Jesus: In Art and Culture
Gallery: Jesus in Art and Culture
Like most people on earth I was indoctrinated into religion at an early age and recall going to Sunday school classes starting when I was about 8 or 9. My mother was raised in the Russian Orthodox church and I was probably baptized by a priest of that particular faith. Granny, on my mother’s side was from Catholic Slovakia, but married a Ukrainian man. My guess is that she switched to his religion. Mother didn’t seem to have any clear idea about what brand of Christianity she adhered to, but Protestantism appealed to her more than Catholicism. Dad was what I’d call, your basic un-articulated agnostic. He liked to flirt with religion but kept it at arm’s length. Nonetheless, with his table saw, he made a very plain but ultimately ‘kitchy’ sort of cross for the altar of the new Bethany Lutheran Church building, up the block from our house Niagara Falls. It was made of varnished oak planks – a three dimensional cross, with a piece of gold painted half-round on its face, and fluorescent lights screwed in on inside to “illuminate” the cross during church services. When turned on it ‘glowed’ but also often buzzed, as these type of fixtures often do. It was this exact church – closest to our home, – that was chosen as our place of “worship”, largely because of its proximity to our house. It happened to be Lutheran – of Swedish affiliation.
So it was there that I attended Sunday school classes leading up to the ‘big event’ called ‘confirmation’! Baptism claimed the helpless infant for whatever religious camp he or she is born into, while ‘confirmation’ apparently “seals the deal”. The big moment! When all that indoctrination stuff was finished and you became a paying member of the true faith! This was around age 13-14 and my second collie dog Bucky has just been killed by an automobile. Bucky was my closest companion (even in bed) and I was a seriously heartbroken kid. Logically, I sought whatever comfort I could find and asked the pastor if dogs went to heaven, and would I see Bucky again after I died. The minister gave an emphatic ‘No’ to my question. Taking that to heart, I lost all interest in church.
It wasn’t really until I Ieft Niagara Falls and began my Cornell years that I actually completed the process and abandoned religion all together. I did flirt with becoming Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist during my long agnostic stage. In fact, at Cornell I was often assumed to be Jewish and was invited to join Jewish fraternities! Enjoying this confusion, occassionally I wore a kappa. Reminiscent of family history, I used to say that I would switch religious dogma allegiance on a dime, if loving someone made it pragmatic. That never happened and at some point atheism set in, and has more or less continued to develop in an almost militant manner, as I have both experienced and read about the endless acts of violence and hatred committed in the name of one “chosen” group or another.
As a gay person with a radical analysis of social sexual organization, one would have to be seriously retarded not to be aware of the role of the three Ibrahimic in perpetuating hypocrisy around everything to do with human sexuality, even more so when it comes to homosexuality. William Blake more or less characterizes Jesus as a boy anarchist. Certainly an intriguing concept and one that sort of rings true when you consider the “last supper” wall mural from the Catacombe di San Domitilla. These images are presented in approximate chronological order, but divided into two groupings. First the serious ‘respectable’ works of art, even if some seem rather absurd and ridiculous. The rest are pure kitch except to the gullible ‘believers’. These images of Jesus are rather ‘special’ – as Church Lady might say! Not a very large gallery, but worth checking out.