I am a Christian born and living in the South and I would not be offended. None of Maplethorpe’s work that I have seen has offended me.
Thomas Kinkade’s work offends me. Before you show any of his work, I would appreciate a warning so that I may avert my eyes.
I really don’t see how one could do an honest survey of art that includes art from the post-war period without at least mentioning Piss Christ.
I think that astorian has the right idea for a way to present the material, but I doubt it’s the only way to present things.
To choose a more concrete example of how presentation matters, I’d really suggest focusing on the image of Mary that was part of the Brooklyn Museum’s show titled “Sensation.” There the museum curator chose pieces to shock and upset as much of the public as possible, with, according to what I recall in readings about the displays at the time, little effort to actually educate the public, rather than titillate.
There are arguments, or cultural assumptions, that could have been used to lower the outrage that traditional Americans were responding with, had the curator been looking to do that.
Instead, I believe, it was an attempt to garner free publicity for the museum that ended up backfiring, because the curator did nothing to educate the audience. Just sought to outrage them.
Jesus went through much much worse then having an inaccurate representation of him in a jar of urine in terms of humiliation, shame and the like. Each one who turns to Him is able to place their shame and humiliation onto Jesus to have that die at the cross.
Also the attack against Christianity just serves to prove it is true to me (along with the opposing Kingdom of Darkness)
Basically, if a college-age Christian in unable to handle a reasonable discussion of controversial religious/anti-religious art, that person should not be in college.
How would you deal with the situation if the class subject was something that could potentially defend any racial, religious, sexual, etc. minority? The same guideline should apply with dealing with things that could potentially offend Christians.
As for Magiver’s:
Any wise parent would tell their child that religion and politics are not topics for discussion in a polite society.
Sorry. There are appropriate limits for such discussion in polite society, but to make them taboo is utterly nonsensical. Religion and politics reflect peoples’ ultimate values, and social discussion of them should be done carefully. To ban all such discussion is to render all polite conversation superficial and banal.