Brigham Young University 'Censors' Christian Artwork

It is unsurprising that the bookstore at the Mormon-owned Brigham Young University would routinely deem certain materials too controversial to stock. But this week, "too controversial" refers not to Andre Serrano's "Piss Christ" or David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire In My Belly," but to "One Nation Under God," the work of a conservative, Christian artist. Painter Jon McNaughton's piece, which depicts Jesus holding up a scroll of the United States Constitution as American historical figures look on, was taken off the shelves of the Provo, Utah school's bookstore last week amid cries of "censorship."

The Salt Lake Tribune discussed the school's action with BYU spokesperson Carri Jenkins, who noted: "The primary focus of the bookstore is to sell religious art...This painting has received some negative feedback in the past." McNaughton responded by removing the rest of his work from the bookstore, saying that the school had caved to "liberals" and that "It's only offensive to people who do not believe the Constitution is divinely inspired."

Comments

[POPE INNOCENT]

01:04 PM on 06/04/2011

They are wrong always wrong.

A non-Mormon mother writes about her and her children's experience living in Utah. Life in Utah is often difficult for non-Mormons with young children. Mormon640

Rare is that person who will say, "I’ll admit I was wrong all those years and I’ll face the consequences of those that will scorn, shun and ridicule me”. Mormon636

Why Mormons believe in Big Foot. Mormon637

Book of Mormon and recent (Aug. 2010) DNA studies. Mormon601

Strange new advertising claiming Mormons are normal. What happened to, "We are a peculiar people?" Mormon629

Mormon Church in Africa. Mormon624

The Mormon Church is growing its Internet presence by using hundreds of web sites and millions of dollars in Google advertising. Mormon625

A Family Church? Sons and daughters of Bishops give their perspective. Mormon618

Amelia's Palace - The mansion built for Brigham Young's favorite wife. Mormon610

[John Lorz]

09:41 AM on 05/29/2011

"McNaughton responded by removing the rest of his work from the bookstore, saying that the school had caved to 'liberals' and that 'It's only offensive to people who do not believe the Constitution is divinely inspired.'"

True. BYU is just drowning in "liberals!" Haha!

I don't believe the Constitution is divinely inspired and I don't object to McNaughton's kitsch.

I think we need to have a public discourse over this nonsense, and McNaughton helps us chat about the ridiculous nature of religious myth. I also believe comparative religion should be taught in school: it would be the fastest way of showing young people how insipid religious beliefs really are.

[John Roman]

07:33 AM on 05/12/2011

It's paintings like that that give art a bad name. But removing it?? "It had received some negative feedback"...are you kidding? That's just wrong.

[John Lorz]

09:37 AM on 05/29/2011

Welcome to the peculiar Mormonism that many of us grew up in.

[revko]

03:18 AM on 05/07/2011

Wow... saw the painting

Yikes

Maybe his next project could be Jesus playing poker with cigar smoking dogs

[1jdgriff]

06:19 PM on 05/28/2011

LOL. . .

[Mike169]

01:30 PM on 05/06/2011

The Salt Lake Tribune discussed the school's action with BYU spokesperson Carri Jenkins, who noted: "The primary focus of the bookstore is to sell religious art..." What kind of college bookstore sell religious art? If this is supposed to be religious art then why can't they sell it?

[Thomas Bradley]

12:24 PM on 05/04/2011

It is conceivable they yanked the painting for no other reason than because it is creepily, cheesily bad. Did you LOOK at that thing?!?!?!

[Rev David Huber]

11:36 AM on 05/04/2011

Why would anyone think the constitution was divinely inspired, anyway? (don't asnwer that - it was purely rhetorical. I know the many awful reasons for it, sadly).

I find little more offensive to my faith than the idiots who drape Jesus in the US flag in one way or another (I remember some "Christian" place selling crosses painted in the stars and stripes after 9-11) such as this idiot's "artwork", Kinkade's crap, or other idolatrous garbage that comes from the American Evangelical right that equate Jesus with America.

It's totally weird, it creeps me out, and it also enrages me because it's such a false use o

[Johan Langenaeker Bracko]

10:41 AM on 05/04/2011

"the painting received some negative feedback"... Well, maybe the bookstore merely decided to some "quality control"?

[Mike169]

01:26 PM on 05/06/2011

Jesus, my friend, defines quality...or was it quantity?

[hillplus]

09:44 AM on 05/04/2011

The article says that McNaughton removed his art, Not the University. Which is it? Why the misleading title, as if I need to ask?

[Joseph Clegg]

10:26 AM on 05/04/2011

Take a moment to understand what was written before you respond. It'll save you some embarrassment later on.

"Painter Jon McNaughton's piece, which depicts Jesus holding up a scroll of the United States Constitution as American historical figures look on, was taken off the shelves of the Provo, Utah school's bookstore last week amid cries of "censorship." "

"McNaughton responded by removing the rest of his work from the bookstore,"

[Johan Langenaeker Bracko]

09:32 AM on 05/04/2011

It is good that this has been removed, but I would not call this "censoring", I see it more as "quality control". It's just a horrible painting. No self-respecting art lover, let alone art gallery, would want this to be on display.

[AZreb]

08:32 AM on 05/04/2011

Whoopsy - BYU should be a little more careful in what they censor - after all, Huntsman and Romney may be up for president and it would not be good for them to be deemed such radicals when it comes to censoring art or literature.

[Carpetbagger 68]

09:32 AM on 05/04/2011

Defining this paint-by-numbers abomination as art would be akin to defining Glenn Beck's books as literature.

[AZreb]

09:58 PM on 05/04/2011

Remember - "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - and there are some "masters" in the art world that some like, some don't like.

[HRH]

12:09 PM on 05/04/2011

Do they censor books that mention Mountain Meadows, also, too?

[AZreb]

09:56 PM on 05/04/2011

They're not too happy about those books and do censor some literature that is not complimentary to the LDS. You won't find much about "blood atonement" in the book choices.

[1jdgriff]

06:25 PM on 05/28/2011

Yes, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was one extremely horrible black-eye for the LDS Church. The Church is quick to point out it's years of being persecuted, but don't want people to know about the terrible acts in that meadow. They have spent years trying to cover-up the atrocity.

[Joseph Clegg]

07:14 PM on 05/03/2011

Why has the HuffPo suddenly become the great Defender of Christian artwork or conservative Christian artists? This is clearly a jab at Brigham Young University for the sake of a jab, and nothing else. This article demonstrably underscores the empty, unproductive and conflicting rhetoric employed by the author and HuffPo.

[Bob Kellerman]

04:39 AM on 05/04/2011

NO JAB at the mormon machine and its clones is really too much, until the leaders who were raised before TV realize that the Facebook generation is not so insular as they, and won't put up with the hating of Gays, political interference, etc, for much longer.

TIME FOR SOME "REVELATIONS" followed by some atonement for the lying and underhanded methods used on Prop 8, etc

You probably swallowed the PR event about the basketball player -- ENTIRELY manufactured to show how mormons can redeem Negroes.

BUT THAT CRAP WAS NOT ART, JUST LAUGHABLE (even in comparison to the mormon thing) CRAP

[Joseph Clegg]

10:53 AM on 05/04/2011

Mr. Kellerman, thank you for clear example of the empty rhetoric of which I was speaking. Your inflammatory remarks do nothing to contribute to the discussion. Every point you make is a straw man fallacy.

The HuffPo article mentions nothing of gays, prop 8, lying, underhanded methods, PR, basketball, "Negroes" (your choice of word is extremely racist and demonstrates a dilapidated and crumbling perspective), Facebook, leadership of the LDS Church, and more. You have pulled your points out of thin air, and they have just as much substance. Yet somehow you seem to think that by throwing your points together as if you went to the kitchen sink to find them, and then you put your "points" together to rarely form complete sentences, you think that you are actually contributing to the discussion and your comment merits some intelligent response. Therefore, since you cannot seem to articulate a comprehensible or intelligent response to the article or my comment, and since you publicly demonstrate an inability to address the issue at hand, your response merits no attention.

[Carpetbagger 68]

09:35 AM on 05/04/2011

I think the story was to show that, despite the right's decades long drone telling us that Christian thought is under attack by the left, the right does a pretty good job of attacking themselves when religious ideologies aren't precisely in line.

[McAttorney]

01:41 PM on 05/03/2011

I just spoke with a salamander and he agrees with the BYU decision.

[Carpetbagger 68]

09:36 AM on 05/04/2011

I did that once. We had both been eating mushrooms.

[OutAtFirst]

10:49 AM on 05/04/2011

It's better than eating a salamander and talking to mushrooms.

[JPNuttall]

12:45 PM on 05/03/2011

Everybody breathe deep and take a look at the embarrassingly silly crap this guy paints. Are you equally offended that the pre-censored this one, and never put it in the store to begin with?

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=379

[CigarGod]

01:46 PM on 05/03/2011

The guy needs to study what Reagan did to the debt in this country.
Quadrupled it.

[Carpetbagger 68]

09:45 AM on 05/04/2011

My favorite quote about Reagan (wish I remembered who said it):

"President Reagan left us a tremendous legacy, for which we will be forever indebted."

[Carpetbagger 68]

09:42 AM on 05/04/2011

It's worse than silly crap. It's as if he ate two dozen tubes of oil paint, and the entire collection of Glenn Beck's writings, and threw up the whole festering mess onto a canvas made of the foreskins of a thousand violated alterboys.

They problem is that this guy's drivel will be seen as superior to the Sistene Chapel by the critics hooked on Fox News, the 700 Club, and the Home Shopping Network.

[StanMann]

11:28 AM on 05/03/2011

John of Leiden
John Leidne became a charismatic leader who was widely revered by his followers. According to his own testimony, he went to the German city of Münster, arriving in 1533, because he had heard there were inspired preachers there. He sent for Jan Matthys, who had baptized him, to come. After his arrival Matthys – recognized as a prophet – became the principal leader in the city. Following a failed military attempt on Easter Sunday 1534, in which Matthys died, John of Leiden became King of Münster* (***smilar to the contol of political and religous of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young) until its fall in June of 1535. The conventional view is that he set up in Münster a polygamous theocracy (**** very like Mormonsim), best known for a law John passed stating that any unmarried woman must accept the first or any requests for a husband, with the result that men competed to acquire the most wives. Some sources report that John himself took sixteen wives aside from his "Queen" Divara van Haarlem, and that he publicly beheaded*** (also a belife in Mormonism, see Real Mormon History) one of his wives, Elisabeth Wandscherer, after she rebelled against his authority. -- source Wikki with personal notes -- .

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