Is the Woman Caught in Adultery Mary Magdalene?

My recently published book “The Ecumenical Affair” gives the Woman Caught in Adultery a voice. An affair is not breaking news. And yet, when I finally decided to publish my book, the publishing company that recruited me and convinced me to self-publish, rejected my manuscript. They did not like that the story takes place at the 6^th and 7th Assemblies of the World Council of Churches. Nor did the publisher like the sex scene or the phrases I included that conveyed sexual desire.

The rationale of the publisher that recruited my manuscript supported traditional, Christian, family values.  They felt my story was not suitable for families or for young readers. To their credit, the recruiter re-brokered me a deal with Balboa, the self-publishing arm of Hay House and readers can buy my book now.

What has happened to Christian values? Have Christians forgotten how Jesus stood up to the crowd of people wanting to stone and silence the Woman Caught in Adultery and her story?

Until 1969, the Gospel Woman Caught in Adultery had a name. She was not just some undesirable person excluded from Jesus’ ministry.  All over the world, people saw the Woman Caught in Adultery as Mary Magdalene. Since the rise of feminism, Mary Magdalene is no longer identified as the Woman Caught in Adultery.  Many feminists and exegetes now say there is no proof that Mary Magdalene was ever married so she could not possibly have committed adultery. Nor, so many say, is there any proof that Mary was a prostitute who slept with the married men catching her in the very act of adultery.  So, many Christians are now asking, “Who is Mary Magdalene? Why did the Teacher speak with her “face to face” in the Garden of the tombs? Why is she weeping?

At the 6th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, people asked each other. “What does “Good News” look like?” Some said, “Good News gives the marginal person a place at the table.” When the 6^th Assembly delegates spoke of the marginal person, many saw the marginal person as someone who was undesirable and most often poor with no legitimate means of physical support.

Today’s United Church Christology is one that includes everyone at the table. Sunday’s sermon at St Andrew’s Wesley United Church in downtown Vancouver, lifted up the marginal with the parable of the Mustard Seed. The Minister, an openly gay man married to an openly gay Vancouver city councillor proudly told his story of how he and other persons of the LGBTQ + community were like mustard seeds, weeds that could plant themselves and grow into a bush and then a tree.

The United Church like many mainline churches says the Spirit is like God’s breath. It is invisible and it is blowing inside the marginal who are like the seeds of the mustard tree who plant themselves in many places where they are not wanted.

I left Sunday’s service feeling invisible and marginalized as a straight widowed woman in a predominately LGBTQ+ congregation–clinging to the old conflation theory that insists Mary Magdalene was the Woman Caught in Adultery.  Granted, by writing and self-publishing “The Ecumenical Affair,” I have marginalized myself. I have told my own story in such a way as to support my Master of Arts Liberal Studies thesis that claims Jesus was the married man who spent the night with Mary Magdalene.

People do not want to admit that Jesus the Teacher slept with Mary Magdalene. If they did, I think that would seriously challenge Christians to rethink their Christology and redemption theories.

July 21 and 22, the weekend of Mary Magdalene’s feast day, I attended a process theology workshop at St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church. Marjorie Suchocki, the author of “Through a Lens Darkly: Tracing Redemption in Film” opened the workshop outlining the different redemption theories Christians have adopted down through the centuries. Suchocki then showed clips of the film “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrade,” as well as the films “Chocolat” and “Troubled Waters.” These films challenged the “Substitutionary Atonement Theory of Redemption.”

The “Substitutionary Atonement Theory supports” the Christology that Jesus is sinless and offers himself as a willing sacrifice to pay the penalty of humanity’s sin, bringing forgiveness, making humanity righteous again and reconciling humanity to God. The problem for many process theologians is this atonement theory lets humanity off the hook. It does not give humanity the opportunity to face the Truth, to say. “Yes, I, we did it.”

The three workshop films hound the bad guy until he faces the Truth and admits his guilt, repents and seeks forgiveness. At the conclusion of the day, Marjorie Suchocki asked what Truth, Christians need to face? Someone mentioned the Residential School scandal.

I went home from the workshop thinking. “Will Christians ever face the Truth—that Jesus loved both Martha and Mary? Will the Truth remain invisible, and undesirable?  Is the Truth exceedingly bitter, too worrisome and too much for Martha and the children to face in post-colonial times?