Female Image of Crucifixion Challenges Perceptions of God
Episcopal News Service. June 8, 1995 [95-1141]
Patrick Getlein, Managing editor of The Virginia Episcopalian, the newspaper of the Diocese of Virginia.
(ENS) On Transfiguration Sunday, Feb. 26, the image of a woman being crucified, Christa, joined the other items hanging in the sanctuary of Holy Comforter Church in Richmond, Virginia.
The sculpture was created by internationally known artist Edwina Sandys -- granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill -- in 1975 to commemorate the United Nations' Decade of Women. But it gained greater religious significance when it crossed the line between art and iconography and was displayed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in 1984. The image gained wide publicity and prompted reactions from leaders within the Episcopal Church.
Then-suffragan bishop of New York Walter Dennis denounced the sculpture as a "desecration" of Christian symbols. New York's diocesan bishop Paul Moore said the sculpture "made me think" and was a shocking counterpoint to "years of worshiping before the male figure of Christ."
After more than a decade of upheaval in the Church -- AIDS, the continuing struggle over the ordination of women, blessing same-sex relationships, the ordination of homosexuals, the persistence of racism -- the quiet response of Holy Comforter's parishioners may be a barometer for the church's widening vision of itself.
"There's a sense of beauty and pain that comes through the sculpture, and I think that is where the muted response is coming from," says the Rev. Bruce Gray, Holy Comforter's interim rector.
Christa's presence at Holy Comforter, he says, is an "opportunity to expand our understanding of Jesus' place in the church and what the crucifixion means to us and to all humanity... and how the role of women is understood in the life of the Church."
Such was the case for Bunny Adams, a Holy Comforter parishioner, who says that seeing Christa allowed her to overcome a stunted relationship with Christ.
"It just hit me with an enormous impact," Adams said. "I've spent a good part of my adult life getting around the issues about whether a man can nurture or not," she added. "The concept of a heavenly father did not conjure images of nurturing or protection."
For Adams, seeing Christa, which she personifies as "she" in referring to the sculpture, allowed her to build a bridge between what she had always intellectualized as the nurturing image of Christ and her own feelings of nurturing and love borne out of motherhood. The male image of Christ "only lifted me to a certain level," she said. "I couldn't feel the nurturing love of Christ until I saw Christa."
Yet Adams stops short of suggesting that Christa replaces the historical figure of Jesus crucified. "It's just a new level of understanding. Once I make these connections then that's a whole new room of my spiritual journey to be in." And she adds that even her sons understand.
Though Gray says that most of the congregation has welcomed Christa with a "cautious reaction," and suggests that one reason might be the planning and preparation that went into the decision to bring the sculpture to the church, at least one parishioner has made his opposition known.
"I see Christa as a challenge to my faith," says Dan Escalera. "Is this a graven idol? Is this a symbol of another God before me? Or is this a way to demonstrate a notion that someone can use to bring themselves closer to what we consider to be God?"
Though he seems to have arrived at the latter position in the weeks since the sculpture was first suspended in the sanctuary, Escalera wishes it had been displayed elsewhere.
"Christa is an excellent piece of art, but a piece of art belongs in a gallery. ... Because of the inference, I don't believe it belongs in a sanctuary," he says.
"I like Christa just where she is," says Adams, though she admits the sculpture "is not for everyone."
On loan from the Martha Mabey Gallery in Richmond, the 4-foot bronze figure, mounted on a plexiglass cross, is suspended on the Gospel side of the sanctuary, above the altar rail, tucked behind an outcropping of organ pipes and is barely visible to the uninitiated.
For Gray, placement of Christa was a critical decision in bringing the sculpture to the church. Originally the vestry wanted to hang Christa from the rood beam directly above the altar, but they decided to place it mostly hidden from direct view.
"We put it there so that those who might be bothered by it would not have to see it while they worshiped," Gray said. But the decision to put it in the sanctuary was easy. "It's not to be worshiped and not to take the place of the cross," Gray said, "but if we put it in the parish hall it would not have had the impact."
Placing it in the sanctuary, he says, "increases the power of the impact," and changing anyone's theology "was never our intention."
Shortly after Christa went up in the church, Escalera wrote a three-page letter to Gray outlining his position. It is the only such letter concerning the sculpture Gray has received.
In his letter, Escalera criticized the sermon delivered by the Rev. Sue Eaves the day Christa was unveiled. She called the image of "the female Christ hanging in this church for the first time" an "icon" and told the congregation about two other icons she has in her office: an image of Mary holding her infant Jesus and "an icon of Archbishop Romero... comforting a Salvadoran child on his knee."
"Either she is trying to elevate the icons in her office to the same reverence we attribute to the crucifix or she is lowering the reverence of the crucifix to an icon," Escalera wrote. "Leave my religion alone."
Gray wrote back, "God won't leave our faith alone," and that, for Escalera, is what has turned the process into a challenge. "I'm not going to take my ball and bat and go elsewhere," Escalera says. He continues to serve as a lay Eucharistic minister, distributing the sacraments under the feet of Christa, who keeps silent watch overhead.
"I'm not going to put any more credence on it as a figurehead of our faith than as a sculpture or a piece of art," he says. But "if it is helpful to someone, I'm not going to say take it down. If it has brought someone closer to God, then it has achieved what it was intended to do."
Still, he does look forward to Pentecost when the sculpture will be removed. "I think it will remove a potential fester, a burr under the saddle, if you will."
As for Adams, now that the connection to Jesus has been made and her faith made stronger, the sculpture's impending departure is of no consequence. When Christa leaves, she says, "that [connection] will not leave."