When the new student show “Jonathan’s Descent,” part of Penn State Abington’s “TransMedia Narrative” program started last week, it seems no one took into consideration the controversy one of its sculptures would cause.
That sculpture is called Christus Ranae, Latin for “Frog Christ.” It’s a seven-foot cross with, yes, a frog on it.
According to Philadelphia Magazine, artist Ashaundei Smith’s frog “is made of clay, and the cross was devised from reclaimed railroad wood. There’s also a barbed-wire crown of thorns around the frog’s head, and gold leaf was used to evoke blood dripping from the wounds caused by the crucifixion.”
The work upset assorted students and PSU-Abington staffers, and “leading the charge” (amazingly) is a sociology professor at the school.
Karen Bettez Halnon helped organize a “teach-in” about the artwork on Tuesday, in which approximately 60 students and faculty participated. (The article points out that Halnon was arrested for a weird incident on a plane two years ago.)
“This is anti-Christian mockery masquerading as art,” Halnon told the magazine yesterday. “I’m a Catholic Christian, and I am extremely offended. This is anti-Christian hate speech. It’s offensive.”
“Penn State Abington prominently says and advertises and certifies itself as being ‘no place for hate,’” Halnon says. “Well, this is hateful. If we decided next month to hang up a swastika or hang a transsexual from a rope, then everybody would be crying about it. Or something from Islam. This is all part of the persecution of Christians that is going on in this country right now.”
Smith, a 34-year-old veteran of the United States Air Force, was taken aback when he heard that people were upset with his work, which he says took the better part of a year to complete.
“It’s been really surreal,” he tells Philly Mag. “A lot of people are questioning my intent. I myself profess to be a Christian, and I think the imagery is not offensive — because of my intent.” …
“It doesn’t matter what you intended,” Halnon insists. “The impact is the impact. It’s like with sexual harassment — although the gravity of this is so much greater. It doesn’t matter what your intent is when you sexually harass someone. What matters is how they feel. Similarly, once you release art out into the public, you are responsible for it, and I’m not uneducated in terms of art. I’ve seen it all at the Louvre, Prado, Prague, Boston, London, Oxford and Vatican. But I know anti-Christian sentiment when I see it.”
The school said it has no plans to remove the sculpture, and art lecturer Bill Cromar somewhat tactfully blasted Halnon’s teach-in:
I am so proud of our students and their composure at the teach-in. They resisted the pitfalls of logical fallacy, ad hominem attack, rhetorical stonewalling, reactionary emotionalism, and lack of empathy that can so easily undermine one’s position when trying to defend difficult, nuanced and contextually driven artwork.
Cromar’s right … but so is Halnon.
It’s more than a safe bet that if the frog was supposed to represent Allah, or transgenderism, or questioned sexual assault statistics, the usual suspects would not only be holding teach-ins, they’d be angrily protesting while making demands and/or occupying various campus buildings for days.
MORE: Complaint: Students had to remove ‘gang symbol’ Christian cross necklaces
MORE: Christian university must celebrate ‘panromantic’ gender identity, LGBTQ students demand
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
IMAGE: Shutterstock
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.