That's me in the spotlight mocking your religion*

* (with apologies to REM)

I recently posed a few thoughts about the most recent stab at Christian bashing in America entitled "My Sweet Lord". My biggest question was along the lines of "would the artist have made an Islamic companion to the piece and if so would the Lab Gallery have shown it?" Well it seems that I am not the only one who is noticing the attacks.

"MOCKING Christ has not, in years, seemed this childish – even cowardly. And no, I'm not a Christian....While the ABC refused to show the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, for fear of God knows what mayhem, it had no such fear this week of mocking Jesus, whose crucifixion is remembered today....
Chicago's School of Art Institute, meanwhile, displayed an art work showing Christ resurrected as Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, son of a Muslim-born Kenyan.
And New York's Lab Gallery unveiled a life-sized Jesus made of chocolate, anatomically accurate right down to his bared penis.
I know, it's tame stuff given what we've seen before.
Who can forget Piss Christ, the crucifix plopped in a jar of urine at the National Gallery of Victoria?
Or the Chris Ofili picture of the Virgin Mary, decorated with cow dung, which the National Gallery of Australia tried to bring in?
Or the ABC's Christmas special of 1999 – a comparison of the Sistine Chapel's religious frescoes with the paintings made by hip British artists Gilbert and George of their semen, faeces, spit and blood?
...Ask Tony Abbott, the Health Minister and a Catholic, whose reasoned arguments on an abortion pill were sniggered away by a slogan on a gloating Greens senator's T-shirt: "Get your rosaries off my ovaries."

Nor am I the only one asking if these artists would ever turn such a jaundiced eye toward these artists regarding their treatment of Islam.

"Show us your chocolate Mohammeds. Show us your Korans dipped in urine.
Where is the singer who will rip up a Koran as Marilyn Manson ripped up a Bible? Or will on television tear up a picture of Islam's most honoured preacher as Sinead O'Connor shredded one of the great Pope John Paul II?"
"It's not as if Islam doesn't threaten our artists more than does Christianity.
See only the murder of film director Theo van Gogh or the fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie or the stabbing of Rushdie's translator. Or see those deadly riots against the Mohammed cartoons.
So when I see a Western artist mock Christ, I see an artist advertising not his courage but his cowardice – by not daring to mock what would threaten him more.
I am most certainly not saying that moderate Islam should now be treated with the childish disrespect so often shown to Christianity." (emphasis mine)

However, this author went directly (to his eternal credit) after the point that I tap danced around - the blatant double standard that exists when it comes to insulting religion.

"But I am saying that more people now know there is a double standard here illustrated perfectly by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which banned acts that told jokes against Muslims but promoted ones that lampooned Christians.
It's this blatant double standard that may finally have shamed some of the usual jeerers into showing Christianity a little respect."

And then he gives us Christians hope and gives non-Christians reason for pause.

"And perhaps – just perhaps – more of us might be wakening to a truth we too long took for granted. It's no accident that we feel safer insulting Christians than trashing almost anyone else.
This is a religion that's always preached tolerance, reason and non-violence, even if too many of its followers have seemed deaf.
It's also urged us to leave the judgment of others to God (a message I ignore for professional reasons). We are the beneficiaries of that preaching, even those of us who aren't Christians.
We live in a society, founded on Christian principles, that guards our right to speak, and even to abuse things we should praise.
We can now vilify Jesus and damn priests, and risk nothing but hard looks from a soft bishop, and a job offer from The Age.
We dare all that because we do not actually fear what we condemn. We know Christians are taught not to punch our smarmy face, and we even count on it. Indeed, it is the very faith we mock that has made us so safe.
This is one reason why I, an agnostic, will today do what I do every Easter, and play Bach's divine St Matthew Passion while I sit for a while and give thanks.
I will be thanking again not only a preacher of astonishing moral clarity and courage, but one who inspired a faith that has brought us unparalleled gifts – including the freedom to create even a chocolate Jesus in this most holy of weeks." (emphasis again mine)

Thank you Mr. Bolt for this wonderful Easter gift. I will say a special prayer of thanks for you - and offer up a prayer that this attitude of yours spread throughout the world. For people like you are the hope that this world needs....hope for peace and understanding - despite our differences. Thank you again Mr. Bolt and may the God that you do not yet know bless you richly.