"Certainly we don't want to be censoring art or anything like that," said Jeremy Wells, a gallery board member, church elder and artist. "Artwork being provocative in nature can be beneficial to the church if it's provocative in the right way."
I wrote recently about the arrogance of the desert religions, with their assumption of sole proprietorship of The Truth. Here it is again: there is a "right way" to be provocative.
There is, of course, the argument that we've heard from Human Rights Campaign and other "rights" organizations, that we must be "reasonable" so we don't turn off those we're trying to persuade. News flash: most people turn off when you tell them something that conflicts with what they "know." That's why HRC has been so effective lately. You have to break through that, one way or another, and being offensive, while it will turn off most people, will also make others stop and think. That's your audience.
Given the way police are behaving toward citizens lately -- tasering 17-year-olds for being unruly, for example -- the image is beyond brilliant. It's an illustration of the Seventh Station of the Cross:
Photo by Jackson Potts II
See also Digby's remarks on that tasering incident. And the artist has a blog.
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