Storm in US over chocolate Jesus

[Hum]

A New York gallery has angered a US Catholic group with its decision 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.

Catholic League head Bill Donohue called it "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever".

The sculpture, by artist Cosimo Cavallaro, will be displayed from Monday at Manhattan's Lab Gallery.

The Catholic League, which describes itself as the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organisation, also criticised the timing of the exhibition.

"The fact that they chose Holy Week shows this is calculated, and the timing is deliberate," Mr Donohue said.

He called for a boycott of the gallery and the hotel which houses it.

The gallery's creative director, Matt Semler, said the gallery was considering its options in the wake of angry e-mails and telephone calls.

"We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offence people have taken," he said. "We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do next."

Mr Semler said the timing of the exhibition was coincidental.

Mr Cavallaro, the Canadian-born artist, is known for using food ingredients in his art, on one occasion painting a hotel room in mozzarella cheese.

He used 200 pounds (90 kg) of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth. :huh:

source

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

"We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offence people have taken," he said. "We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do next."

well thats easy, eat it.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Let's bare a few things in mind:

1) When Jesus was on the cross - the point was to openly humilliate him, ridicule him, and torture him. Death was an end result, but not the be-all-and-end-all. As such, is it not probably accurate that he be naked?

2) Does the material used in creating a sculpture have any bearing on it's validity?

Neztea:

You really are a confused young man!

[snyper]

yum....milk choclate, with a soft creamy centre.

I love how this is turning into another Islam debate :rolleyes:

[Kerm]

Which bit do the people complaining find offensive?

The fact that it's a sculpture of Jesus naked, or that it's made of chocolate?

[spacer]

Lets be real people, the only reason the catholics are getting upset over this is because it depicts a black Jesus. We all know hardcore Catholics and the idea of Jesus being black don't mix too well.

This is the only reason I can find that might explain why they are so unjustly upset. It can't be that the scultpure depicts a crucified Jesus, because then they would have to be upset and criticize pretty much 90% of all Christian artwork. Seriously, these people need to grow up.

[Mr Underhill]

This isn't even an original idea. Tom Waits wrote a song "Chocolate Jesus" almost a decade ago.

Check this out.

[Vice]

So building one out of Metal is okay, but out of chocolate is not?

[leesmithg]

I am sure that in the past ice sculptures have been made of Jesus.

Never heard of people being outraged by that.

I just hope the chocolate they do use is 'kosher' well Jesus was Jewish after all.

[XerXis]

fundamentalists are really despicable, what's wrong with nakedness. It reminds of the fuss about statues and such being naked. They even censored michelangelo's david :'(. but i guess it's not their fault, they are probably raised this way :(

[Chad]

The article mentions nothing about Islam, so there's no reason it should come up in this thread.

edited

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Again, I say that I don't THINK the issue is the chocolate, but rather the penis.

And as per my post above - this is probably how he would have been.

[theyarecomingforyou]

This chocolate Jesus is distasteful but so is a lot of modern art - it's fair game and people shouldn't get so worked up about it. Individuals that are offended should complain to the gallery themselves but I HATE it when religious groups claim to speak on behalf of the religion and its followers. They abuse their power to make political points on issues that most of their followers wouldn't have even lifted a finger about. They manipulate society and portray a set of beliefs that simply don't reflect the people they represent.

[LiGhTfast]

Melt him!!

MMMMm chocolate

[megamanXplosion]

Hey everybody have you seen Christ's balls? They're big, salty, and brown!

When you need a quick pick-me-up just stick Christ's balls in your mouth!

:D

[ipodman715]

Only in America.

[Dom]

So people who breath Jesus, talk Jesus, live Jesus, can now Eat Jesus and obviously, Sht Jesus? xD!

[Hum]

It's a rather silly debate. :laugh:

No one really knows what Christ looked like, and calling a piece of artwork 'Jesus' does not make it Him.

You could point out that 'no graven images commandment', I suppose.

Christian groups are better off to simply ignore the sculpture.

It is, in the end, just a hunk of chocolate.

[Neztea]

Yeah, Its a chocolate Jesus I suppose. Its gonna be forgotten about very soon.

*Also, did my posts in this topic pull a ninja and disappear?"

Neztea

[_bobcat_ Veteran]

It seems a rather childish reaction. They will be protesting in the street and murdering people over it soon.

Hopefully the most vocal protestors are a minority.

[Hum]

Update:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A planned Holy Week exhibition of a nude, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ was canceled Friday amid complaints from Catholics, including Cardinal Edward Egan.

The "My Sweet Lord" display was shut down by the hotel that houses the Lab Gallery in Manhattan, said Matt Semler, the gallery's creative director. Semler said he resigned after officials at the Roger Smith Hotel shut down the show.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/30/chocolate...s.ap/index.html

[curme]

Were the nails in the right place, the wrists, and not in the hands, like all of the inaccurate images suggest? The Romans crucified people naked, and I'm pretty sure Jesus had a penis. I'm sure he farted, burped, and woke-up with a morning boner as well. He was a human male. Why do Christians have a problem with history?

If it was because Jesus was a chocolate color and not white:

From the first time Christian children settle into Sunday school classrooms, an image of Jesus Christ is etched into their minds. In North America he is most often depicted as being taller than his disciples, lean, with long, flowing, light brown hair, fair skin and light-colored eyes. Familiar though this image may be, it is inherently flawed. A person with these features and physical bearing would have looked very different from everyone else in the region where Jesus lived and ministered. Surely the authors of the Bible would have mentioned so stark a contrast. On the contrary, according to the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane before the Crucifixion, Judas Iscariot had to indicate to the soldiers whom Jesus was because they could not tell him apart from his disciples. Further clouding the question of what Jesus looked like is the simple fact that nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus described, nor have any drawings of him ever been uncovered. There is the additional problem of having neither a skeleton nor other bodily remains to probe for DNA. In the absence of evidence, our images of Jesus have been left to the imagination of artists. The influences of the artists' cultures and traditions can be profound, observes Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, associate professor of world Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta. "While Western imagery is dominant, in other parts of the world he is often shown as black, Arab or Hispanic." And so the fundamental question remains: What did Jesus look like?

An answer has emerged from an exciting new field of science: forensic anthropology. Using methods similar to those police have developed to solve crimes, British scientists, assisted by Israeli archeologists, have re-created what they believe is the most accurate image (above) of the most famous face in human history.

Popular Mechanics

[NightmarE D]

Next thing you know it's going to start crying a cherry sauce

[mad_onion]

mmmmm sacrilecious

[mezoko]

I think the main problem is because its a chocolate Jesus. People usually don't go eating metal or huge blocks of ICE, but people DO eat chocolate.