Choclate Jesus Uproar

Many thanks go to Heather for sending me this article:
Chocolate Jesus Exhibition Scrapped

These are the thoughts I shared on a thread...
Although I find it rather immature to see the Chocolate Jesus (My Sweet Lord) by Casimo Cavallaro as an attack on Christianity, I can in some ways understand why there are those of us -- that is, Christians -- who would find it offensive. Not everyone really likes to see reproductive organs, especially if our Savior is the bearer of such organs. This is why renaissance painters were often asked to edit their masterpieces (or, in most cases, they were edited without permission) by the church that commissioned them.

Perhaps we should look a little deeper at this situation than the superficial response that it is getting from just about everyone across the globe.

As a Christian and also as an artist, I am not offended by this sculpture and I do not see it as an attack against Christianity. Before you cry out heresy, here me out.
There is a beautiful relationship going on here with the symbolism of the chocolate. For most of people, chocolate is a candy favored by young and old. It is sweet and we would even say that we "love chocolate." I think chocolate is wonderful, personally. I also think the same thing about Jesus Christ - I love him and I think that He is wonderful. Granted, my "love" for chocolate is obliterated by my love for Christ, but that's not the point. Christ's sacrifice was meant for all, both young and old people, to bring them into a relationship with God because we are separated from God if we do not believe in Him. The sacrifice - the Crucifixion - was needed so that our sins could be atoned for.
Of course, there are those who don't believe this and find Jesus offensive. They do not favor that sort of theology, so they don't like Christianity. In the same way, however superficial, there are those who do not like chocolate, as shocking as that may seem.
More than just this... The idea of making Christ out of chocolate is beautiful because we eat chocolate. Now, we do not eat Jesus, per se -- although Catholic theology says otherwise.. I come out of a Protestant background... but this isn't about theological differences. There is a certain Christian practice called Communion that I'm sure many non-Christians are familiar with in some way. Bread represents Christ's Body and wine (or grape juice, depending on your church) represents his Blood. We are told to take and eat, and to take and drink, so that we shall never forget His Sacrifice. Could it be that the artist intended to echo this same practice in making the figure of Christ out of something that we eat?

Also, what of the nudeness of Cavallaro's depiction of a chocolate Christ? I couldn't imagine what his own personal reasons for making the piece are, let alone the nudeness. However, as someone else had pointed out, Christ was crucified naked...Jesus suffered physically, but I would say that He had also suffered further humiliation by being hung on a cross without beng covered. To the Hebrews, this was one of those types of humiliation that could have been worse than just getting killed. To cover up this fact -- indeed, by covering His body -- would be to cover up this truth. And to cover up truth is to say that it isn't important. I think that it is important, because Christ came in a human body. He came gender specific... he came as a man. Fully God and fully human.... which includes all the bits that we don't normally like to talk about.
But the human body is a wonderful, beautiful thing that God created. Do I want to see naked people all the time? No, not particularly. It is my sinful nature that wrestles me to think thoughts that I do not wish to think... it is not the naked body itself that makes me think those things. The body is not an evil thing... Sin is evil. Sin distorts, and thus far it has proven our society an unworthy adversary because our society says that a naked human body is either evil, or it is immediately connected to pornography and sex. But again, the body is not evil. God created man, and He created woman, and He said that what He had made was "good." Far be it from us to say that something God had created - to its minutest of details - is bad.

And with those thoughts shared, I am done. Do with these thoughts what you will.