christiefan915
Catalyst
In 1987, Serrano’s Piss Christ provoked death threats and violence from Christian fundamentalists and conservative
Catholics across the U.S. and Europe and caused political outrage on two continents.
In the 19th century, American Catholics were regularly targeted by Protestant mobs for “worshiping” statues
while Protestant ministers lost their positions if they placed visual depictions of the crucifixion, Mary, or the saints in their
churches.
Two hundred years before that, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan army smashed religious artwork in English
parish churches. During the 16th century Protestant Reformation, followers of Luther and Calvin looted
cathedrals and convents carting off valuable paintings and statues to burn them in public squares. And so it
has been for most of Christian history.
Indeed, as early as 600, Bishop Serenus of Marseilles destroyed all the pictures in every church in his city
worried that “images somehow cheapened the sacred words of Scripture.”
The worst outbreak of violence against visual depictions of Jesus occurred in the 700s. In 726, Emperor Leo III
outlawed the use of icons and ordered their destruction. Upon the decree, mass rioting broke out across the
Byzantine Empire demanding the return of visual art to worship.
Ironically, John of Damascus (655-750), the great Christian defender of artistic depictions of God, lived in the
Muslim city of Damascus where he served as chief councilor to the Caliph. The Caliph, despite his own spiritual
distaste for representative art, protected John against several attempts by Christian partisans to have him murdered.
Whatever the case, western commentators–especially those who happen to be Christians–cannot claim any
theological superiority regarding art and God and should not think of this as a “Muslim thing.” A little less outrage
and a little more history might help. As Jesus once said, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/christian...th-park-muhammad-and-jesus.html#ixzz1IeTIEkhm
