The Smithsonian may have already removed from an “artistic” exhibit (after protest) the video portion that depicted ants crawling on a crucified Christ, but I’m left scratching my head as to why it was regarded as appropriate by a taxpayer-funded entity to display it in the first place, and why it appears that Christianity remains the lone acceptable religious target of the art world’s enablers in the US government.
The offense here isn’t simply that Christianity is being insulted by art; at any given moment, I’m sure an expression of “art” somewhere is doing its part to insult one religion or another. The offense here is an apparently woeful lack of equitability with respect to the government-sanctioned portrayal of world religions.
The Smithsonian, which is an agency of the US government, made the decision in this day and age of supposed heightened sensitivity to the world’s cultures, religions, etc., to exhibit this particular “work of art.” This follows the Piss Christ controversy from several years back, when another “work of art,” this a staged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass of urine (the artist’s own, by the way), won a competition largely sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, another US government agency.
There may be a “Piss Koran” photo out there that won a competition sponsored by the taxpayers, and there may be a video exhibit displaying ants crawling over a dead Mohammed on display at the Smithsonian at taxpayer expense, but I haven’t heard about either…and assuming those kinds of offenses to Islam or any other religion haven’t been portrayed under the auspices of high-profile US government agencies in recent years, it’s not unreasonable for Christians to ask, “Why us?”
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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the recently-released book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc; www.investorspassport.com) and the new unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press; www.mikereevesonline.com).
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