Thousands of angry Christians poured into their businesses Thursday morning, as word leaked out about an Australian art show featuring a holographic image of Jesus morphing into Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of people went uninjured and no one was killed, while shops throughout the Christian world opened their doors, citing a lack of security concerns. Hundreds of Australian flags went untorched while Australian beer was poured into glasses in pubs on the eerily quiet streets of Christendom:
THE artist behind a controversial work depicting terrorism mastermind Osama bin Laden morphing into Jesus today asked people to look deeper into the work.
Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks denied she had deliberately set out to be offensive.
“Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don’t accept,” she told ABC radio…
Ms Bracks’ work and a statue of the Virgin Mary wearing an Islamic burqa by Sydney artist Luke Sullivan have been entered into Australia’s top religious art competition, the Blake Prize.
In virtually no fear for her life, Ms Bracks desperately reached out to local Christianist clerics, who viciously defended her work:
The Reverend Rod Pattenden, who awarded the $15,000 prize to the competition winner in Sydney yesterday, said his mission was to spark debate about spirituality in a world that was “cynical, degraded and in crisis”. Mr Pattenden said he did not expect controversy to result from the exhibition at the National Art School Gallery “because the Christian community doesn’t look at art a great deal”…
Mr Pattenden said the Virgin statue embodied “iconic representations of two different religious traditions”.
“He (the artist) is making a comment about gender in a religion dominated by men,” Mr Pattenden said.
“I find it unsettling and unfamiliar and I think that’s always an opportunity for new insight.”
But Op-Ed writer and blogger Andrew Bolt promised neither to sue Ms Bracks for her insults to Christians everywhere nor to issue a religious “fatwa” against her, citing the lack of precedence for such things in a philosophy that some of its more radical adherents have claimed justifies “love for your neighbor” and “turning the other cheek.” He also forcefully declined the opportunity once again to claim that “Christophobia” was equivalent to racism.
“Ours was the Prince of Peace,” Mr. Bolt might have said, “But we will allow ourselves to continue to be insulted like this by anti-Christian bigots. These people consider it avant garde and daring to insult the only people on earth from whom severe retribution will not be forthcoming. It’s time to show such people once again that no price will be paid for their insults!”
Developing…
Where/when will the riots going to be held?
Gentle reader, just enter “Christian Rage Boy” into Google Images and you’ll see my picture all over the web, I tell ya.
Will AFP or Rooters be present to photograph the riots, or are they only into real blood sport.
-SJBill
Hmm…I just posted something about this as well. As Michelle Malkin said about a similar exhibition in NYC back in 2006:
“Yes, it?
Hmm…I just posted something about this as well. As Michelle Malkin said about a similar exhibition in NYC back in 2006:
“Yes, it’s insulting. Yes, it’s offensive. But it’s a picture. Just a picture.”
Lex-
Quoting Bolt? The man is a partisan.
Fair cop on the exhibition though, I have no time for religion (or rather those that project it as the expected standard) but one does wonder why it’s Christian religions that are up for such comparisons. Perhaps the other comparison is too obvious, or just naff amongst the latte set.
The prize btw was won by an Aboriginal work depicting Jesus flying above the Dreamtime.
Hehe..she “nobly” desires to promote discussion..apt response from this guy
“As children, how many of us didn?
Hehe..she “nobly” desires to promote discussion..apt response from this guy
“As children, how many of us didn’t enjoy any opportunity to provoke or take a jab those who we did not agree with nor like? I wonder how the crowd who supports her “art”work would be just as supportive if, in the name of promoting discussion and questions, she morphed Margaret Sanger/Planned Parenthood with Hitler or Stalin?”
There is nothing new under the sun. Just another gratuitous swipe at Christ and Christians. Darkness aways masquerades as light (so called enlightenment). Wrong is right and right is wrong. Good is evil and evil is good. Just the same old regurgitated crap. Thing is, what goes around comes around and the day will come when the playing field gets leveled. For some, payday is Hell. Just call me Mr. Fire and Brimstone.
Shipmates,
These “artistes” are no better than those sickos who wuill beat a chained dog, knowing he can’t get close enough to hurt you. they take a swipe, then run out of harm’s reach.
Notice how they won’t attack the Islamists, who are dogs without leashes, roaming free and willing to strike back. I think that says everything that needs to be said.
These anti-christian attackers are cowards, nothing more, but certainly perhaps much less, and they diminish and degrade the name of art when they act in such manner.
I’m not a christian. I am a pagan. I worship many gods, but I find the idea of Christian-bashing particularly repulsive, because it incurs no penalties, no risk.
I’ve made offerings at my altar in the hopes that someday, while these folks are taking swipes at the chained dog, that Apollo reaches down and lets loose the dog. It’ll be a whole new ballgame then, and I hope to have a seat on the sideline when it happens
Respects,
Blogger Brian Micklethwait said something relevant to this:
“As for the endlessly repeated claim that art is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, I don’t buy that. And I don’t believe the people who say that they do buy it are being honest. I think that a picture which they have no problem with, but which they believe makes other people whom they disapprove of uncomfortable, makes them very comfortable indeed, and that that is the kind of discomfort (i.e. not discomfort at all, for them) which they like, and are referring to with all this discomfort propaganda.”
See my post Art, Discomfort, and Dehumanization, which excerpts some important thoughts by novelist Mark Helprin.
I stand relieved to know that one day Ms. Bracks, just like me, will stand in judgement before Jesus Christ. The difference is that I’ve confessed my sins, admitted my unworthiness, and have received salvation and forgiveness. Ms. Bracks…only the Lord knows her heart and spiritual condition. One can only pray that she has a “close encounter” with Jesus Christ before she departs this earth.
I can’t get that upset about these. I mean, there’s no human waste involved this time.
Even as a Christian, I can see some artistic merit. Osama et al do have a bit of a messianic complex – that whole twelfth imam thing. And putting a burqa on the Virgin Mary illustrates a key difference between us and them – Christianity glorifies this woman, Islam would enslave her.
[...] more here, where they point out that there have been no threats of legal action, no violence and none of the [...]
[...] Virgin Mary in a burqa and stick a towel on the head of Jesus, that’s no problem for Islam as Neptunus Lex points out: Thousands of angry Christians poured into their businesses Thursday morning, as word leaked out [...]