The Church of Scotland said it condemned any sacrilegious act, while a spokesman for the Catholic Church said: “One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced.”
That is exactly what I was thinking as I read this story:
A Bible has been defaced with abuse and obscenities as part of a publicly-funded art exhibition that allows visitors to write comments on a copy of the text.
I'm sure the people who did this feel quite smug.
A contributor wrote on the first page of Genesis: “I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this.”
That's OK, honey. Write that in a Koran, if you can find a publicly funded place to do so; I'm sure Allah and his followers won't mind your rebuke, either. It's not like his followers will push a wall over onto you or throw you off a roof or anything.
I wish people would show genuine bravery sometimes, and not pick on the people least likely to fight back.
4 comments:
If I recall correctly, just the suggestion of a cartoon image of Allah led to weeks and months of fatwas, threats and rioting. Where are the Christians that riot? Or instead, are they the people who have jobs and don't waste their times on such exhibitions of bad taste. This, once again, is an example of why I am an art teacher rather than a pure artist. I simply do not understand art that seeks to degrade others for political purposes.
Ahhh, Jihad envy.
Of course, the fact is that the UK is officially a Christian state, and the religion of Christianity is the one that has the most effect on the culture means that the Bible is the book most people are aware of, and so is the most suitable one for a piece of work in which people are exected to interact.
Another interesting fact is that the exhibit was proposed by a Christian Church. They obviously expected people to put lots of lovely comments like "God is lovely" or "Love is lovely". However, they rather misunderstood the average Glaswegian.
It seems the exhibit was intended as an exercise in narcissism. People were asked, essentially, to write what it would make for them to not feel excluded by the Bible. What did they expect to find? (The Letter from Paul to the Sodomites, perhaps?)
It is no surprise that the cited contributions ignored the directions. (How does "disregard it all" include the writer?) People with an axe to grind found a rock on which to grind it.
I think it would have been a little more interesting to watch the reaction if the display included not only the Bible but also the Koran & Torah.
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