rather than end up in hell where “the devouring worm never dies and the fire is never quenched” (9:48). Hell evolved as a balance to heaven, as a consequence of sin and, as irrational as it seems, a consequence to not following Jesus’ path of love. A definition of hell that rings with a poignant contemporary clarity is given by Thomas Merton: “Hell is where no one has anything in common with anyone else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves” (65).
Sin has also evolved in a bewildering complexity of levels and punishments. Again from a contemporary perspective, C. S. Lewis has expressed himself eloquently on what he sees as the ultimate sin:
Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed and selfishness are really far more the result of Pride….[P]ower is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing that makes a man so superior to others as being able to move them about as toy soldiers. …The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together…. But Pride always means enmity — it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God…. Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense. (110-2)
When one contemplates the original teachings of Jesus it is bewildering to look at Christianity’s evolution over time. Paul had planted the seeds of his vision of Christianity in the Mediterranean in a little over a decade. Those seeds continued to grow and develop in spite of the official ban on the religion. Christians suffered some of their most severe persecution during the last half of the third century; then in the beginning of the fourth century the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Edict of Milan in 313. By 314 Constantine was proclaiming himself a convert and Christianity was phased in as the official religion of the Roman Empire (Frend 486-7). This remarkable chain of events began Christianity’s long reign as the religion of political power, rather than the religion to empower the poor and oppressed as Jesus had envisioned it.
Centuries and centuries passed with official Christianity structured and fine-tuned to enable the powerful and wealthy to remain so and oppress and use the poor. The ultimate perversion took place during the centuries of European colonization of the world, when in the name of Christ countless lives were lost and entire cultures destroyed. When the economic thrust changed to the mercantile and then industrial systems, Christianity was deformed to fit and bolster the concept of individual greed and a new form of exploitation. In our own time the contortions continue with new technologies such as television continually utilized to manipulate and dupe people for the techno-powerfuls’ gain and avarice in the name of Jesus.
In spite of the distortions and perversions of the teachings of Jesus, in every place and in every time there have been individuals and groups of people who have been able to live by the true teachings of Jesus — to live lives of universal love to the best of their abilities. They have been beacons of goodness to the Western world and remain so. While the gentleness and humility of Jesus has rarely found its way into the political uses of Christianity, it has created for two thousand years, and will continue to create for thousands more a personal way of love and salvation for millions of people around the world.
The dichotomy between political Christianity and personal Christianity may be best summarized by Reinhold Niebuhr:
Since the anarchy of human life is something more than the anarchy of animal existence, it cannot be checked by the forces inherent in a rational culture. The vitality, and the resulting anarchy of human existence, is the vitality of the children of God. Nothing short of the knowledge of the true God will save them from the impiety of making themselves God and the cruelty of seeing their fellow men as devils because they are involved in the same pretension. (237)
SOURCES CITED
Frend, W.H.C., The Rise of Christianity, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
`a Kempis, Thomas, The Imitation of Christ, translated by Leo Sherley-Price, New York: Dorset Press, 1952.
Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1952.
Merton, Thomas, A Thomas Merton Reader, edited by Thomas P. McDonnel, New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Niebuhr, Reinhold, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1935.
Weil, Simone, Waiting For God, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1973.
all Biblical quotes not from the above sources came from:
Sacred Writings Volume 2: The Apocrypha and The New Testament, From The Revised English Bible, New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan, 1992.
Islam Quintych
Islam Quintych Watercolor Study
SYMBOLISM & SOURCES
Islam found itself in the same quandary as Judaism when it came to producing religious art. Believing literally in the commandment of God to make no graven images, Muslims were adamantly opposed to idols and polytheism. One of Muhammad’s primary accomplishments was to rid Arabia of the rampant forms of multiple god worship that had always flourished in the region. But Islam differed from Judaism in creating a religious art without creating idols. While Islam was absolutely without icons or even symbols that might allude to religious images, it nevertheless created a religious art that in many ways surpassed the two previous religions of Abraham: Judaism and even the icon- filled religion of Christianity. All writers on the subject do not share my opinion in this respect. In one of my otherwise favorite books on world art the following was written, “It might be said that Islam inspired no religious art — only art that just stopped short of being irreligious” (Honour & Fleming 315). From a Western perspective the art of Islam may not seem overly religious at first analysis. It is all line, shape, color and space designed into marvelous, complex systems of geometry and abstraction. When these compositions are contemplated in their relationship to the Islamic religious qualities of equality, order, unity, balance, intellectual growth, and beauty the compositions are religious art in its most pure form. They are an expression of, and aid in, religious devotion and duty on the highest level.
The historical and technical legacy of the Roman and Persian empires set the foundations on which Islamic art was to grow. The Islamic artists and architects were to blend and adapt many of the aesthetic traits of these two traditions into an artistic heritage that varied throughout the vast Islamic empire, adapting itself to the people and traditions of each region.
The two greatest forms of Islamic artistic expression are that of calligraphy and architecture, and many times these two forms are harmonized into one radiant expression. For the imagery of my quintych I chose to combine a group of Islamic designs into one new composition. The strength of the original designs called for very few changes and this canvas is more of a composite study than many of the other paintings in the Designs of Faith series. This was partially due to my awe at the Islamic sense of design, and also the way the composition fell together in such a natural and automatic way in the very early planning stages of the painting.
CENTER SECTION
The center section of the quintych is a study of a mihrab, a prayer niche. Mihrabs are placed on the wall of the mosque that faces toward
