Sweet Chocolate Jesus the Wrong Easter Treat for New York Christian Fundies

March 31, 2007 at 12:18 am (Schule und Kirche)

Ekklesia reports about the recent “Protests at milk chocolate Jesus:”

Christians in the US have been angered by the decision of a New York gallery to exhibit a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.
The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled “My Sweet Lord”, depicts Jesus Christ naked on the cross.
…
[Sculptor Cosmo Caballero] used 200 pounds (90 kg) of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth.
It is not known whether the chocolate is fair trade.

Apparently some fanatical fundamentalist (“fundy”) Christians just felt left out during the Danish protests about the Mohammed cartoons, and so they jumped at this chance to take mediocre pop cultural events insanely personally, getting their holy knickers in a wad about something no one would have ever heard of otherwise.

The protesters’ efforts paid off, and the show was canceled. For more good commentary on the hoopla, and for a hilarious interview of the artist (and Bill Donohue calling Caballero a ‘loser’) check out the Beatitudes Society blog.

I love how the Christians are peeved that their crucified Lord and Savior is being depicted in chocolate, but not about the millions of people being crucified by slavery to harvest the cocoa beans for that chocolate. Mmmmm… suddenly, my Equal Exchange candy bar is starting to taste a lot more like communion.

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Stop This War Now.

March 18, 2007 at 5:02 am (Worldliness)

Alex writes, “Dr. Dahlia Wasfi was born to a Jewish mother and an Iraqi father. She recently put her medical career on hold to visit with family members in Iraq, and recently returned from a three-month stay in Basrah and Baghdad. Dr. Wasfi described her experience in Iraq and discussed the life of Iraqis under occupation. Addressing a congressional committee, she points out the unfolding disaster of our Iraq war policy.”

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De-Gayification is Bad Therapy and Bad Theology / Me in the News!

March 6, 2007 at 4:08 am (Feminisms, Personalitize)

- talking about my gay lovers!

(See also the SF Chronicle article about the vigil.)

Back on February 17, I spent the lunch hour standing in vigil of dissent outside the Promised Land Fellowship, a storefront church with tall windows on Market Street downtown San Francisco. I joined about 30 of my GTU classmates, and another dozen community members, in protesting the conference being held at the church, the conference to ‘deprogram’ gay people and train others to do the same.

We lined up along the sidewalk holding signs that read various statements to support/enlighten the conference-goers as they came out for lunch (the only time they could see us, except when they peeked at us out the second-floor window).

“God loves gays.”
“God loves me just the way I am.”
“Anti-gay Therapy killed my friend.”
“I am openly Christian and openly gay.”

We got lots of support (and some confused comments) from folks on the street.

One of the most interesting points of the event was the debate a few of the folks around me got into with the pastor and members of the church who came out to confront us (calmly). When we explained that we were a silent vigil, one of the church pastors then scoffed, ‘Oh, I see, you just want a monologue.’ (Which is odd to say to the folks coming out to offer a countering voice to the monologue of the conference you are hosting.) A few folks eventually offered to talk with him.  Mostly the same old arguments, but a few had a new spin.

They kept returning to the point that they are not just about changing homosexuals around, but that they are about helping anyone struggling with their ‘brokenness.’ So we kept saying that we agree that all people are flawed, but that homosexuality is not one of the flaws; yes, we are all broken in some sense, but homosexuality is not brokenness.

The pastor also had an interesting spin on that whole Jesus not saying anything about homosexuality business, and what that implies for our ethical process. He said that, just because Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, doesn’t mean he wasn’t against it, because, I mean, come on, silly protestors, Jesus didn’t say anything about child porn but we know he’d be against that, too! Which seems like the wrong path for their side of the argument to turn down, because that opens us up to claiming a base for our ethical decision-making somewhere other than the Bible, and that little verse in Leviticus is really the only thing the homophobes have to support them (and that ain’t much).

The saddest part was seeing these folks spouting the same hateful rhetoric, sinsinsinsin, when it is themselves they are castigating. They have internalized the mantras (‘Bible says gay bad Bible says gay bad Bible says gay bad’) that everyone else falls back on. However, these folks are not acting out of ignorance of not knowing anyone who is gay, but out of ignoring their own lives’ teachings, out of ignoring God working through them just how they are.  Sad.  My prayers are with them.

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California Quaking

March 2, 2007 at 4:45 am (Personalitize)

I am still not fond of this random earthquake business.

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