I'm right with you, Freddie. I don't like the sculpture, so I choose not to look at it in an exhibition. Making death threats about it are way over the top...The best way to protest it is just choosing not to go look at it. This is a free country. We're not forced to see it if we don't want to.
Hear, hear, prepstud and Freddie. You got me thinking.
An MSNBC poll on the chocolate Christ shows the population divided about 50/50 on whether the artwork is offensive or not. Given that a vast majority of those likely to respond are nominally religious, many Christians obviously aren't terribly upset.
If your moral beliefs are strong and true, they will withstand being made fun of.
Does the gay rights movement withstand cheap shots such as
The Producers, Jack from
Will & Grace, and every dumpy drag queen on every float in every gay pride parade in the world? The answer is yes, of course. The gay movement mocks itself before its enemies can, and laughs off the stereotypes.
Can Muslim fundamentalism withstand the sight of men and women cavorting in bikinis and speedos on the beach, having fun and suffering no ill effects? Or a few Danish cartoons? Apparently not.
Does the Catholic church admit that nuns can be a figure of fun? Half-heartedly. Does it go on the attack when someone suggests, however sensibly, that a celibate clergy invites the sexually fucked up? You bet. Even though the point is so obvious as to be laughable. And the Church suffers for it.
Having a sense of humour about yourself is a sign of strength and confidence. It keeps you sane and grounded.
Besides, what's a mockery and what isn't?
In my cupboard, I have a box of
Ezekiel 4:9 brand cereal. Made by the Food for Life Baking Company of Corona, California, it contains wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, "as described in the Holy Scriptures". Their
website links to NO religious organisations, and they steer clear any suggestion that we might listen to scripture rather than the FDA food pyramid or mainstream nutricrats.
(By the way, it tastes terrible. Just my opinion.)
Now...is this a mockery? A joke? Any more or less than the utterly scripturally accurate t-shirts and stickers you can buy on
Betty Bowers' website?
Is the chocolate Jesus a mockery or an
homage? With such diabolically clever people about nowadays, you often can't tell. And as modern times have taught us, the truth does a much better job of mocking itself than the professionals ever can.
If the pastor of a midwest megachurch decided that for Easter, he would make a 200 lb chocolate Christ, consecrate it, and distribute pieces in place of the communion host on Easter Sunday, he
might be hailed as a great moderniser of religious tradition, reaching out to the masses with symbols and language they can understand.
And though they might shake their heads and go tut-tut, you can be sure as hell that you wouldn't have heard the
Catholic hierarchy come out and condemn it, as they did
My Sweet Lord.
As prepstud suggests, am I mocking believers when I, an atheist, string up Christmas lights on my balcony? Did I taunt Christians and Jews as I used the word
hell in a previous paragraph, when I don't actually believe it exists? Is it a
worse blasphemy than someone who
does believe in hell using the word?
Am I glad the Roger Smith Hotel caved into pressure from the fundies in the face of death threats? As one who walks past the gallery every day on his way to work, and who could have been blown up on the footpath,
yes.
Christ on a bicycle! What kind of world do we live in?
