c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) In a culture fueled by the endless friction of provocation and outrage, the “Jesus cartoons” were inevitable.
Eager to cause a stir, a student newspaper at the University of Oregon, The Insurgent, published a series of inflammatory cartoons in March lampooning _ or worse _ Jesus Christ and the Resurrection.
The cartoons, most of which were gleefully obscene, were apparently unleashed in response to the decision by a competitor, The Oregon Commentator, to publish the Muhammad caricatures unveiled last September by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The Insurgent’s pretense, I suppose, was to “stir up discourse” and to show Christians how it feels to have your religion and deity degraded.
The two sets of cartoons are readily accessible online. I found the Muhammad panels surprisingly inventive and the Jesus drawings painfully juvenile, but I’m grading them only on graphic impact, not on the seriousness with which the images sought to insult or incite the more thin-skinned practitioners of the faiths.
The Danish Muhammad cartoons sparked deadly riots and embassies were firebombed in the Muslim world. The Insurgent’s mockery _ much of which has a sexual subtext _ sparked eruptions of hot air from Bill O’Reilly and the Catholic League (“one of the most obscene assaults on Christianity I have ever seen,” William Donohue complained to UO President Dave Frohnmayer) and two grievances against the monthly paper by university students.
Both grievances were rejected by the school _ The Insurgent and The Oregon Commentator are funded by $33,000 in mandatory student fees, three-tenths of 1 percent of the student government budget.
“The group did not violate state law, university rules or policies,” said David Goward, the programs administrator for the Associated Students of the University of Oregon (ASUO), which distributes funding to student groups. “If ASUO or President Frohnmayer were to sanction this group, we’d be in violation of a Supreme Court ruling and the First Amendment.”
As a Christian, Goward added, he was “deeply offended” by the Jesus cartoons, which remain a volatile subject on the campus in Eugene. “We’re having a whole new discussion that’s been needed on this campus about what speech is correct and what speech is protected,” Goward said.
As the comment trails on a dozen campus blogs make clear, much of the outrage is generated by the use/misuse of student funds or the suggestion that there is some moral equivalency in portraying Muhammad with a bomb for a turban and Jesus with an erection.
The feedback from self-professed Christians is of two minds, one unsettling, one utterly liberating.
For some Christians, the cartoons are the latest offensive in the liberal plot against America. Their anger is staggering: “These blasphemers and those who support this nonsense will be judged. … Mark my words, when their flesh is burning and the devil is laughing they will cry out to the very man they mocked.”
Another Judgment Day booster growls: “We trust in a real, living God to exact his vengeance. … For that day, we can wait patiently.”
But now and then, between the bursts of brimstone, you’ll see this: “As a Christian, I’m deeply offended by this obscene mockery of my Lord and Savior. So in response, I’m going to unleash my religion’s most powerful weapon: I forgive them.”
Or this: “As a Christian, I am _ yawn _ very upset. Actually, He can defend Himself quite well. He asked that my defense of Him is to love my enemies and forgive others. And the secret is I can’t do it, so He does it through me!”
Those are the posts that change hearts, swing the debate, and put a cool towel on the fever of the moment. Those are the posts that put rage and outrage in their place and give love its everlasting due.
(Steve Duin is a columnist for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)
KRE/PH END RNS
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