Archive for March, 2007
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
Cosimo Cavallaro, New York sculptor, has decided not to go ahead with the display of his chocolate sculpture, “Jesus, the 485,600 calorie Messiah”. The exhibition was to be opened on Monday April 2 at the Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel, using 200 pounds of chocolate, donated by the San Francisco based Theo Chocolate Company.
The exhibition is not going ahead because of the flood of complaints that the exhibition was blasphemous, organised largely by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Complaints from Christians in this case have included threats to boycott the hotel and harm those who work there.
So what’s the problem? It appears as though many Christians were offended that Jesus was being portrayed in chocolate. Not only was the body made from food products. Jesus was to be shown naked, anatomically correct. Many sculpures of the crucifixion over time have included a ’shame cloth’. But not all. Perhaps people were worried that the body of Jesus might be eaten. Hmmm.
Bill Donahue, from the Catholic League, labelled the exhibition as “hate speech”, saying that it was just another example of non-Christian attacks on the Church, timed to cast doubts about Jesus during the final week of Lent.
“As I’ve said many times before, Lent is the season for non-believers to sow seeds of doubt about Jesus. What’s scheduled to go on at the Roger Smith Hotel, however, is of a different genre: this is hate speech. And choosing Holy Week - the display opens on Palm Sunday and ends on Holy Saturday - makes it a direct in-your-face assault on Christians.
“All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don’t react the way extremist Muslims do when they’re offended - otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off. James Knowles, President and CEO of the Roger Smith Hotel (interestingly, he also calls himself Artist-in-Residence), should be especially grateful. And if he tries to spin this as reverential, then he should substitute Muhammad for Jesus and display him during Ramadan.”
“I am contacting hundreds of organizations about this assault. Our allied list contains scores of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu organizations, as well as secular groups, that share our concerns about religious hate speech and the degradation of our culture. The only thing that those who operate the Roger Smith Hotel understand is when they get hit in the pocket book. So that’s exactly where we’ll hit them. The boycott is on.”
Well, Bill, Martin Luther didn’t die naked on a cross. And neither did Muhammad. I am sure that there are many scupltures of Jesus on display in churches throughout the world this next week. Would you have responded with such venom if one of those sculptures was made of chocolate?
Matt Semmler, Lab Gallery curator, told the Guardian before the cancellation was announced that neither he nor the artist had any intention to offend. “For me this is done a place of reverence and meditation - that’s why I chose the piece. This is not intended to be disrespectful.”
Why do we immediately assume that any attention to Jesus paid by secular artists is meant to be demeaning or mocking? Responding with accusations of ‘hate crime’ has implications of feelings of insecurity and lack of poise. As one commenter wrote at 1010 Wins, “It’s Jesus. It’s chocolate. Do you really think God cares? Live and let live.”
See Darren Wright’s connection to the Tom Waits song, Chocolate Jesus.
Posted in Art, Spirituality, Theology | 2 Comments »
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
I mentioned in my review of the Forge Conference that Wolfgang Simson was a hyperbolic metaphoric passionate speaker. Well what do you know, he’s also a very approachable correspondent. I’ve had some very useful email conversation with Wolfgang in response, exploring the context and meaning of my remarks and his.
The ‘hyperbolic’ is tied up with the large number of house churches planted by the people Wolfgang met in India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. I got the impression he was being given numbers by church planters that couldn’t be corroborated. No doubt there had been a large number of groups started throughout these countries. But to give the numbers (was it 20,000?) was, I inferred, an example of hyperbole. Not lies. Maybe exaggeration. We got the point - that developing a reproducing theme at the heart of a church planting movement is so important.
Wolfgang responded by explaining that he had came from a background of healthy cynicism in which he set out to test claims of church growth, first in Europe and later in Asia. He provides some background to the people working and researching in India, Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh. It was good to hear Wolfgang’s life context and story.
When someone mentioned to me during the conference that they were having difficulty coping with the incredible stories of rapid church multiplication, I shared a story from my life in NZ. It was September 15, 2001. I was at a ministers gathering in Tokoroa, New Zealand, hearing from the AOG pastor who had just returned from India. He told us about incredible responses to the gospel from crowds of people there. He did acknowledge that a response at a revival meeting was not the same as a life-long response of world-changing action. He shared about the miracles, including people being brought back to life. We talked about the different environments, wondering if the Indian people were more open to anything happening.
When I returned home I discovered an ambulance at the front and a crowd gathered around. My wife was standing by the pavement distraught. On the road was my 18 month old daughter who had been hit by a car. She’d died on impact. A neighbour was administering CPR but it wasn’t working. I prayed to God with every bit of earnestness possible. I rushed into the house and rang the church where there was a worship service about to start, to ask for the prayers of the congregation. But Kristen didn’t come back to life. She would have turned 16 yesterday.
So how did I feel about those stories of resuscitation from India? How did the AOG pastor feel about this tragedy? We didn’t have much to say to one another. Neither event made the other impossible. As you can imagine, my wife and I felt dampened in our faith. We already knew that prayer is not magic. We knew that God suffers with us in difficulty. But mustering up the courage and grace to pray for God to intervene was hard for a while. We winced when we heard the story of a young man being revived through prayer at a crash scene not far away. Why didn’t God intervene at our crash scene? But it wasn’t long before we found ourselves plunged into God’s merciful intervention in the world again. It was the faith of our three year old daughter that led to praying for the healing of a friend’s broken arm, with amazing results.
The stories of amazing effectiveness go together with the stories of incredible struggle. And visa versa.
Posted in Church Planting, Home Front, Mission, Spirituality, Theology | 2 Comments »
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Bill Dahl is the author of The Porpoise Diving Life: Reality for the Rest of Us or Picking Up Where Purpose-Driven Peters Out, an unpublished manuscript and blog.
Based in Oregon, Bill is known as a writer, social activist and speaker who regularly writes articles connected with the emerging church movement in the USA. See his excerpts at Next Wave and interview for Emergent.
In his article, Reality for the Rest of Us - 2006, Dahl explores alternatives to Rick Warren’s approach to theology, while paying tribute to the contribution Warren provides in his material. Though in some ways Bill is responding to a readers digest version of Rick’s actual theology, he provides some useful distinctions. Bill responds to a view of Christianity which has all the answers linked to one purpose (preparation for eternity), with a vision of life with multiple purposes - impacting this world with Christ’s love each day. He says that no matter what we believe, life is filled with the unexpected, the uncertain and the unpredictable. God reveals himself to us through them too.
This guy’s worth keeping an eye on. Or joining up on his email list. He’s given me a bit of inspiration to finish off my review of The Purpose Driven Life (at Driving with Purpose) and get on to Day 41.
Posted in Blogging, Emerging Church, Spirituality, Theology | No Comments »
