Item #5785 The Radical Jesus and Gay Consciousness: Notes for a Theology of Gay Liberation. Bishop Mikhail Itkin.
The Radical Jesus and Gay Consciousness: Notes for a Theology of Gay Liberation

The Radical Jesus and Gay Consciousness: Notes for a Theology of Gay Liberation

California: California State University, 1972. Mimeograph. 8 1⁄2 x 11 in. 62, 2 pp. First edition, second printing. Side stapled. Very good with holograph note on front wrap; the example here has yellow card wraps and repeated wrappers inside on the same paper as the text block. Item #5785

The rare second printing of the writing of Bishop Mikhail Itkin, the openly gay bishop, anarchist, and non-violent radical who was a central figure in the gay church movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Itkin thoroughly confused many of his fellow radicals and served as a thorn in the side of mainstream Christianity throughout his career as pastor and organizer. Itkin’s work, here and elsewhere, fuses Catholic liberation theology and doctrines of radical gay social movements. Rumored to have ordained Alan Watts as an independent Catholic bishop, he also ordained women though it was contrary to the teachings of mainstream Catholicism. Itkin was involved with the Gnostic Catholic Church, The People’s Church Collective, Brotherhood of the Way, and other alternative religious movements, and studied the texts of Sufism, Gnosticism, Anabaptist theology, and Mennonites. After a life of itinerancy, he settled in San Francisco during the 1980s, and held a weekly Eucharist as part of the AIDS Vigil there. He died from AIDS related complications in 1989. A critical edition of his work was published by Autonomedia in 2014.

The rare second printing of the writings of this fascinating, radical, overlooked queer religious figure of the 1960s and 1970s.

Price: $500.00