Christian stores boycott gay Bible guide (SMH)

Linda Morris Religious Affairs Writer

November 26, 2007

CHRISTIAN bookshops are refusing to stock copies of a new Bible study guide that challenges standard New Testament translations that describe gay sex as sinful. A US distributor, God's Word to Women, has banned the Australian publication, and withdrawn another Bible translation published by the same
NSW publishing house, Smith and Stirling, for promoting a lifestyle in contradiction of the scriptures.

Two American academics have asked that their endorsements be removed from other works by a classical greek lexicographer, Ann Nyland, because of her authorship of the gay study bible.

Australia's largest Christian retailer, Koorong, says it is unlikely to carry the Study New Testament for Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Transgender if the content proves controversial.

Mainstream Christian churches claim practising homosexuality is a sin based on several biblical verses and stories. One is the Old Testament story of Genesis, while the ancient story of Sodom is taken as exclusive support for heterosexual coupling, and Leviticus 18:22 reads: "You shall not lie with a
male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination."

In 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Timothy 1:10 Paul sets out examples of Jewish law including admonitions against fornication, idolatry and drunkenness, as well as the much-disputed word "arsenokoites" which has been taken to mean homosexuality.

But in her study guide, Dr Nyland says the word has been wrongly assumed to mean homosexual. Its range of meanings includes one who anally penetrates another, whether female or male, a rapist, a murderer, or an extortionist. When used with the meaning anal penetrator, it does not apply exclusively to males, Dr Nyland says.

The word does not appear in any Greek literary source until the poets of the Imperial period, she says, when the Greeks wrote at length on male-male sexual relationships.

The reference in Romans, and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, were about angels having sex with humans, and not about homosexual acts, she says.

Most New Testament translations are based on a lack of understanding of Greek word meaning and context, and they display a disregard for published academic research, which shows passages in earlier translations are wrong, she says.

The manager of Smith and Stirling Publishing, Portia Blakely, said the study guide was a world first and she had expected a backlash from the Christian right.

"Since we made the Gay and Lesbian Study Bible available to the public, leading evangelists who previously recommended our books have withdrawn their endorsements from all our books and Bibles on the grounds that we have produced a work that even discusses homosexuality," she said.

"The Christian right's unfounded treatment of gay and lesbian people is inexcusable bigotry which they blame on the God whom they worship."

from
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/christian-stores-boycott-gay-bible-guide/2007/11/25/1195975870483.html

Christian Humour & "Piss Christ"

"Widdle Chucky Stamford" (fundamentalist Christian ... a joke within itself) <shell__stamford@cox.net> wroteth:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject:        Jesus Christ Superstar :-)
Date:   Mon, 11 Dec 2006 10:07:01 +1100
From:   * irenic * <see...@website.com>
Newsgroups:     aus.jokes,rec.humor,alt.humor,za.humour
 http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2533708392859522492
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Rowland said "Short response: Jesus would have laughed, but the frowners/Pharisees would have tut-tutted" ... and so widdle Chucky tut-tutted .....

> You can mark me down for the "It's disgusting" column.

It got a 5 and a half star rating ...better than any fundamentalist sermoan.

It has Jesus in his underwear dancing out on a street to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" before being hit by a bus.

As a Christian I think it's funny.


> What's he going to endorse next?  That "art" work that was funded, to my
> everlasting shame as an American, by the National Acadamey of the Arts,
> and consists in a cross soaking in urine?


View "Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano A CHRISTIAN at
http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/comm544/library/images/502.html

The art critic and former Catholic nun Sister Wendy Beckett voiced her approval of Piss Christ. She explained in a television interview with Bill Moyers that she regarded the work as a statement on "what we have done to Christ" - that is, the way contemporary society has come to regard Christ and the values he represents.

Read an interview with the artist .....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shooting the Klan: An Interview with Andres Serrano

By Coco Fusco

Andres Serrano was an apparently unwilling soldier in the Culture Wars of the early '90s. Here scholar and performance artist Coco Fusco asks him what he intended to do when he made Piss Christ, what he thinks he's doing photographing the Ku Klux Klan, and how things have changed for him as a result of all the hoopla. -Eds.

It was Piss Christ, Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix immersed in his own urine, together with Robert Mapplethorpe's homoerotic images, that in 1989 set off the attack against art from the far Right. In a short period of time, Serrano was transformed from a relatively successful but reclusive New York artist and member of the collective Group Material into a celebrity/pariah under perpetual public scrutiny.

He has received death threats and hate mail and has lost grants on the one hand, and on the other has enjoyed dozens of laudatory articles and a sizeable hike in his prices. Furthermore, the fuss caused by Christian fundamentalists has hardly dimmed Serrano's fascination with religious iconography. His apartment, nestled in a semi-industrial area near downtown Brooklyn, is full of antique ecclesiastical furniture. It would give the impression of a Mediterranean antechoir were there not also numerous skulls, artworks and other unusual knick-knacks.

The combination of indirect approach to issues, cool conceptual technique and emotionally charged focus on symbols that resonate outside the vocabulary of the art world has been Serrano's trademark since he began to produce mature work in the early '80s. In his first pieces, he concentrated largely on reworking Catholic iconography in highly stylized tableaux. Later he moved into more abstract images that also touched on social and religious
taboos, using bodily fluids such as milk, menstrual blood and semen. Piss Christ emerged out of a transition between these periods and was originally part of a series in which Serrano photographed several statues, which had varied connotations, immersed in different fluids. Nonetheless, just as the artist has come to stand for the biggest controversy to rock the art world in the '80s, so has one photograph come to stand for his entire oeuvre.

Many other artists whose funding and freedom of expression were threatened by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) controversy have since made their "censorship" the subject of their work. Serrano, however, has avoided focusing on the far Right's attacks as much as possible, and has ostensibly ignored it in his recent work.

...

Coco Fusco: Your use of Catholic symbolism stands out in part because you are operating in a predominantly Protestant context. An attraction to the sensuality and the carnality that you bring out in your Catholic iconography can develop, since Protestant symbolism looks rather pale by comparison. How would it affect your work to be exhibited in a Catholic context?

Andres Serrano: I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious. I would say that there are many individuals in the Church who appreciate it and who do not have a problem with it. The best place for Piss Christ is in a church. In fact, I recently had a show in Marseilles in an actual church that also functions as an exhibition space, and the work looked great there. I think if the Vatican is smart, someday they'll collect my work.

CF: Does your interest in Catholicism have to do more with an attraction to the iconography or is it about wanting to make a social or political comment about what the Church represents?

AS: Look at my apartment. I am drawn to the symbols of the Church. I like the aesthetics of the Church. I like Church furniture. I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones. In my work, I explore my own Catholic obsessions. An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine. One of the things that always bothered me was the fundamentalist labeling of my work as "anti-Christian bigotry." As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.

CF: At the same time you have expressed concern about the Church's position on many contemporary issues.

AS: I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church. I don't go out of my way to be critical of the Church in my work, because I think that I make icons worthy of the Church. Oftentimes we love the thing we hate and vice versa. Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously.

CF: So you do see yourself carrying on a tradition of religious art?

AS: Absolutely. I am not a heretic. I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.

....

CF: Many of the performance artists whose work has been part of the NEA censorship controversy have made art and activist interventions in response to having lost grants. You have not. Your answer to having been taken up in this controversy appears to be, at least in terms of your work, to ignore it. In doing so, you diminish the importance of that judgment. Is this one more indirect move of yours, one more way of stepping around the obvious?

AS: As far as I am concerned, I wasn't going to let Jesse Helms or any other politician dictate what direction my work should take. If I didn't directly respond to it, it was my way of ignoring them and continuing my own merry way.

....

This interview originally appeared in High Performance magazine, Fall 1991.

Original CAN/API publication: September 2002


--
In our times, various ideologically dedicated groups increasingly use censorship, coercion, or propaganda to limit access to ideas, literature, and the arts that they consider threatening. p.74

Censorship, the twin brother of propaganda, is the tool of despots, of ideologues, of ayatollahs, of fanatics. p.96

Franky Schaeffer [a Christian] "Sham Pearls For Real Swine" ( Wolgemuth & Hyatt; Brentwood:1990)

Sick of SMUT????

CHRISTIAN PORNOGRAPHY!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!!

Some comic relief .....

Dick and George's Safe Sex Page Pornsite 

http://www.geocities.com/dicketgeorge/

Recovery Man's XXX Christian Porn

"All things are lawful." 1 Cor 6:12

http://www.recoveryman.com/dox/porn.htm