don't take offense, shut the gate

PRIME Minister John Howard is today leading a chorus of condemnation against the decision to include two entries in a prestigious art competition that ridicule the Christian faith.

A statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded by a Muslim burqa and a holographic image of Osama bin Laden that morphs into Jesus Christ when moved on an angle have sparked outrage from politicians and church leaders.

The "artworks" were submitted as entries for the Blake Prize - Australia's top religious art competition.

Yesterday, Mr Howard said the pieces were insulting and lacked any artistic merit.

"The choice of such artwork is gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians," he said.

He was backed by Premier Morris Iemma, who said the inclusion of the artworks was extremely questionable.

"I haven't seen either of these pieces but from what has been described to me, it's a pity they were not stolen instead of the Dutch masterpiece," Mr Iemma said, referring to the recent theft of a painting from the Art Gallery of NSW.

The artworks are the latest in a string of offensive pieces that have infuriated Christians while their creators hide behind the veil of "art".

Ho hum.

I am always in two minds about articles like this, because they usually strike me as both a beat up (it did make front page of the Daily Terror after all; this morning's online version here, 3.00pm online update here) and a dumbing down.

First of all, while as a Christian I thank Messrs Howard, Iemma and Rudd for their concerns, I would like to know who else is part of the chorus Howard is leading.  Have any Christian leaders lodged any complaints? Does someone smell Pell? Or did journalists, as usual, scrounge around for a juicy quote or two to create a story? 

And what, exactly, is the nature of our politicians' concerns? Is it political? Cultural? Religious or moral?

And while on the subject of a story, would News Corp have published pictures of art that was gratuitously offensive to Muslims? You know, like on the front page?

Just what exactly, makes this news?

We are after all, talking about the Blake Prize people:

The Blake Prize for Religious Art is one of the more prestigious art prizes in Australia. For 55 years it has been awarding a prize for works of art that explore the subject of religious awareness and spirituality. In difference to art prizes that are awarded for distinct subject areas such as landscape or portraiture, the Blake has always invited a much more open, personal and idiosyncratic response, so much so that it has earned the criticism, ire and sometimes applause of critics and the public alike. After all, what is religious art?

[...]

The Prize was the brainchild of Richard Morley, a Jewish businessman, and Michael Scott, a Jesuit educationalist, who believed that such a Prize would provide contemporary works of art for the many new churches and synagogues being built in the post war suburban sprawl. While religious authorities were generally taken aback by the modern flavour of these new investigations, it was the artists who most welcomed the Blake as it allowed them to express more personal subject matter; in short, it rewarded innovation and daring. The Prize was named after the mystic artist and writer William Blake who is celebrated for his creative commitments rather than his adherence to any particular dogma.

Surprise is the more characteristic response to each year’s exhibition rather than a confirmation of any traditional iconography. In the search for fresh contemporary expressions of spirituality artists have continued to extend the envelope of the Blake to encompass a wide diversity of religious expression drawing on major religious traditions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, as well as indigenous spirituality. The Blake has fostered this breadth of diversity and celebrated the various rich traditions that make up the landscape of belief in Australia.

If you are used to reading this sort of dribble, you should already be able to decode the double speak: whatever its original intentions, the Blake Prize is now just another front for an activist agenda. 

You can guess the agenda from a mile off: all that is politically correct is true.

And it is somewhat amusing too, to find the author of this introduction, who claims to be a reverend, artist and art historian, nevertheless claiming ignorance about "what is religious art."

Oh wait, this is the Rev. Rod Pattenden, who back in 2000 was appointed Uniting Church chaplain at Macquarie University:

Rod has a background in the arts and social advocacy and is currently working on a PhD at Sydney University in visual culture and contemporary ideas of the spiritual.

I guess that's where he got his postmodern babble and his history.

But back to this so-called news:

Last night, the Uniting Church minister who chairs the Blake Society defended the pieces.

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".

No of course not.  All those mosaics, icons, statues, paintings, tapestries, all that stained glass, all those lectionaries and manuscripts, all those textiles, vestments and vessels in monastery and church buildings, not even the buildings themselves - neither art nor works of art.

No art commissioned by Christians, no art by Christians, no art inspired by Christianity in Western civilization.  Our galleries and museums and stately residences are totally bereft of much art for or by Christians. Christians - much less anyone else in the West - have certainly had nothing much to do with art at all, for say...er...two millenia at least.

Maybe one should tell Pattenden to change his reference to "bad art": why for example would any Christian want to see a photograph of a photograph and a photograph of an image superimposed on each other when we have, oh, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rublev?

But I am sure Rev. Pattenden is just being gratuitously stupid.

As for Bracks' double image of Christ and bin Laden, Mr Pattenden said the artist was questioning "the idea that you can have absolute good and absolute evil. Life's a bit more complicated than that".

Like the gratuitiously stupid artists:  

Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks [the creator of the Jesus/Osama lenticular image] 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 said.

[...]

Bracks told The Daily Telegraph her double portrait was not meant to compare Jesus with bin Laden, but was a commentary on the way the terror leader was treated in the media.

She was concerned bin Laden would be unintentionally glorified in years to come.

Describing him as a "common criminal", Ms Bracks made the bizarre assertion that bin Laden - whose whereabouts are unknown - should be extradited and put on trial.

Yes indeed, this is why riots are breaking out over Bracks' hologram, and there would be all sweetness, truth and light if it were, a hologram of Osama and Mohammed.  Right?  Why we don't accept common criminals who steal your wallet or that Osama wants to steal your world. It's all just one big mass of colourless grey.

Or maybe Pattendon is just being gratuitously disingenuous.

Says Luke Sullivan of his Mary with a rosary and burqa:

...his work was not meant to be controversial but provocative.

"It poses the question of what's the future of religion," Sullivan said.

"They (religions) are hegemonic in their nature.

"They can be all-encompassing and powerful."

Says Pattenden:

... 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."

I'm waiting for Sullivan and Pattenden to gain a bit of insight on religions of peace.

As to offense, here's what Rev. Pattenden finds offensive:

Yes, as a result of recent debates in our presbytery, where a motion was passed that there should be no leadership within the life of the Church from gay and lesbian people, whether that's to Ordained Ministry or to passing a plate or doing the flowers, at any level of the Church should not have gay and lesbian people involved. I find that personally offensive and it certainly was received with offence here in this parish in Paddington. We resolved, as a response, that we should go outside the Church and express our support for lesbian and gay people by being involved with a collective of other parishes and groups to sponsor a float in next year's Mardi Gras. That is being received by some people in the Church with profound horror. They don't realise that the Mardi Gras is far more ordinary in its scope and it's about lesbian and gay people becoming visible, about celebrating their lifestyles and their choices in life. We want to have a float that will probably look far more mediocre - there'll be no dancing girls or boys, or whatever people expect - but just a gathering of children, men and women, older people, ministers and lay people who can just march with some common symbol, a T-shirt or some slogan that says we are people who affirm the presence of gay and lesbian people in the Church. We want to see a Church that's inclusive, sympathetic and in fact expresses the whole gamut of human lifestyles.

The whole gamut of human lifestyles? Bit of adultery and some wife swapping OK there for you Rev? Little bit of S&M to spice things up a bit? Bit of gluttony and avarice just to put some icing on the cake?

Oh wait:

I think people make their choice about the way they interpret the Mardi Gras. I mean for anyone who's actually seen it, the majority of floats have to do with local community groups, there are some church groups in there, it's a community celebration. Sure there are floats there that are actually over the top and it's probably quite appropriate they are. I'm not going to make any affirmation or denial or comment on that. All I can say is that I'm very clear about the message we are trying to express and I have no problem being alongside the most crazy group or whatever it is. I mean the church has been used to this for centuries. We march in nuclear concerns, Wik decisions, we march alongside communists, we march alongside weirdos and wonderful people, that's how humanity is, but if I'm misunderstood, nevertheless that's where I want to be.

And in case you missed it, here's who Rev Pattenden doesn't mind offending:

I think the Mardi Gras sends multiple messages. Every single float has a different message, a different celebration and that needs to be respected. I just know why I'm marching, and I'm marching under the banner of celebrating diversity. That is, I'm saying the church ought to be a place, and has to be a place that opens its doors to everyone and to anyone and who affirms the gifts, and particularly of gay and lesbian people. Now I recognise that the church in a sense may find that offensive, but I'm claiming that I have a faith that belongs to the centre, I'm not some crazy, whacko off on the fringe. My faith is about the centre that my god and the sort of faith I have, is about celebrating diversity, that this acclaim for orthodoxy, this is not some fringe idea.

Here's what I, as one Christian, find offensive: men and women like Rev. Pattenden masquerading as ministers of the Christian religion. It has probably never occurred to Rev. Pattenden that one of the reasons his world is "cynical, degraded and in crisis" is because of moral relativists like himself.

Because of imposters like him.

Because you see, Pattenden's Jesus is not the Jesus of Christians, but the carbon-offset Jesus of Western middle-class liberals.  Pattenden's Jesus is Bishop Spong's Jesus, and...

...[t]he function of Spong’s Jesus is thus simply to maintain the social and political status quo. He takes our own most cherished and self-evident Western values, and he provides them with a theological justification. Thus our own values are made absolute and unimpeachable – they are elevated to the status of ideology. Simply put, Spong tells us that political correctness is correct, since even Jesus was politically correct.

Which means, just as Ben Meyer notes about Spong's Jesus: there is nothing radical, or confronting or upsetting about what Pattenden thinks, nor is there anything unsettling or unfamiliar about this art. It is about as comfortable and relaxed as Western middle class political correctness that stands for nothing, and challenges nothing, and is intolerant of anyone and everything that doesn't agree.

After all, you become like what you worship.

To quote Charles Krauthammer, speaking to a different context:

It is not just the restless search for novelty, the artist's Holy Grail. It is weariness with the responsibilities and the nightmares that come with clarity--and the demands that moral certainty make on us as individuals and as a nation.

So again, why is this news? 

After all it's not even art.

It's just more laziness and haziness.
Hate and self-hate. 
Marx and Qutb.
Murder and suicide.

Update: Trust Irf to Islamisize history (and remind us, again, that he has read some William Darlymple)

Try Bet Lehem - house of Bread - Irf - you know, classical Hebrew. Or try that number on any number of archaeologists and Middle Eastern scholars blogging on the net.  And perhaps try the Mary of the Gospels not the Mary of the Koran.  And try remembering that Jesus and Mary were not just Middle Eastern, they were Jews.

Update 2: Bingo. Just what I expected. Muslims are offended. Thanks to Fairfax:

But Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said the statue was "not at all offensive", because both the Virgin Mary and Jesus were revered figures in Islam.

"So [Mary wearing a burqa is] no different to how our mothers and sisters are expected to be modest in their dressing," he said.

But Mr Patel said he was affronted by the image of bin Laden's face blending into that of Jesus, who is deemed a prophet in Islam.

"You have a revered prophet of Islam being equated to somebody like Osama bin Laden.

"Also in Islam, we don't have any paintings or drawings depicting any of our prophets, so I find it quite offensive."

Jesus was no prophet of Islam Patel. He's not the Issa myth of Islam.

And note both Forsyth's and Pell's slap downs.  Especially Pell's. Heh.

Update 3: There's a delicious irony in the way that the person of Jesus exposes and even subverts everyone's agenda in this story: politicians, media left and right, artists, activists, clerics, Muslims...