Torture Porn

by digby

I just happened upon a few minutes of the international “Praise-a-thon” on cable and noticed that each song is accompanied by these videos of a bloodied, nearly naked Jesus on the cross (with a very prominent package) strenuously writhing in horrible pain. I realize that the crucifixion is the central image of Christian theology, but this “movie” strikes me a gratuitously violent and sexual, even by Mel Gibson’s standards. The people in the audience were overwrought and clearly ecstatic — but who knows where the line between spiritual and sexual ecstasy begins and ends with images like that?

There is some deeply creepy, psychosexual stuff happening in fundamentalist religion. The Christian moralists in our culture seem to be addicted to torture.

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