Bible Bashed In the Name of Art

Word of God takes a beating
July 24, 2009
Article from: The Australian

Visitors to a gallery in Scotland have been defacing the Bible in the name of art.

The Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow has invited art lovers to write their thoughts down in an open Bible on display as part of its "Made in God's Image" exhibition.

Next to the Bible lie several pens with a note saying: "If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it."

Several visitors have already taken up the offer, choosing to leave messages of abuse and obscenity rather than support for the words of God.

"This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all," one message read.

Another scrawled over the first page of Genesis: "I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this."

Others wrote: "The Gospel According to Luke Skywalker", "F... the Bible" and "Fascist God".
The exhibition, which also includes a woman ripping pages from a Bible and stuffing them into her underwear, has outraged the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland.

But the gallery's artist in residence, Anthony Schrag, is unrepentant. "Any offensive things that have been written are not the point of the work," he said.

"It was an open gesture. Are those who say they are upset offended by the things that people write, or just by the very notion that someone should write on a Bible? If we are to open up the Bible for discussion, surely we have to invite people to speak out."

The Metropolitan Community Church proposed the exhibition as a way of reclaiming the Bible as a sacred text.

AAP

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