{"id":55677,"date":"2012-10-03T17:19:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T17:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=55677"},"modified":"2012-10-03T17:20:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T17:20:32","slug":"christ-is-pissed-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/christ-is-pissed-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Christ Is Pissed, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Hollis Phelps –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr.Hollis Phelps<\/p><\/div>\n

The usual suspects are protesting\u2014Bill Donohue, conservative Catholic pols, and the ever-present Tony Perkins. But \u201cPiss Christ\u201d remains a profoundly theological work of art.<\/em><\/p>\n

The following is reprinted with permission from\u00a0Religion Dispatches<\/a>. You can sign up for their free daily newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. – Colombo Telegraph.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Hollis Phelps –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twenty-five years later, and an artwork\u2019s power to enflame is undiminished.<\/p>\n

Beginning on the 27th of this month, the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan will open an exhibit titled\u00a0Body and Spirit: Andres Serrano 1987\u20132012<\/a><\/em>. The exhibit, which runs for a month, features a range of works from the controversial artist, including the infamous\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0(1987), a work that consists of a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in what is supposedly a jar of the artist\u2019s own urine. The gallery\u2019s press release describes the work in the following terms:<\/p>\n

Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0is a potent work that engages the viewer on both a visual and intellectual level. Unassumingly and with no intention, it has also served as an unwitting lightning rod in media and politics, challenging the values, perception, and definition of art.\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>, ultimately, has turned into a controversial symbol of the freedom of expression and the ability of art to catalyze significant change in society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s of course a bit disingenuous to claim that\u00a0Piss Christ\u00a0<\/em>is an \u201cunwitting lightning rod\u201d in<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From Serrano's "Madonna of the Rocks," 1987.<\/p><\/div>\n

the cultural landscape. Serrano himself has noted that the work is \u201cmeant to question the whole notion of what is acceptable and unacceptable,\u201d and, let\u2019s face it, anyone who deliberately submerges a crucifix in urine for public display does so well aware of the outrage that it may cause.<\/p>\n

In 1989 right-wing Christian senators, including Jesse Helms, attacked the work, and it was vandalized in 1997 while on display in Australia at the National Gallery of Victoria. Just last year a group Roman Catholic fundamentalists, bent on an anti-blasphemy<\/a><\/span> campaign, took hammers to\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0in Avignon.<\/p>\n

Innocence of Christians<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tomorrow\u2019s exhibition of the work has already drawn criticism from religious leaders and politicians. Bill Donohue, self-styled spokesman for conservative Catholicism, has denounced the exhibition on the grounds that \u201cdecent people know it is unacceptable.\u201d For Donohue,\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0and its exhibition make perfectly clear the bias of the liberal elite, for whom \u201canti-Christian art is not only acceptable, it is laudatory.\u201d\u00a0Protests and press conferences to follow.<\/p>\n

Other affronted parties have invoked comparisons to the decidedly unartistic \u201cInnocence of Muslims<\/a><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0the\u00a0now-blockbuster YouTube trailer<\/a>\u00a0that triggered protest in Libya and Egypt.<\/p>\n

Commenting to Fox News, Staten Island Representative Michael Grimm has called the work a \u201cdeplorable piece,\u201d one that is as \u201coffensive\u201d to Christians as\u00a0\u2018Innocence of Muslims\u2019 is to \u201cthe Islamic world.\u201d Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the comparison has provided opportunity to emphasize the supposed moral high ground that Christians occupy over Muslims when it comes to material deemed offensive or blasphemous. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Council, told Fox News that the two incidents shore up \u201cthe contrast between Islam and Christianity.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t have to plead with Christians not to riot and burn and storm buildings simply because they are offended,\u201d Perkins said. \u201cThat\u2019s the difference. That\u2019s why Christianity moves nations forward and Islam moves nation backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u2019 Nicholas Kristof has taken a seemingly\u00a0more measured approach<\/a>, he still stresses that\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0has not incited violence among Christians. Indeed, even though Kristof takes the tense political situations in Northern Africa and the Middle East into account in evaluating responses to \u201cInnocence of Muslims,\u201d he still finds it necessary to emphasize that, \u201cfor a self-described \u2018religion of peace,\u2019 Islam does claim a lot of lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never mind Christianity\u2019s less-than-stellar track record with regard to violence, or the fact that\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0has actually been subject to violent attacks in the past. A crucial difference between \u201cInnocence of Muslims\u201d and\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>\u00a0is that the former is deliberately and unambiguously offensive\u2014though to recognize as much is by no means to condone violence.<\/p>\n

The issue is not so clear with\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>. The irony is that once we work through the initial shock value of\u00a0Piss Christ<\/em>, the image is, in many ways, profoundly Christian, a point that is completely lost in the simplistic and literalistic responses of its vocal detractors. According to\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, Serrano himself\u00a0has claimed<\/a>\u00a0that the photograph should be taken as criticism of the \u201cbillion-dollar Christ-for-profit industry\u201d and a \u201ccondemnation of those who abuse the teaching of Christ for their own ignoble ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could be that the failure of critics to recognize as much indicates that Serrano\u2019s criticism hits a little too close to home. Behind the immediate criticism of the work is a theological point, as well. The central claim of Christianity is that, in the incarnation, God became fully human, just like us. I remember buying diapers for my wife\u2019s grandfather in the days leading up to his death. Like countless others facing their demise, he had, at the end of his life, lost the ability to control even the most simplest of bodily functions. If we cannot imagine a urine-soaked cross, then perhaps we have not really understood what it means when Christians claim that God became human. Perhaps Serrano has understood it more than his pious detractors.<\/p>\n

*Hollis Phelps<\/a><\/span> is Assistant Professor of Religion at Mount Olive College, Mount Olive, NC (USA). He is the author of\u00a0Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-theology<\/em>, forthcoming from Acumen Publishing in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":55678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[5245,5250,5239,5240,5242,4827,5249,5248,5243,5241,5246,5244,5247],"class_list":["post-55677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","tag-anti-blasphemy-campaign","tag-anti-blasphemy-catholicism-and-islamism","tag-christ-is-pissed","tag-conservative-catholic-pols","tag-edward-tyler-nahem-gallery","tag-innocence-of-muslims","tag-muslims-and-anti-blasphemy-campaign","tag-muslims-and-free-speech","tag-piss-christ-1987-reviews","tag-religion-dispatches","tag-right-wing-christian-senators","tag-roman-catholic-fundamentalists","tag-the-islamic-world"],"yoast_head":"\nChrist Is Pissed, Again - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/christ-is-pissed-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christ Is Pissed, Again - 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