I totally support somewhat realistic Crucifixes, hymns about the Blood, and sermons about the full force of the Passion, but damn, that is one sad Crucifix.
My first thought when I saw it wasn’t of the Crucified Jesus but an Auschwitz inmate.
I think the Church made a good decision in taking it down AND I’m glad that a museum will keep it on display. It’s too despairing for a church, but too evocative a work of art to be hidden away.
I do like the fact that it actually provoked a thoughtful discussion on BBC TV News.
How many US news shows would have two clergymen having a reasonable discussion of such an issue?
Jesus is supposed to have a died an extraordinarily painful death so that all mankind’s sins would be forgiven. His agony and death are key to his mission on Urth. Are Xians unable to bear the sight of what was done for them?
My thoughts as well. The entire religion is sort of built around one guy suffering horribly. Steeples on Christian churches all over the world are topped with instruments of turture.
Just shows how many people are now unfamiliar with the tenets of the Christian religion they purport to belong to.
I sometimes wonder if there’s anything left you must renounce in order to belong to the ‘come as you are, stay as you are, and we’ll have a great big party celebrating what you are’ Church of England
Oh come on, that isn’t Jesus on that cross, it’s a Xenomorph.
The kids at that church weren’t scared because it depicts horrible suffering, they were scared because it’s an image of the gaunt whispering thing that lives under the bed. A proper crucifixion image should evoke sympathy, not fear that the Redeemer might suddenly wrench himself free and eat your face off.
Jesus was never that skinny either. Hell, he was crucified the day after a feast wasn’t he? Dragging a crucifix don’t burn calories that fast.
Heh. The Catholic church I attend with my family recently celebrated it’s 70th anniversary by sending the crucifix out to have it repainted. This seems mainly to have consisted of having the wounds touched up.
I grew up in the Protestant church and still kind of have a bias towards an empty cross, representing death and resurrection.
I once read that generally, the more affluent your community is, the less graphic the cruxifiction images are. The poor areas want to see a suffering Christ, perhaps to bring meaning to their suffering. The rich want to see Christ as a more divine and transfigured being. I suppose if you consider Christ your brother, as the Gospels portray, you’d be more comfortable with an image you can relate to.
I went to see The Passion of the Christ three times. I have no problems with a Crucifix and am disappointed that the Church is putting up a bare steel Cross.
But yeah, THAT particular Crucifix is not of a Suffering Redeemer, it’s of an Eternal Victim at best. I wouldn’t make it as Lovecraftian as Terrifel has, but I can see why he did.
Re Jesus’s skinniness- two things are clear from every Gospel account about the man. He walked a lot AND he liked to eat. If he wasn’t praying and preaching and healing and walking, he was eating. You think he didn’t have some of that Cana wine and multiplied loaves and fishes? Even risen from the dead, He walks with the disciples to Emmaus and sits down to eat, He asks for a piece of honeycomb to eat & prove His corporeal resurrection, He cooks up some fish for Peter & the boys. The man liked his food!
I think it’s an extraordinary piece of sculpture. It reminds me of one of my favorites, found in the duomo museum in Florence, Italy- Donatello’s Mary Magdalene. In person, it is one of the most haunting sculptures I have ever seen- her feet seem to cling to the ground, and her face is serene but so haggard… It’s brilliant.
I saw a slideshow presentation in college that was along the same lines, concentrating on Renaissance era Christian imagery. During times of peace and prosperity, religious artwork emphasized the idea of a loving, beneficent god – the peaceable kingdom, the Lamb of God, Madonna and child, etc. When the landscape was devastated by war, famine, plague, etc., the iconography turned to grim scenes of pain and death – bloody crucifixes, Judgment Day, and sinners suffering in eternal torment.
That being said, I found the crucifix in the article to be fairly innocuous. I’ve seen much, much worse – both in terms of artistic value and usability as a horror movie prop.
I’ve almays imagined he would be fairly gaunt. They did a shit load of walking in those days. Probably just the images I’ve seen of him though. No way to know for sure.
Last time I was in a Catholic church with my family (for a concert) my teens asked me (very quietly) if I didn’t think it a tad weird and disgusting for folks to regularly gather in a setting dominated by a graphic representation of someone being tortured and killed.
Just saying, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a crucifixion that hasn’t stricken me as creepy. In fact, this one may be less so than many, as it is less realistic than others. I can view it more as a piece of sculpture, instead of a dead guy. The realistic ones really squick me because it’s like, “Heck, check out the dead guy hanging up there. Man, that’s gotta hurt!” And the peaceful ones are weird in their own way, where it looks like he’s just taking a nap.
Odd the way things that are supposed to be comforting or something to believers, can strike non-believers as twisted, unsettling, and grotesque.
And not a lot of eating. Unless you were wealthy, you were probably quite thin. It’s not like you could just pick up a box of Ho Hos at the Galilee Safeway.
I once heard John Larroquette say that one reason he wasn’t “down” with the Catholic Church anymore is that he couldn’t be a member of a group whose logo was a dead boy on a stick.
