The truth of the matter is that Christ, and Christians, are completely and totally fair game when it comes to satire, representation, mis-representation, and just plain ol’ blasphemy. And, that’s alright. As a Christian, I don’t like it when a crucifix is submerged in urine, and it is called art. But, hey, we’ve gone through the Enlightenment, live in a Modern (and increasingly Post-Modern) cultural milieu, and recognize the right to people’s freedom of speech.

What we don’t do is bully people into giving unwarranted apologies, kill people, or cry about it. That’s why I think it is important to document some of those incidents that seperate Christians and Muslims in their response to criticism, satire, and provocation:

Madonna Crucified

In Madonna’s latest “Confessions” tour, she is mock crucified on stage, while wearing a crown of thorns - something that Christian’s have responded to with outrage and widespread violence, even burning effigies of the pop singer largely ignored:

Madonna, in a statement made as the Confessions tour ended in Japan today, said: “There seems to be many misinterpretations about my appearance on the cross and I wanted to explain it myself once and for all.

“It is no different than a person wearing a cross or ‘taking up the cross’ as it says in the Bible. My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole.”

She added, “I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing.”

A lot of people seem to think that they know what Jesus would be doing if here were “alive today” (another misunderstanding of Christian theology, by the way).

Annika had a good response to Madonna’s latest attempt at boosting record sales through free publicity:

If Madonna actually had a pair she would risk a fatwa by insulting people who would kill her in a heatbeat instead of ridiculing Roman Catholics who are so used to it by now that we don’t even bat an eyelash.

See the photo she has of Madonna at the link, and another one here.

And, in related news, the crucifixion scene might make it onto prime time television. Can’t wait to see the riots after that one.

South Park on Mohammed

In a completly antithetical piece of news, the creators/writers of the cartoon South Park have stated the following on lampooning Islam or Mohammed:

“That’s where we kind of agree with some of the people who’ve criticized our show,” Stone says. “Because it really is open season on Jesus. We can do whatever we want to Jesus, and we have. We’ve had him say bad words. We’ve had him shoot a gun. We’ve had him kill people. We can do whatever we want. But Mohammed, we couldn’t just show a simple image.”

During the part of the show where Mohammed was to be depicted — benignly, Stone and Parker say — the show ran a black screen that read: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.”

Other networks took a similar course, refusing to air images of Mohammed — even when reporting on the Denmark cartoon riots — claiming they were refraining because they’re religiously tolerant, the South Park creators say.

“No you’re not,” Stone retorts. “You’re afraid of getting blown up. That’s what you’re afraid of. Comedy Central copped to that, you know: ‘We’re afraid of getting blown up.’”

The episode in which the writers wanted to depict Mohammed also:

shows a cartoon (supposedly created by al Qaeda) in which Jesus defecates on President Bush.

But, hey…that’s cool. No rioting here.

(via Instapundit)

German Opera

Religious fears force off opera

A Berlin opera company cancelled a Mozart production over security fears because it features the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus.

Come on…who are we kidding here? Is it really because it featured the severed heads of Mohammed and Jesus…or is the BBC softening the story? It has nothing to do with the severed head of Jesus - the security fears are strictly because the opera shows Mohammed decapitated. No one…and I mean no one…cares if Jesus’ is depicted decapitated. Let’s just be honest, the opera company was:

Deutsche Oper said “incalculable” security risks would be posed by staging Idomeneo.

“We know the consequences of the conflict over the (Muhammad) caricatures,” the opera company said in a statement.

The Jawa Report has the money shot - Mohammed’s bloodied head, on stage.

Girl on the Right, Hot Air, and Michelle Malkin among many others have more.

Car Dealer Jihad

I’m sure you’ve already heard this story too. A car dealer in Ohio was set to release a radio spot that declared jihad on other car dealerships, promoted “fatwa Fridays,” and promised cars that could comfortably seat 12 jihadis in the back, dealers in head to toe burqas, as well as free rubber swords for the kiddies. After being adamant that he would not pull the commercial, the owner of the dealership has now caved to pressure.

Video over at LGF of an interview between MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, and a spokeswoman from Ohio’s CAIR chapter. He basically tells it like it is, saying that it really seems like CAIR is defending radical jihadis. Well…it does.

Don’t make fun of even radical Islam…or…or…or something…

Conclusion

I can’t figure out if we need to tell the whinners to quite crying or if Christians need to get more outraged. I wouldn’t advocate bullying as a tactic, though it does seem to work. But, maybe we need to be more outraged when Christ is desecrated? After all, everyone thinks Christians are intolerant anyway…maybe we actually should be.

In the end though, I think I would just rather be tolerant of childish, bored, and redundant attacks on Christ, and Christians, content to shake my head and blow it off, as, it really is just stupid. I don’t need to cry about it, or threaten people, or hurt people, or burn effigies, or whatever. I think I can handle it. Some, though, it seems cannot.

Posted by casey on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 1:11 pm.