Such bad aesthetic taste has to be cultivated.

by Mainstream Baptist on Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 04:52:22 PM EST

I totally agree with your assement that the Christian nationalists are, oddly, beginning to adopt more kitsch than they might have in the past.  The types and kinds of artisitic expression they are forwarding, more than being wildly tasteless, represent an oddball attempt to try to create Christian public art as a form of persuasion (there's an excellent artcle on this shift, although I cannot seem to locate it at the present.)  

Yet I'm concerned about making a determination merely on word descriptions of visual art.
Are there any photos of the monument anywhere on the net?  My scholarly background has afforded me a very keen eye for interpreting images that might, by their description, appear highly inflammatory, but within a visual context, are not as horrid as they appear.

It's the age-old dichotomy between The Word and The Image, and is something at the heart of many a misunderstanding of images made by many Western Protestant based thinkers.

Think of Jessie Helms's descriptions of Robert Mapplethorpe's photos.  Listening to Helms, one would indeed conclude that Mapplethorpe's photos were recruitment posters for perversity...however, when viewing them with proper perspective, one could see that they were telling a story, but not advocating a particular lifestyle...

So, I am always one not to jump to conclusions on anything based on mere word descriptions.  

Further, I'm troubled by the person who brought the suit in this case--who is an atheist.  I question this person's motive based on past frivolous cases dredged up by atheists in the name of defending secularity.  

People are as angry at atheists as they might be at the religious right.  If the left is going to win any people to the side of secularism, any suits forwarded by atheists, that might reek even slightly of some kind of anti-God agenda, should be carefully scrutinized.

I'm further troubled by loose interpretations of what is/is not idolatry.  Is the stone being worshipped here?  Idolatry implies that there will be some sort of worship in front of the monumet. This is what was at the heart of each and every Iconoclast controversy...the first in the 8th century because people feard that the images were becoming more important than the Message of Jesus.  During the Reformation, it was because there was a fear that Images distracted from the Word.  Their justifications were based, in part, on Leviticus, too.  But Leviticus used to forward a chruch's position on idolatry is valid.  What, though, is the real case with this monument?  Is it being worshipped or distracting from the word of God?  If you're going to use Leviticus, make sure that it is applied properly. Please do not use Leviticus simply to back up a secular argument when Leviticus does not apply to the secular world.

by Tish Grier on Sat Aug 19, 2006 at 11:45:02 AM EST

My Inner Catholic is really peeved that you would reference this ridiculous story in your argument.

The Protestant American press has long had it in for the use of images by Catholics, and when things like this come along--that should just be ignored--they love to dredge them up as additional ways of humiliating Catholic thinking on imagery.  

The comment of "drawing the line" is exactly what motivated the Iconoclasts in the past.  Lacking an understanding of imagery makes it particularly difficult to interpret their uses.

by Tish Grier on Sat Aug 19, 2006 at 01:56:01 PM EST