Oh, Sweet Jesus

Artist Cosimo Cavallaro is planning to unveil his 6 foot tall, anatomically correct sculpture of the crucified Christ made completely out of chocolate in Manhattan on Monday, just in time for Holy Week. While the claim is that the timing is coincidental, I somehow doubt it. Catholic groups (and others, no doubt) are reacting strongly against the exhibit, calling for a boycott on the hotel that is hosting it.

"It's an all-out war on Christianity," fumed Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "They wouldn't show a depiction of Martin Luther King Jr. with genitals exposed on Martin Luther King Day, and they wouldn't show Muhammed depicted this way during Ramadan. It's always Christians, and the timing is deliberate."

Cavallaro, an Italian immigrant who was raised a Catholic, insisted he's not looking to offend anyone. "This person is talking from a very narrow window," he said of Donohue. "They're not allowing themselves to open their hearts. ... If it makes them feel better, I'll ask for their forgiveness and do 10 Hail Marys, but they should just lighten up and be more accepting of people."   (Quotes from NYDailyNews)

BestWeekEver comments that "from what I can tell, they [Christians] get up in arms over any depiction of Christ that’s not radiating a heavenly halo glow as rendered by Thomas Kinkade, 'painter of light'"

Now, I'm not a fan of Kinkade, but I'm also not entirely sure what I think of this exhibit. It's hard to critique it based on the chosen medium when Christians market Easter candy like 'Last Supper Chocolate Bars', eating the image of Christ. And I don't want to judge too quickly - the rapid and violent reaction to art like the Piss Christ is, to my mind, unwarranted and fails to make any honest attempt to understand what it is that the artist is trying to communicate. As it says on OldSpeak,

In reality, the offensiveness of Piss Christ is due at least somewhat to the patently unbiblical nature of much current Christian art. That is, the submersion of Christ in a jar of urine is offensive to evangelicals at least partly because the humiliation and scandal of the Incarnation is, in practical terms, typically ignored in contemporary evangelical art. When a Christian artist draws a portrait of Jesus serenely cradling children in his lap, the artist is portraying the gentleness and love of Christ, and this kind of portrait certainly has value—but in ignoring the tension implicit in the divine and human natures of Jesus, contemporary Christian art is often deeply unbiblical.

So it brings up the question yet again: what is 'good' art? And what responsibility do Christians have to look deeper at what art is communicating about culture and, in some cases, Christianity itself? Are we open to critique (we all remember the response to movies like Saved and Dogma, which I found to be wonderful satires that pointed to problems in Christianity we desperately need to hear) or do we become overly defensive at the first sign of offense? I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts... 

Update: The show has been cancelled due to the outcry.

Updated Again to Add:  Hearts & Minds Booknotes has a great review of a book on art (that I've not yet read) called It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. Might be worth checking into.