Chocolate Jesus comparison is weird not offensive

Whoa, my earlier column on the debate surrounding Cosimo Cavallero’s life-size, milk… Whoa, my earlier column on the debate surrounding Cosimo Cavallero’s life-size, milk chocolate, nude sculpture of Jesus sure garnered a lot of feedback. In large part, the feedback came from offended readers who sympathized with the outrage of the conservative Catholic groups.

The most common retort among these replies was the proposed analogy that I should imagine having my own mother’s image at the mercy of some unscrupulous chocolate sculptor. And supposedly this would make me identify with the kind of roaring outrage that certain Catholic groups unleashed upon the would-be exhibitors of Cavallero’s chocolate Jesus.

If someone really wants to go to the trouble of designing and crafting a life-size sculpture of my naked mother out of milk chocolate, that person can go right ahead. It would just be a strange thing to do, and wouldn’t really be an apt analogy to the chocolate Jesus at all. The glaring difference is simple: The last time I checked, my mother is not an instantly recognizable, internationally renowned religious icon. If she were, well, then my life would be quite different right now. In that scenario, I would just accept it if people started appropriating her image for whatever means, because that’s simply what tends to happen when you’re as popular as Jesus.

But given that she is indeed not a public figure by any means, if one were to make a naked, chocolaty likeness of her, there would be no universal meaning in such an art piece as there exists in Cavallero’s chocolate Jesus; a sculpture of her would only read as the form of some random naked woman to virtually anyone who saw it.

With Jesus you have a completely different story, because everybody knows Jesus. He is indisputably the biggest icon in the Western World – his image embodies something or other to just about anyone, Christian or non-Christian, and thus he is very much part of the public domain. That is why he is such a temptingly ample subject for artful appropriation.

This brings me to what I really want to say: Jesus Christ and the other big-time prophets – being such universal figures of historical and cultural consequence – are irrevocably public domain, and for the sake of true religious (and irreligious) freedom, should stay that way.

Unfortunately, the backlash over episodes like the chocolate Jesus and (especially) the row over the Danish Mohammed cartoons have bolstered movements in support of anti-blasphemy laws. Earlier this month, the generally worthless U.N. Human Rights Council had its arm twisted enough by the Organization of the Islamic Council that it passed a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion” and voicing support for instituting laws that would protect religious groups from “hurtful” or defamatory remarks of any kind.

All this is really more a matter of numbers than of principle. When it comes down to it, the backing for the demand of respect that major religions claim ultimately comes from their sheer power in numbers. Indeed, when you get down to the level of small religions, you can easily call them “cults,” and they won’t be accorded nearly as much deference as the big boys. Or as the writer Tom Wolfe once quipped, “A cult is a religion with no political power.”

To illustrate this safely, I will use a pretty universally unpopular faith as an example. Consider Scientology, that rather small, though vocal, religious group/cult that is widely regarded as a laughing stock across the United States. Not to say that it isn’t deserving of that status, as goofy and transparently shady as Scientology is. But relatively few people have any qualms about criticizing or mocking Scientology, as opposed to skewering a major religion. That in part has to do with the fact that it doesn’t have a large, established membership, as of yet. If Scientology were to ever gain a following comparable to that of any established major religion (God forbid, figuratively), I can bet you that people would get into so much more hot water for daring to criticize the gospel of Dianetics.

Some religious groups today seem fundamentally confused with what being “tolerant” of a religion is supposed to mean, and will assert that any statement which displeases their religious sensitivities is a breach of religious tolerance ethics. But the real breach is making such anti-blasphemy assertions. Tolerance here simply means that one is OK with allowing whatever religious practices and beliefs people want to follow. It shouldn’t require the silencing of criticisms of said beliefs. Religious people should be likewise free to bitch about secularism whenever they want, and they do. Beside, if right-wing religious groups were ready to defend a high school kid’s right to say “Bong hits 4 Jesus,” surely they can find room in their hearts for a chocolate Christ.

Post your feedback on www.pittnews.com or e-mail Konrad at klk27@pitt.edu.