Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

Gay Jesus



The Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Willin has prepared a series of photographs, one of them depicting a Last Supper with Jesus and a group of what appear to be transvestites. The figures are arranged in a reconstruction of the Leonardo mural.

The exhibition has been controversial. Pope John Paul cancelled an audience with the Protestant Archbishop Hammar of Uppsala for supporting the exhibit – which has been touring for ten years – and allowing it to be shown in churches across Sweden.

Speaking as a gay man who is also a Catholic, I find the pictures in bad taste rather than offensive but I would not bother to go and look at them. I can understand, however, why some Christians would definitely be offended. They do not conform to the imagery that people are familiar with.

But what is the artist actually trying to say? If the message is that Jesus came to save sinners, that is not unorthodox - on the contrary. My own parish, being where it is in the centre of Brighton, has more than its share of gay men and women who attend the church. We are made perfectly welcome. It is also make clear that we, like everyone else, married or single, straight or gay, should be attempting to live chaste lives. We do not always do this successfully but the Parish Priest is available in the confessional daily at 10.30. It can be embarrassing but the forgiveness of the Lord is there if there is a sincere desire to do better in the future. As for "gay marriage" - if anyone wants one they can get it done quietly at the local registry office, and there may be a good reason as there can otherwise be problems with the British inheritance laws.

But there are many depictions of Christ. That of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper does not show them as marginalised people. The image that does is the one in the stained glass window above, showing Mary Magdalen using her hair to anoint the feet of the Lord with nard contained in an alabaster jar, her emblem, here shown on the right hand side of the image. Mary Magdalen, the archaetype of the repentant sinner, is the patron saint of our parish. If the artist made herself more familiar with Christian imagery she would be able to make her point more forcibly without causing unnecessary offence.

See for yourself and make up your own mind

Etiketter

Etiketter:

Kommentarer

Anonym sa…
Your blog is very creative, when people read this it widens our imaginations.
1 juli 2008 kl. 23:47
Skicka en kommentar

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

The dreadfulness of British governance

I wrote to my MP on two entirely separate issues recently. The first was to do with the replacement for the Inter City 125 train, which at £2.6 million per vehicle, is twice as expensive as it ought to be. The second concerned the benefits of a switch from business rate and Council Tax to a tax based on site values. In both cases, the replies were full of spurious, unsubstantiated assertions and completely flawed arguments. This is typical. You will not get an iota of sense from the government on any area of public policy at all - finance, economics, trade and employment, agriculture, housing, health, transport, energy. All junk. If you write to your MP you will invariably receive answers that are an insult to your intelligence, no matter what subject you are writing about. Of course they cannot understand statistics. They are innumerate. Whitehall is staffed with idiots with a high IQ. Look at their IT projects. And mind your purse, they will have that too.
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

How much more will the British tolerate?

The British are phlegmatic, tolerant and slow to rouse. Thus there was no great reaction after the terrorist attack in July 2005. The murder of Lee Rigby created a sense of outrage, but nothing more, since it appeared to be an isolated incident. Two serious incidents within a fortnight are another matter. Since the first major terrorist incident in 2001, authority has tried to persuade the public that Islam is a religion of peace, that these were isolated events, or the actions of deranged "lone wolves", having nothing to do with Islam, or to reassure that the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack were infinitesimally small. These assurances are are beginning to wear thin. They no longer convince. If government does not act effectively, people will take the law into their own hands. What, however, would effective action look like? What sort of effective action would not amount to rough justice for a lot of innocent people? Given the difficulties of keeping large n...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Battery trains fool’s gold

A piece by the railway news video Green Signals recently reported the fast charging trials for battery operated electric trains on the West Ealing to Greenford branch, in west London. In a comment under the video, I described the project as technological overkill, bearing in mind that before dieselisation in the 1960s it was worked by the tiny steam locomotives of the Great Western 1400 class, a 1932 design based on an 1870s design. The money that has been spent on the experiment would have paid for a small fleet of the old things. Elsewhere in the comments, I was critical of the 800 series trains. This produced a response from the makers of the video, as follows. “I may be grasping at straws here but I am guessing you don't like 8xx series trains all that much and rather wish we still had Kings, Castles and (for the branches) 14xx's. Fair? ” My reply was as follows... Yes you are grasping at straws. The model for long distance stock is the class 180, which is a 23 metre veh...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer