#it turns those trite mantras inside out and shakes out the entrails and says ''look into these and tell me what they say about you''

[skin-slave]

Piss Christ is just to make conservatives mad. It's not that deep lmao

I get it, anon. I truly do. When I was a kid, it was included in so many sermons. It was held up as an example of the disrespect of the secular world and of "degenerate art." (I don't recall how it was phrased, but there were literal burnings during my attendance. Call a spade a spade.) And I loved it. I loved how much they hated it. I wanted to see their power crack, to be free of their control. And to hurt them back, bc sometimes the wounded lash out.

But I was wrong. Does it have that effect? Of course. Is that the point of the piece? No. The artist created it from a place of belief. It was intended to be Christian art.

It asks questions that are worth asking.

Is that small, mass-produced plastic crucifix a holy object? It's a piece of plastic, shaped and dyed overseas by ppl who were likely not believers. Does that matter? At what point between assembly line and bookstore shelf does it become more than a piece of plastic?

Is it the image it's formed into? How much authority does that give it? Has the image been elevated to something near (if not directly) idolatry? Is it as important as faith? Is it more important?

Is that what faith is? A little plastic crucifix to put on the wall? Something with a price tag? Something simple and easy? Something to set this particular household, this family, apart from the heathens next door?

Is it an expression, or a performance? Do we know the difference?

Why is this little plastic crucifix something to be protected, while children eat cross-shaped chocolates at Easter? While you throw forgotten drawings of the crosses on the hill into the trash when Sunday school is over? While we print it on t-shirts to wear to Wal-Mart, on bumper stickers to fade and peel off? On tracts to be crumpled in pockets and dropped on the ground? What makes the treatment of this image, in this situation, different from the way it's treated by other believers?

Was Jesus' physical body also holy? Are you prepared to think of him as a man who picked food from between his teeth, and pissed, and got BO and morning wood? Is being in a body so shameful that you can't accept his body as it was? Is the idea of perfection so important that rejecting him as a man is justified? Is that what faith is?

How many believers have insisted that they would kneel at the cross? Would they, really? Could a person who can't handle a photograph stand to kneel in the mud made from his sweat, blood and piss? Could a person who collects sterile plastic crucifixes stomach the smell? Could a modern believer watch a man die, screaming blasphemy while speedrunning the stages of grief?

Are those ppl - the dirty and ugly and needy and angry and dying and blasphemous - "the least of these"? If not them, then who? If not them, then why?

How many, who would right now be claiming that their faith is strong enough to do that, have no idea wtf they're promising? How many pay a nurse to bathe their elderly parents? How many cross the street to avoid ppl who haven't bathed in a while? How many look down on ppl who sweat for a living, who do the unglamorous work, who can never quite get the smell of diesel or fryer oil off of their hands? How many expect others to cover up scars, birthmarks, deformities, disabilities and illnesses? How many are impatient with those who need help, who are living inside of their pain, who blame god?

The piece is uncomfortable bc it juxtaposes something clean and convenient with something gross and messy. It's uncomfortable, so ppl sent the artist death threats. It's uncomfortable, so ppl committed vandalism in museums. It's uncomfortable, so ppl printed off copies of it to burn in effigy.

Is that what faith is?