A religious studies professor at a college teaches a class called Radical Jesus based on his own book, where students can learn, amongst other things, that Jesus was "non-binary."

According to Swarthmore College, religious studies professor Mark Wallace presents Jesus as an animist during his new class dubbed Radical Jesus. Animism is the belief that all objects, places, and creatures possess a soul, or a distinct spiritual essence.Wallace describes Jesus as a political revolutionary and nonbinary in a gender sense, and believes that Jesus is gender-nonconforming, i.e. identifies as neither male, nor felame.

Campus Reform contacted the professor to clarify his claims. He said he believes that gender is fluid, or socially constructed. To explain his allegations regarding Jesus s gender identity, he relied on quotes from the Bible and utilised the story found in Mark 5:25-34, about a bleeding woman who crawled to Jesus, touched his garment, and was later healed.

Wallace insisted that the power that flowed out of Jesus was an „internal flow” reacting to the woman s touch. „Jesus is female-like because he flows or leaks,” Wallace explained. „We can say, then, that Jesus is gender-nonconforming, doubly-gendered, or not traditionally male in these and other passages,” he concluded.

Wallace went on to defend his nonbinary theory by referencing Mathew 19:12, where Jesus applauds men who had themselves castrated (i.e. made themselves eunuchs). This, according to Wallace, further proves that Jesus was nonbinary.

As to the validity of these claims, Campus Reform contacted Darrell Bock, a senior research professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, who voiced his disagreement with Wallace s liberal views. Referring to the story of the bleeding woman, he concurred that the thing that flowed was Jesus s power, which „had nothing to do with Jesus s gender, but his access to the power of God.”

Regarding the other story about the castrated men (eunuchs), Bock argued that it was important to „understand the figure of speech here. It is not making themselves literally a eunuch, but accepting celibacy as a way to be dedicated to the kingdom.” He went on to say that Jesus did not have a „neutralized sexual identity but affirmed people, male and female.”

In a statement to Campus Reform, Bock said he believes, in his professional opinion, that Wallace is „disregarding the original context for modern concerns, specifically, non-binary gender.” While Wallace may has „no intention of attacking Christianity,” he „does not understand historic Christianity,” Bock said.