosexuality: parents and pastors, believers and skeptics, advocates of “gay rights” and opponents of them.  Whatever your views on religion and sexual diversity, God vs. Gay is a plea for a more compassionate, informed conversation – and a first step toward creating one.

Reviews

Village Voice (Michael Musto)  ”I always thought the Bible could be interpreted as a tool of good, not randomly translated to favor hate and oppression.”

Lambda Literary (Thom Nickels)  Michaelson “writes with a graceful conviction, without the tinge of prejudice or a harsh axe to grind.”

Publisher’s Weekly “A salvo in the case for equality”

Library Journal (James DeRoche) “This title is very much worth reading and particularly useful for those interested in religion, civil rights, and social progress.”

Booklist (Ray Olson) “A literate, broadly informed argument”

What People Are Saying

“For too long, religious voices have been on only one side of the gay rights argument — to all of our detriment.  Jay Michaelson is one of the leading LGBT religious voices in America right now, and I cannot think of a more timely book than this one.  This is a book for anyone, gay or straight, who seeks to reconcile their faith with the lives of gay people — not by apologizing, compromising, or closeting one’s sexuality or one’s faith, but by celebrating God’s gifts of diversity and love.  If you are such a person, it literally could change your life.  Even if you aren’t, it might just change the world.”    - Rabbi Michael Lerner, chief editor, Tikkun, and author, The Left Hand of God

“Jay Michaelson charts a journey from rejection to full acceptance,  from religious alienation to spiritually wholeness that will brings the reader closer to the Divine. It did for me and it will for anyone who has felt abandoned by their faith and rejected for who they are. This is a healing book that yearns to be read.”  - Sharon Groves, PhD, Director, Human Rights Campaign Faith & Religion Program

“Michaelson looks at the Hebrew and Christian Bible with keen intellect, wit, and often surprising insights. He roots his arguments not in dry exegesis but in hard-won self-acceptance and passionate concern for others. I highly recommended ‘God vs. Gay?’ for anyone seeking to understand how being homosexual and religious are not antithetical.”
Joe Perez, author of Soulfully Gay

Excerpts and Related Material

The Tea Party are Sodomites, February 14, 2011 in Religion Dispatches A close reading of the Biblical story of Sodom and its interpretation, a different version of which is part of chapter 8 of God vs. Gay?

Should Gays and Lesbians Argue Scripture? A Dialogue January 18, 2011 in Religion DIspatches.  A dialogue with Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, author of Bulletproof Faith.

Values Added: Sex and the Bible, August 02, 2010 in Bloggingheads.tv.  Conversation with Professor David Carr on sexual ethics in the Bible.

Does the Bible Really Call Homosexuality an “Abomination”?, July 01, 2010 in Religion Dispatches Discussion of the Hebrew word toevah, often mistranslated “abomination.”  Now part of chapter 7 of God vs. Gay?

Ten Reasons Gay Rights is a Religious Issue, July 15, 2010 in Tikkun.  Why religious people should support “gay rights” because of religion, not despite it.

Book Tour and Personal Appearances

Currently, the following book tour dates have been confirmed.  Please click the link for  complete book tour information.  To book Jay Michaelson to come to your community, contact Ross Schwartz at ross@openlyunconventional.com

For book tour information, click here.

Jay Michaelson is among the most widely-read Jewish writers of his generation. A columnist for the Huffington Post, the Forward, and Tikkun, Zeek, and Reality Sandwich magazines, Michaelson was recently named to the “Forward 50″ list of “the men and women who are leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century.” Long credited as a co-creator of the “New Jewish Culture,” the phenomenon of independent, non-denominational Jews creating new forms of music, spirituality and culture, Michaelson has written the first major book of Jewish theology and philosophy of his generation, Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism.

“Nondual” simply means “not-two” — but its true meaning is far deeper. Usually it refers to Eastern religions or philosophies which say that “All is One.” But it is also a central teaching of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. For 700 years, Kabbalists have insisted that God is not some old man in the sky, but is everything we see and everything we are. According to the Kabbalah, this webpage is God — and so are you.

Theologically, this view is a radical departure from traditional theism. For nondual Judaism, God does not exist — God is existence itself. Experientially, God is simply all that is, once the illusion of the separate self is taken away. And religiously, this view is the basis of a total transformation of religious life. Religion is not about belief — in God, myth, or fundamentalist ideas of scripture — but love, and the obligations which spring from it. Meditation is not about cultivating special states of mind, but learning to accept that everything in life — even suffering, pain, and injustice — as God. And the call to justice becomes essential to the religious life; even if everything is perfect, it’s up to you to make it better.

Everything Is God is both a scholarly work, with over 200 footnotes (Michaelson is completing his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and a remarkably accessible one, with practical advice and contemporary anecdotes that illustrate how these ancient ideas transform the spiritual life, how God is present at CBGB’s (where Michaelson once played with his rock band) and Burning Man (where he teaches every year) as much as at the holiest of sacred sites. Bringing together Jewish, Buddhist, postmodern, and even pop cultural sources, Michaelson explains what this mystical nondual view means in our daily ego-centered lives, for our communities, and for the future of religion in an increasingly technological and multicultural age.

Click here to read Professor Alan Brill’s review of Everything is God in the Forward.

Click here to follow Jay Michaelson on Facebook.

Excerpts of Everything is God may be found here:

Beyond Oneness, 

Prayer and Nonduality, in Tikkun

Transformation of Consciousness as Messianic Age: A Kabbalistic View, March 20, 2009 in Reality Sandwich

Stop Seeking: Paradoxes of the Spiritual Path, in Reality Sandwich

Kashrut and Nonduality, in Zeek

Praise for Everything is God:

Jay Michaelson has written a book for serious Jewish cosmologists.  It takes the contemporary Jew — and one who wants to understand Jewish religion in its depth — through a mind laundry.  Stripping away the barnacles of outdated concepts, he aligns the best non-dual thinking in Judaism with the best the non-dual thinking in other profound systems.  Nondual Judaism is a timely and necessary contribution.
- Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, co-author of Jewish With Feeling

EVERYTHING IS GOD by Jay Michaelson is a brilliant discussion of a challenging paradox that could be stated as a koan: “What is Not One, Not Two, Not Zero and yet One and Two, but still Nothing?” This wide spectrum of possibilities is about the divine sparks that not only fill our reality, but go beyond it; not limited by infinity. Mystics acknowledge that ordinary words cannot capture the full scope of these teachings; yet Michaelson finds a way to blaze a path through a primordial forest of ideas. This is an awesome, highly recommended presentation of crucial mystical concepts.   - Rabbi David A Cooper, author of God is a Verb

“Jay Michaelson is a compelling thinker who possesses the rare ability to transmit the most esoteric of teachings into accessible ideas for the contemporary reader. His new book ought to be required reading for anyone with an interest in Jewish mysticism or theology–or simply in God. Michaelson washes away the false dichotomy between divine immanence and transcendence and instead conveys the profound reality that the patriarch Jacob expressed when he exclaimed: ‘God is in this place, and I, I did not know it.’”

- Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein, Author of Gonzo Judaism

Jay Michaelson has written a poetic, detailed, and radical book expressing a Jewish language of oneness: not the oneness of a bearded man in the sky but the Oneness of a universe not divided against itself. Fittingly, Michaelson’s book is neither universalist nor particularist but a refreshing combination of both.  He moves among kabbalists, Hindu and Buddhist philosophers, Western thinkers and psychologists, Chasidic masters, and examples of daily experience to clarify what non-dual thinking is and how humans achieve it in the midst of the maelstrom of ego-based life.  Michaelson skillfully explores the mystical Jewish versions of “selflessness” and gives them a new and contemporary tone, reflecting on issues of prayer, meditation, consciousness and the physical body.   He addresses accusations of heresy, quietism, and abstraction without defensiveness.  Michaelson gives the reader a gift of self-beyond-the-self, a gift that cannot be owned but is well worth having.
- Rabbi Jill Hammer, Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy of Jewish Religion

“Jay Michaelson is a poet of multitudes. His gift is not just his enviable ability attain the poetic voice very much his own, but also the skill to use this voice in poems that are quite different form each other and can speak on different levels at once. This skill to do many different things well is, I believe, quite rare in poetry of the generation to which this poet belongs.”  – Ilya Kaminsky

“They say shamans can be in two places at once–the material world and the spirit world. Jay Michelson can be in both those places at the same time–and more. He is a post-Wittgenstein philosopher, a ravished mystic, a queer Jew, a comedian, and a dazzling poet. Sometimes you will find him, like Whitman, loafing and inviting his soul. Sometimes it feels as if he is walking barefoot on broken glass or on burning coals. I salute his passion, his boundary-breaking, and the ceaseless vitality of his words.”  – Alicia Ostriker

Read poems from another word for sky

Read what people are saying about another word for sky

Click here to buy a copy

Jewish Lights Publishing, Nov. 2006
247 pp, $18.99

God in Your Body is about embodied spiritual practice: how to experience the deep truths of reality in, and through, your body. To some, this may seem like a contradiction. Aren’t spirit and body separate? Isn’t a “spiritual” experience precisely one that is “out of body,” in a special place, or state of mind?

In the paths explored here, spirit and body are not separate at all. Nor is spirituality a special feeling, or a trance, or a vision, although such phenomena may accompany some spiritual practices. Rather, because Being is omnipresent, the experience of spirituality is nothing more or less than a deep, rich experience of ordinary reality. Realization is simply waking up. And the body, because it is always present “here and now,” is both the best vehicle for doing so, on the one hand, and on the other, how holiness expresses itself in the world.

Jews are sometimes called the “people of the book.” But as many scholars have observed, they are equally the people of the body. Consider the core practices of mainstream Jewish religion. Traditional observance of the Sabbath and holidays involves not beliefs or “spiritual feelings,” but taking and refraining from certain physical actions. Jewish dietary laws are about foods, not sentiments; Jewish ethics is about action, not intention. Even Jewish prayer—built around the kneeling (barchu), listening (shema), and standing (amidah) prayers—is built not upon some abstract soul or spirit, but upon the body. This body-centricity of the Jewish tradition is well known in academic and scholarly circles, but ironically, forgotten in many religious ones.

This groundbreaking book is the first comprehensive treatment of the body in Jewish spiritual practice and an essential guide to the sacred. It integrates the insights of mystical and traditional Judaism, Buddhist and mindfulness meditation practices, and a cosmopolitan, contemporary sensibility in a work that is at once spiritual and secular, innovative and wise. God in Your Body is essential reading for anyone interested in integrating the body into spiritual practice, and also a valuable resource for scholars interested in Jewish traditions about the body. With meditation practices, physical exercises, visualizations, and sacred text, the book shows how to experience the presence of the Divine in, and through, the body. And it shows how, by cultivating an embodied spiritual practice, it is possible to transform everyday activities — eating, walking, breathing, even going to the bathroom — into moments of deep spiritual realization, uniting sacred and sensual, mystical and mundane.

Read selected excerpts from God in Your Body

Read what people are saying about ‘God in Your Body’…

In addition, PDFs of Az Yashir Moshe have been made online free of charge, in an effort to make these beautiful works of liturgy and poetry accessible to as many people as possible. To download these PDFs and for more information on Az Yashir Moshe, please visit www.azyashirmoshe.com. To order the bencher for your simcha or other occasion, visit Ktav

Queer Religion

Queer Religion provides a systematic and detailed overview of the challenges and issues that the intersections of religion, same-sex desire, and gender variance have generated, both now and in the past. It focuses upon the development of these areas of overlap through three distinct historical periods: modern religious history, LGBT liberation movements, and the emergence of queer theory and analysis. Published December 2011.

Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality

The first anthology of its kind, with poets representing several countries (the United States, Singapore, Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Japan and elsewhere), Collective Brightness gathers over 100 established and emerging contemporary LGBTIQ poets writing from and about various faiths, religions and spiritual traditions. Published October 2011.

Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do About It

Making Prayer Real is a no-holds-barred look at why so many of us find synagogue services and prayer at best difficult, and at worst, meaningless and boring–and how to make it more satisfying. Rabbi Mike Comins draws from over fifty interviews with Jewish spiritual leaders from all denominations, as well as from their “best prayer practices.” Includes an essay and interview with Jay Michaelson. Published in February, 2010.

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible

Edited by Gregg Drinkwater, Joshua Lesser, David Shneer, Judith Plaskow, Torah Queeries brings together some of the world’s leading rabbis, scholars, and writers to interpret the Torah through a “bent lens”. With commentaries on the fifty-four weekly Torah portions and six major Jewish holidays, the concise yet substantive writings collected here open up stimulating new insights and highlight previously neglected perspectives.This rich collection includes some of the most central figures in contemporary American Judaism. Featuring commentaries by Jay Michaelson.

The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism

Edited by Danya Ruttenberg and released in 2009. Seeking to deepen the Jewish conversation about sexuality, The Passionate Torah brings together brilliant thinkers in an attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the sexual. In this unique collection of essays, some of today’s smartest Jewish thinkers explore a broad range of fundamental questions in an effort to balance ancient tradition and modern sexuality. Featuring “On the Religious Significance of Homosexuality, or Queering God, Torah, and Israel” by Jay Michaelson.

Best Gay Poetry 2008

Editor Lawrence Schimel has brought together a diverse array of poems and voices, not merely in their poetic style and form, but also in how gay subjects and themes are addressed. . Featuring work from 50 gay poets, readers will find herein a mix of established poets and exciting new voices, including Carl Phillips, Rane Arroyo, David Bergman, Timothy Liu, Jay Michaelson, Brad Gooch, Reginald Shepard, Jeff Mann, Steve Fellner, Jee Leong Koh, Steven Cordova, Jericho Brown, and many others.

Jews and Sex

Edited by Nathan Abrams in 2008, and featuring the essay “Boundaries and the Boundless: Homosexuality as Liminality” by Jay Michaelson

Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age

Edited by Daniel Pinchback and Ken Jordan in 2008. This fresh and thought-provoking anthology draws together some of today’s most celebrated visionaries, thinkers, and pioneers in the field of evolving consciousness— exploring topics from shamanism to urban homesteading, the legacy of Carlos Castaneda to Mayan predictions for the year 2012, and new paths in direct political action and human sexuality. Features the essay “Ayahuasca and Kabbalah” by Jay Michaelson.

Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture

Edited by Christine DiThomas and published in 2008,this timely volume features two visual gallery sections replete with diverse and engaging imagery by over sixty world-class artists. A comprehensive section of writings and transcripts on the notion of end times as well as rapturous themes along with two full-length audio CDs complete the book’s presentation. Featuring the poem “for the apocalypse will be infinitely silent” by Jay Michaelson.

Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice

Edited by Rabbi N. Rose, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, and Margie Klein, and published in 2007, Righteous Indignation gathers the voices of leading progressive Jewish social justice activists for the first time in one groundbreaking volume. Featuring “The Significance of Sex: Social Order & Post-Mythic Religion” by Jay Michaelson.

Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

A finalist for Best GLBT Anthology for the Lambda Literary Awards, Charmed Lives offers readers a collection of over thirty short works of fiction and personal essays as an alternative to the stories that society often tells about gay men. Some are whimsical with a touch of enchantment, some profoundly spiritual, others romantic–all offer insight into modern gay life that will inspire and shed light on the grace of being gay with tales of hope against adversity and love over loneliness. Includes “The Verse” by Jay Michaelson. Published in 2006.

Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer

Edited by Angela Brown and published in August, 2004, Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer is a rich and diverse anthology of Jewish queer writing. It contains Jay Michaelson’s groundbreaking essay Da’at as well as contributions from over twenty LBGT writers of a wide range of religious, ethnic, and sexual orientations.

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