HEY GUNS posted:

anyway when the Beautiful Gates are opened it symbolizes God unifying with the people, since behind the gates = heaven and the nave of the church = earth. (there is in fact a whole Thing about what part of the church building symbolizes what. Rodrigo Diaz has it.) this is why they are opened for the Eucharist and the Gospel, because those are two ways God does that. This is also why they are always open during the Octave of Easter!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_doors

HEY GUNS posted:

i think a cross without a corpus is justified if we're talking about denominations that forbid decoration at all for philosophical reasons

docbeard posted:

I'm phone posting right now so quoting other posts is awkward but thanks for the replies, everyone. It's not a perspective I've ever been taught but I dig it. My own thinking is evolving in something of a different direction and I'm still trying to articulate it all in my head, though. But basically it's that it's Jesus's life, not his death, that is timeless, and not in a remote way but woven into creation from start to end. To me an empty cross is a symbol that something more powerful than death is part of the fundamental nature of things.

HopperUK posted:

God drat it docbeard this is the kind of crazy heretic talk that comes of riding the bus too long

(jk I love you)

HopperUK posted:

Seriously though, I find the symbolism very powerful when the cross is occupied and when it's empty, though when I think about the resurrection I usually think about the stone rolled away from the tomb. Harder to represent that on the wall though.

Keromaru5 posted:

There's also Christ as "the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world," which leads to the interpretation that the crucified Christ is himself the imago dei that humanity is based on.

docbeard posted:

Yeah, and that's certainly the Mennonite tradition (though as I've said before I think artistic expression always finds a way).

I'm phone posting right now so quoting other posts is awkward but thanks for the replies, everyone. It's not a perspective I've ever been taught but I dig it. My own thinking is evolving in something of a different direction and I'm still trying to articulate it all in my head, though. But basically it's that it's Jesus's life, not his death, that is timeless, and not in a remote way but woven into creation from start to end. To me an empty cross is a symbol that something more powerful than death is part of the fundamental nature of things.

I'm not trying to convince anyone, or saying that other depictions are wrong. (Just the opposite!) Just trying to express where my head is going these days.

Konstantin posted:

How do you reconcile this with the fact that the image of Christ shown most often is historically inaccurate? Not only that, but from an American perspective it concerns me when people of color are encouraged to picture the Savior as a light skinned European. I know this is unintentional, as the traditional image dates back to the Byzantines, but why continue to present information to the faithful that we know is false?

shame on an IGA posted:

I only have black saiyan Jesus displayed in my house. Representation is important.

The Belgian posted:

Pontius Pilate did nothing wrong.

quote:

My friend, Ariunaa, a Southeast Asian living in Mongolia, previously worked with me in order to facilitate the creation of a contextualized worship banner based on one of my bowl paintings (here and here). She recently emailed me about a Mongolian Christian artist that had completed a series of contextualized paintings based on Ephesians 6:10-20, where Paul describes the whole armor of God. Each picture includes a Bible verse in Mongol bichig (traditional Mongolian script).The 57 year-old artist, Tumur-Ochir Gombojav, attends church at Itgeliin Bambai (Shield of Faith) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Three years ago a friend of Tumur-Ochir's brought him to Itgeliin Bambai where he became a Christian, and as a result he now seeks to glorify God with his art. Previously he attended art school in Mongolia from 1971-1975, and later after graduation attended the School of Fine Arts Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia 1979-1986.

quote:

Our Struggle is Not Against Flesh and Blood, But Against the Powers
of This Dark World and Against the Spiritual Forces of Evil,

quote:

Be Strong In the Lord and In His Mighty Power.

quote:

Feet Fitted With the Readiness That Comes From
the Gospel of Peace (trampling the "Toad of Greed";
note metal plates[?] on boots)

Grevling posted:

Poor toads though.

HEY GUNS posted:

and lines of thought like this are what lead hegel (the real one) to envision the world itself as pervaded with christ's self-emptying crucifixion and as a "perpetual crucifixion," which may have influenced his idea of identity through negation

Mr Enderby posted:

This is actually something I think about a lot. I love the Man of Sorrows imagery, but I don't think it works in isolation. It's one part of a whole cycle of events, and you can't think about it without also remembering the Incarnation and the Resurrection. And both of those are just as eternal as the Passion.

Konstantin posted:

people of color are encouraged to picture the Savior as a light skinned European...the traditional image dates back to the Byzantines

Ynglaur posted:

Unrelated : did your username used to be HEY GAL, and if so was it a play on Hegel? If not tell me it was because I'm getting a good chuckle at it right now.

Grevling posted:

HEY GUNS posted:

it was, yes. i changed it when i was trying really hard to be a woman.

oops lol

HEY GUNS posted:

people who live near the ruins of jesuit settlements still complete more years of education than people who do not, even several hundred years after the jesuits were expelled from the spanish empire

quote:

"This paper is saying even though people were converting indigenous people to Catholicism, while they were doing that they were also teaching them skills."

Mr Enderby posted:

I love this sort of thing.

In a similar vein, here is some footage of the Zaire Use, a form of the Roman Rite with some interesting changes. Most notably, the servers all carry spears.

Konstantin posted:

How do you reconcile this with the fact that the image of Christ shown most often is historically inaccurate? Not only that, but from an American perspective it concerns me when people of color are encouraged to picture the Savior as a light skinned European. I know this is unintentional, as the traditional image dates back to the Byzantines, but why continue to present information to the faithful that we know is false?

ThingOne posted:

I got a chance to visit the Cathedral in Cusco recently and the Incan influence on the art there was strong. The painting of the Three Kings had them dressed as Inca royalty and riding hosed-up, earless llamas because the artist had no idea what a camel looked like. The Last Supper painting has them eating guinea pig and drinking chicha.

They didn't want us taking photos so I found one online.

Night10194 posted:

Thinking on all this stuff, I actually kind of like the idea of all peoples being free to depict Christ as one of them, given that his mercy and love belong to all peoples.

ThingOne posted:

Syncretism is a big thing in the mountainous areas of Peru. Our guide was a devote Catholic but whenever anything important happens he has a shaman friend of his make an offering to Pachamama as well "just in case". I got to sit in one and can post some pictures when I get home from work if people want.

ThingOne posted:

ThingOne posted:

I got a chance to visit the Cathedral in Cusco recently and the Incan influence on the art there was strong. The painting of the Three Kings had them dressed as Inca royalty and riding hosed-up, earless llamas because the artist had no idea what a camel looked like. The Last Supper painting has them eating guinea pig and drinking chicha.

They didn't want us taking photos so I found one online.

Pershing posted:

"Hi, I'm Judas...you're probably wondering how it all went wrong..."

also, what indigenous animal is that main course?

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

That's the guinea pig.

ThingOne posted:

I got to sit in one and can post some pictures when I get home from work if people want.

ThingOne posted:

I'm not going to go into too much detail because I'm not Peruvian and trying to explain somebody else's religion doesn't feel right to me. The shaman began the offering by ringing the bell and offering a prayer to Pachamama which mainly consisted of reciting the names of the various mountains of Peru. The offering consisted of flowers, grains, shells, sweets, animal products, and gold and silver foil laid on a bed of coca leaves. Before he placed each item he blew on it to send a portion of it to Pachamama and said a short prayer. Our part in the ritual was to hold three coca leaves in our left hand and make our own personal prayers before handing them to him to add to the offering. Then he wrapped it in paper and took it to be burned when the sun set. He told us they traditionally used dyed cloth but his wife makes all of his and if he burned it he'd never hear the end of it.