So many Jesuses, so little time
Wasting My Youth in Prague part 8
How many times have you seen Jesus being tortured on the same day? Think about it. Five, perhaps? Ten? Twenty?
Well, here in the Czech Republic I have had days where I saw hundreds of Jesuses being tortured. Check that, thousands.
I have seen Jesus being tortured in churches. I’ve seen him tortured in cathedrals. At one point our instructors took us to a museum, an entire wing of which was largely dedicated to medieval Jesus torture art—in one large room, literally hundreds of statues, carvings and paintings of Jesus dying an agonising, albeit temporary, death upon the cross. We have visited cemeteries where there are huge sections of golden Jesuses nailed to golden crosses, suffering as only our Lord Jesus Christ can suffer.
The medieval mind fetishised the death of Jesus to an unbelievable extent. I suspect the artists who created these works were in a competition to inflict as much misery on the poor bastard as possible, rendering his torture as graphically as their talents would allow. Squealing in agony, face contorted in pain, great rivulets of blood flowing all over his body—damn, that Jesus is in a world o’ pain.
Looking at several hundred tortured Jesuses at the same time is not unlike watching several hundred sumo matches. At first, it’s just humungous Japanese guys colliding with each other. Then you start to notice the details.
For alas, no two depictions of Jesus’ suffering are exactly alike. Note how this Jesus appears to have blood running out of his ear. Or how the wounds on that Jesus are particularly gaping.
Alright! I’ll become a Christian! Just stop torturing Jesus, already!
At this point, I have had it up to here with Jesus being tortured. If I never see Jesus being tortured again as long as I live, that will still be too soon.
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A clarification is in order. Some Czech friends saw last week’s column and disagree with my statement that Americans are treated especially poorly here. They assure me that Germans are treated much worse than Americans.
Like many neighbouring peoples in Europe, the Czechs and Germans have had their fair share of historical conflicts. Most recently, Czechoslovakia was the first nation to be occupied by Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated. There are still people in the Czech Republic who remember the atrocities of the Nazis, such as the extermination of over 70,000 Czech Jews and the total annihilation of two Czech villages.
Resentments from World War II remain strong for many Czechs. In fact, a few weeks ago my class saw new monuments to those killed in the German occupation being built in a small town not far from the German border. If these sorts of monuments are still going up in 2001, these peoples must still be a far cry from true reconciliation.
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I was surprised to learn that the communist party in the Czech Republic still gets about 20 per cent of the popular vote. Apparently a wide range of people vote communist, especially older people (20 per cent of the Czech population is retired) and urban dwellers for whom continued rent control and low property taxes are important (one of our instructors pays about $20 Cdn per year in property taxes on his house).
Communism may be over here, but it is important to remember that the Czech Republic is a nation that has gone from communist to socialist. Nations cannot change overnight, and the urge to preserve some of the positive aspects of the old order—such as free post-secondary education and a subsidised national public transit system—is strong.
In the meantime, there is a popular saying among the young Czechs: “Real change cannot happen until the death of the older generation.” Needless to say, there is one hell of a generation gap in this country.
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Another positive hold-over from the old communist order is that there are many more atheists in the Czech Republic than in Canada or the United States. Although Prague is crammed with historical churches and cathedrals, it is heartening to see that very few people actually worship in them anymore.
In Canada, when I tell someone I’m an atheist the response is often concern, bemusement, or a request to justify why I would hold such an outrageous belief. Here in the Czech Republic, the response is usually “Oh yeah, me too.”
A compelling argument for marrying a Czech, to be sure. It would be a simple ceremony, held in a non-religious environment such as a hyperbaric chamber or a large vat of mayonnaise. And please leave your tortured Jesuses at home. •
Originally published in The Peak, July 9 2001.
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Letter published in The Peak, July 23 2001:
“Glen offends”
I recently read Glen Callender’s article “So many Jesuses, so little time”. I can only assume that Mr. Callender’s total lack of respect for a Being that many literally consider to be God is a result of poor education and genuine ignorance rather than any real mean-spiritedness.
As a self-proclaimed atheist, Mr. Callender has, I hope, considered many theological and philosophical options and concluded that religion is not for him. This is just fine. Unfortunately, he demonstrates a profound lack of philosophical and spiritual maturity in satirising the ancient religious iconography and culture of the Czech Republic and the world’s vast Christian population.
Callender’s use of profanity in connection with the name of Jesus Christ is exceedingly offensive to me and, I am certain, many others of a variety of religious beliefs.
The self-righteous, mocking attitude of the article is typical of many young, so-called atheists, who see atheism as a simple thumbing-of-the nose at traditional culture rather than a considered, complex, philosophical choice. Such disrespect for the religious beliefs and religious art practices of others is the sign of an ignorant and thoughtless person. I am disappointed that The Peak would give vent to such immature gibbering.
Respect and reverence for all religious and philosophical traditions is at the heart of democratic civil society which makes student newspapers possible.
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