Posted on 11/20/2002 7:20:17 AM PST by SJackson
Back in 1999 artist Chris Ofili smeared elephant feces and pasted pornographic photographs on an image of the Virgin Mary and hung it in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It caused a firestorm of protest. Olifi's detractors were outraged at the sacrilege. His defenders retorted with the predicable arguments citing freedom of expression and artistic autonomy but avoided any serious engagement with the real meaning of the piece.
Ofili's desecration is nothing new. In recent years we have seen "Piss Christ" where a crucifix was submerged in a jar of urine, Neonazis painting swastikas on synagogues, even Madonna simulating sex acts in a set designed as a church.
Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin ordered soldiers into Russian villages that resisted the imposition of the Communist yoke. Lenin discovered that religious faith informed much of the resistance. Especially troublesome was the teaching that the statutes governing human affairs were subject to the higher judgment of God. It repudiated the Marxist denial of the ideal and everything it implied including the establishment of the state as the final arbiter of all human affairs.
Religious faith was a grave threat to Marxism and Lenin knew it. The soldiers struck at the heart of this faith by striking at the symbols that defined it. Churches, when not burned, were turned into the village dump - a kind of lasting testimonial of desecration. Soldiers urinated in chalices and defecated on altars. Almost all priests were killed. The offense caused by this desecration ran deep. It proclaimed that a new way of ordering the universe - a new faith - had entered the world.
The word symbol in the Greek means the place where two realities come together. Religious symbols have a particular power because religion speaks of the higher unseen things like meaning, purpose, value, and destiny, and thus represent a moral comprehension about how the universe is ordered and how man ought to live within it. In fact, the symbol itself can be said to contain this view. The symbol in other words, functions as a placeholder in space and time of eternal and timeless truths.
Religious symbols bind an individual to a religious community and testify to the sacred inheritance of that community. They represent the body of teaching and instruction inherited from the past that directs how the community ought to live today. This tradition shapes the culture of the community so that the tradition itself can be passed on to the next generation. The symbol identifies the community by what it believes and how it lives.
Desecration is more than the destruction or misuse of the symbol itself. Desecration is sacrilege; the use of the symbol in ways hostile to its meaning and in ways that the tradition considers profane. By desecrating the symbol, the desecrator not only defiles the symbol, he also denies the legitimacy of the community to whom the symbol belongs.
Secularists are unaware of the turmoil that desecration can cause because they have acculturated the Marxist denial of the ideal even though many may not realize it. The secularist perceives transcendence as social universals expressed in the language of "rights" and applied through politics. He regards the state as the final arbiter of truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, good and evil, all the constituents that shape culture, because the state is both the source and end of political life.
There no Moses and no Paul in the secular tradition - no sense of eternal or timeless truth. Rather, the secular prophets like Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Sanger, Gramsci, Alinsky, and others, reduce transcendence to social utility and thus establish the state as the guarantor of heaven on earth. Today this secular view dominates public discourse and explains why most discussions about the desecration of religious symbols address only their political and legal ramifications. The cultural ramifications seldom show up on the radar screen and when they do, the secular censors are quick to dismiss it.
Religion is not the product of culture, religion is the source writes philosopher Russell Kirk. "It's from an association in a cult, a body of worshipers, that human community grows.when belief in the cult has been wretchedly enfeebled, the culture will decay swiftly. The material order rests on the spiritual order."*
When the dominant religious symbols in the culture are desecrated, the beliefs and values that define and shape culture are weakened and can be overthrown. The overthrow of culture is why Lenin destroyed churches and Hitler destroyed synagogues (and why the Taliban blew up a 5000 year old Buddha). This is why a crucifix was submerged in urine and an icon of the Virgin Mary was smeared with feces.
There is contempt of the past, a senseless denial of any possibility of enduring meaning, in desecration art. Desecration art functions like the parasite; it destroys the heritage from which it draws its meaning. Ofili's piece illustrates this. The icon gives the piece meaning, yet the icon is what the piece seeks to destroy. Destroy the meaning of the icon and the meaning of the piece is destroyed with it like the parasite that dies with its host. The artist is vandal and the museum the gate to this cultural barbarism.
If the artist succeeds in destroying the heritage of western culture, the precepts that give his desecration meaning will die along with it. He follows the same path as the Marxist soldiers sent in to quell rebellious villagers: destroy the enduring truths to prepare the way for a Utopia that will never arrive.
*Russell Kirk "Civilization with Religion" The Heritage Foundation Report (July 24, 1992).
Johannes L. Jacobse is a priest in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. See his site OrthodoxyToday.org.
What does that have to do with anything I said?
Why is it any of your business?
If I had or hadn't, what difference would it make?
I am assuming that you would then conclude that the symbolism of baptism has no power other than that which we give it as people, and that it is not a binder.
Yup, exactly as I suspected: a dishonestly portrayed hidden agenda, and you tried to lay a trap to get it done. What a Christian (and, yes, I would prefer to be slapped in such a fashion were I as hypocritical as was your post).
As far as i know, Jesus never worshipped in any building dedicated to the purpose of worship except for the one and only temple erected by God's command. Last time I checked, Jesus was baptized in a river, not exactly a graven image there either. The essence of the sacrament was and is not symbolic, but substantive. Your association of such with "symbolism" and trying to connect that to "symbols," lacking that distinction speaks volumes.
Upon the Rock of Jesus Christ and His Word, all who will can take their stand and can resist the threats and attacks of the enemy of our souls. HE is our rock and our refuge, no matter what is thrown at us. And WE can go on offense to pray against Satan and his lieutenants just as has been witnessed in these past two elections. MUCH was won by prayer. How much cannot be seen in this life - but we will know one of these days....further along.
For now - we are to pray for those who persecute us, for those who want us dead. Because THAT is the order our Commander in Chief has given to all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord!
Now, HE did not say... in a Temple or a Church....HE said, "WHERE EVER...".
Now, that could be in a Church or a Temple or it might NOT!!!
What is it about "where ever" don't you understand???
I think I am going to become a modern artists and have a whole slew of art that are called "Piss Lenin", "Piss Stalin", "Piss Hammer & Sickle", "Piss Mao", "Piss Che Gueverra", and "Piss Castro". Now, all I have to do is get a jar and start drinking...
None. I have no disagreement whatsoever with what you said.
That sounded like you don't see the need for Churches or Temples....buildings. "WHERE EVER" COULD BE IN A BUILDING or a hollow tree.
He's talking about "Romans" who have destroyed their own music, not "people making fun" of anything.
And it pales in comparison to the evil wrought by that group for the almost 1600 years it has existed since it's inception.
Yawn. Must be nice to have such a simplistic worldview. Well, maybe not.
Lest we forget, it got it's name from Theodoseus in what 438ad.
Huh? What are you talking about? Theodosius was long dead by AD 438. The term "Catholic Church" was first used in writing by Ignatius of Antioch in AD 110. Whatever it is that I'm not supposed to forget seems like something you just made up.
LOL Boffo!
Indeed it could and I don't think Jesus would have a problem with a hollow tree. He stayed in homes or camped and prayed wherever. He did have a problem with graven images and whipped those who would make worship into a business. Opulent buildings (other than THE Temple) full of expensive graven images, used barely once a week seem to me both contrary to the Commandment and rather profligate when the life of Christ was so dedicated to the poor. In fact, my guess is that He would disapprove of such structures. I don't think He would have a problem with a building for the purpose of organizing services to the sick and the poor or other gatherings for that matter, but I'd bet he'd prefer to keep it simple. The point is one of focus and stewardship.
Where was it published? Can we get a copy?
THe RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS and the millions of other Orthodox Christians, who died at the hands of the Turks and other islamics, were JUST AS CHRISTIAN AS YOU....and they had icons as reminders of their Faith in God....not as graven idols!!
You do them a vast disservice by inferring that their FAITH is less, somehow than yours. Shame on you.
Who are you to say that? Just because these Christians WORSHIPPED JESUS CHRIST in a way that YOU do not approve of... you infer that they were less CHRISTIAN.
Just because you don't approve of ICONS or beautiful Churches( BUILT TO HONOR GOD, by the way), You say that you guess Christ would not have approved of their worship.
YOU GUESS???
Well, that is not good enough for me.
The early Church Fathers KNEW much more than you about Jesus Christ...I will heed them.
And, further, I will honor the Orthodox Christian martyrs for JESUS CHRIST and forgive you your insentivity to their sacrifices.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.