"My sweet Lord"

...Yet another artist asserting his individuality and wit.

I don't know if you've heard of this, but some guy (who, apparently, likes to play with food - he also coated a hotel room in cheese as an earlier project) made a life-sized, nude, anatomically-correct model of Jesus on the cross out of chocolate.

And he's standing back, waiting for the inevitable response.

You know? You want to know how I feel? I think it's kind of stupid, but I also look at it (figuratively speaking; I've not actually seen a photo of the statue as the news-outlets I use tend to choose not to show photos of pudenda, whether made of chocolate or not) and I shrug and go, "It's a free country."

Because, here, we have freedom of speech. And that includes "speech" that some people may not necessarily like.

We don't have "freedom never to be offended." In fact, I'd argue that freedom of speech and freedom from offense are probably mutually exclusive possibilities. And if we decide to give up freedom of speech in order to have freedom from offense...well, it's kind of like what Franklin is credited with saying about safety and liberty.

I've seen a few Christians - including a member of the Catholic League - basically frothing on television over their hatred of the sculpture. And again, freedom of speech, but I have to admit I cringe a little bit at it because I think it is giving the artist exactly what he wants.

Now, maybe I tend to frame things too much from the perspective of my own childhood, but my general attitude is that when someone mocks you, you ignore them. Pretend they're not there. (I was one of those little kids who got the books knocked out of her hands, and her homework trampled, and got called "retard" and worse, on a regular basis. Eventually you stop showing the hurt because you realize that not showing the hurt maybe gets people to shut up a little bit, whereas reacting the way you'd like to react - wailing and crying and lashing out impotently with your little fists at them - just makes them laugh harder and think of new insults).

(Yeah, I know - why did they call me "retard"? I was one of the higher achieving kids in the class, I was the one who usually knew the answers to the questions. The cruelty of children is hard to fathom.)

Anyway. When someone does something in this country that seems aimed at taunting Christians, I just kind of shrug. Whatever. You know.

I just hope that no one in the press refers to this artist as "brave" for doing what he did. "Brave" doesn't really apply here. It's not brave to make fun of a religion in a secular country, where the majority of the adherents to that religion will respond by either:

a. shrugging and going, "It's stupid but my faith is bigger than that"
b. writing an angry letter to the editor (and letting that be the extent of their anger)
c. saying "I'll pray for him." (Heh. I know people, that that's their response when someone says or does something they perceive as designed to offend them because of their faith. I would think that if someone were doing their "offensive" art purely because they feel somehow shat upon by God, offering to pray for them would be a rather radical - perhaps even offensive - act).

"Brave" in my book re: faith is reserved for Christians in Moslem or totalitarian countries. Or people like Bonhoffer who stood up to evil and wound up being killed for it. Or for people who suffer so many reverses in life that you might expect them to give up on God altogether, or start hating Him, but who still manage to find ways to praise Him and follow Him.

It's not brave, as I said, to make a statue mocking Christianity in a secular nation where 99.9% of the Christians, if it makes them angry, would not consider doing anything violent about it. (It makes me wonder: what would have happened had he tried something similar with Mohammed? Even here in the U.S.?)

And - maybe I (and the other people reporting on this) are misreading the intent. Maybe it's a (rather misguided) attempt to comment on the commercialization of Christianity in this country, or on the way we tend to take the loving teachings of Jesus (the image of him saying, "let the little children come to me") and ignoring the more difficult ones (the image of him saying, "if you harm one of these little ones, you would be better to have a millstone around your neck and be dropped in the sea.") Because, you know, that's what a lot of us do. We like the "Jesus is my boyfriend" image...or the "Jesus is my BFF" image....and we don't like so much to look at the cross, really look at it, and we also don't like his more challenging teachings, like the comment that people must "hate" their families if they are to follow Christ.

And look at the commercialization of Christmas. And to a lesser extent, Easter. (Am I the only one who is vaguely troubled by the fact that they sell cross-shaped chocolate Easter candy? Somehow I find that disturbing. The bunnies I can deal with because a bunny is basically a secular/pagan symbol, it doesn't have any religious connection for me. But the crosses bug me and I will also say the lamb cakes bug me a little bit too). I think sometimes God is more offended by what His followers have done to the way we talk about Him and the way we debase His name and teachings than He is by someone who is lashing out like an angry child against Him.

(I have the mental image of one of my friends as a baby...she said her mother told her that one day, after fighting with T. to get her down for a nap, T. "punished" her mother by smearing the contents of her diaper around the crib.)

So, I guess my conclusion is that if I were pressed to comment, I'd say I find the idea offensive, but the guy has a right to express it. And that there are things that I find almost as offensive coming from people who call themselves Christians.

Just don't call the guy "brave." Just don't act as if he's somehow disproven Christianity with his clever clever chocolate sculpture. And don't run the story if your only motivation is, "Let's use this as a stick to hit the Christian hornet's nest with and see what comes buzzing out." Because I suspect that's one reason why this is getting a fair amount of media coverage.