They’re so, so, arty down in New York City, I’m told. A simple upstater like me couldn’t understand how soulful they feel, and how they’re willing to take art right to the edge. They’re dangerous. They’re radical. They’re innovative. A resident of a little village like mine could never hope to be so artistically courageous as the people of New York City, who do what they want to do and say what they want to say… unless it makes anyone else upset.
The Lab Gallery had scheduled, starting on Monday, to exhibit a sculpture of Jesus, crucified. It was, at its foundation a banal artistic idea, really – it’s been done. The only original part of the art was that the sculpture would be carved out of chocolate, and Jesus would be naked.
So, what did those super-hip, super-edgy New York City people do? They got outraged. They demanded that the Lab Gallery cancel the exhibition, because to show Jesus naked, sculpted in chocolate, would be blasphemous. In the heart of New York City, in 2007, Christian church leaders demanded that no art be displayed unless it conforms to the standards of their medieval religious laws.
Kiera McCaffrey of the ironically-named Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights was one of those demanding the censorship, saying, “They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan!” It seems that McCaffrey is jealous of the way that radical Muslims have been able to get so many people to cower in the face of their religious intimidation of art and free speech. She wants Christianity to be given equal power to threaten and suppress freedom, apparently. That’s her version of “civil rights”. Religious rights, in this way of thinking, only exist when religious groups have the power to take away other people’s rights.
McCaffrey and the outraged Christians can’t even get their own religion straight. Their own Holy Bible, in the book of Mark, chapter 15, verse 24, clearly proclaims that Jesus was stripped naked when he was crucified: “And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.” From a biblical perspective, the naked statue of Jesus is religiously correct. Of course, this issue isn’t about the Bible. It isn’t about Jesus. It’s about power.
The saddest part of this story is the response to the ill-informed attempt at religious censorship. The owners of the hotel building in which the Lab Gallery is located agreed to the censorship. They arranged for the exhibition to be cancelled.
So much for edgy New York City art. It’s been erased by the Christian Taliban.
Well, I may not live in New York City, and I may not be much of an artist, but I’m feeling inspired to go and make myself a chocolate statue of a naked Jesus to display on the sidewalk of the Roger Smith Hotel on Easter Sunday.
Ms. McCaffery might be outraged for a more hidden reason: perhaps Jesus wasn’t depicted as being well-enough…equipped…
Chocolate as an element? No, no, no, one must draw the line somewhere. This totally throws a monkey wrench into the whole theology of the communion sacrament. If this is permitted what will be next? The Last Brunch instead of the Last Supper, complete with bloody Mary’s and everyone fighting over who gets which bodypart chocolate morsel?
Bread is sacred in the middle east. Someone drops bread on the ground they say “haram”–forbidden. Bread is never thrown away, it is used as the bottom layer of baked chicken casserole. If you take bread or water, it must be with your right hand, you can accept money or tobacco with either hand. This is the basis of religion–to get at the essence of things. It is bread that symbolizes the body of Jesus, not chocolate.
Besides, it’s an ugly statue:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/30/entertainment/main2629740.shtml
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21271642.shtml
Although, since the opening was scheduled for April 1st, it might just do as an April Fool.
And another thing.
“My sweet Lord”? I think not. How does this guy get off conflating Jesus with Krishna? The next thing you know, people won’t know whether they’re saying Hare Krishna or Kyrie Eleison. Syncretism should take place over hundreds if not thousands of years. This is much too fast. No, no, and no.
have a happy palm sundae all. And don’t forget to put a little chocolate jesus on it…with nuts.
and I just talked to god – he’s laughing his arse off.
God created man in his image, except from the crotch, that was a horrible, horrible, mistake that all Christians must shun as unnatural.
an obvious case of penis envy
The scriptuer quoted is accurate, but in John 19:23-24 it goes into further detail stating that the undergarmet remaned.
John 19:23-24 (New International Version)
23When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
24″Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
“They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.” So this is what the soldiers did.
I’ll be praying for all of you
So all four gospels say the garments were divied up before he died, right? Unless I’m missing some crucial piece of information about ancient undergarments, crucifixions were nude events, or at least this one was. It’s those silly Catholics that are making all the fuss about the statue, and they’re the ones that started it in the first place with all their statues of suffering, suffering Jesus on the cross, instead of the empty cross of the resurrected, living Jesus.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem to me that the Jesus in the statue is, um, circumcised. Kind of odd for the type of practicing Jew who would go into a town and start preaching in the synogogue first thing. Maybe it is Hare Krishna after all. April fool.
Uh, Christian, as you quote it yourself, according to John, the soldiers decided by lots who would get to take off the undergarment and keep it!
The undergarment remained undivided, not on the body of Jesus.
Thanks for helping me to make my point.
If the book is holy to you, you should at least read it carefully.
Christian,
I’ll be standing on one leg and flapping my arms for you. (About as meaningful as you praying “for” me)
Did you see the nigger obama depicted as jesus at the school? Too funny! Shouldn’t he be mohammered instead of jesus?