At a NYC Temple Proud of Its Traditions, a New Rabbi With ‘Alternative’ Ideas

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Sharon Otterman

Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, 45, is the newly installed senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. The rabbi has already broken with some of the temple’s customs.

NEW YORK---Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, the new senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Temple Emanu-El is a place that prides itself on tradition. It still uses a version of the original Reform prayer book, and dresses its clergy in robes. It conceals its choir above the congregation, near the organ console at its enormous Fifth Avenue sanctuary, so that prayers seem to float from the heavens. But Rabbi Davidson has already begun making his mark. He broke with an older Reform tradition of not wearing a Jewish skullcap and prayer shawl, by wearing them when he began to lead services this summer — resulting in an audible gasp from the congregation. But he also wore his robes, in a sign that custom and change could go hand in hand. [link]

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Biblical Paraody Featuring "Adam & Steve" Turns Into Bible-Belt Land Mine

OKLAHOMA GAZETTE
By Mark Beutler

OKLAHOMA---What started out to be a small, largely unnoticed production by OKC Theater Company has turned into a First Amendment fight, as well as a battle against Oklahoma City’s gay and lesbian community, claim supporters of the production of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. Fans of the arts — and of the biblical parody — say a conservative Christian group is targeting the play and threatening to have the producers and actors arrested on opening night. Recently, a number of local pastors sent a letter to Governor Mary Fallin, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, media outlets and members of the state legislature, demanding the play be shuttered. [links]

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Art for the Soul: Alter Rebbe by Chaim Leib Zernitsky

CHABAD.ORG

"Portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi"

CANADA---Chaim Leib (Leon) Zernitsky has created fine art and illustrations for international magazines, book publishers and major corporations for over 25 years. He has published over 30 books for children and young adults and won numerous awards. Chaim Leib feels that creating Jewish art is an important part of being a Jewish artist, and his paintings can be found in private collections worldwide. "Portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi" (above), the first Chabad Rebbe, who was released from prison and able to continue spreading Chassidism on this day, the 19th of Kislev. [link]

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Vatican Unveils Frescoes In Catacombs of Priscilla With Images Some Say Show Early Women Priests

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Nicole Winfield

A fresco adorns the Catacombs of Priscilla, a labyrinthine cemetery complex that stretches for kilometers underground, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013.

VATICAN CITY---The Vatican on Tuesday unveiled newly restored frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla, known for housing the earliest known image of the Madonna with Child — and frescoes said by some to show women priests in the early Christian church. More controversially, the catacomb tour features two scenes said by proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests: One in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist. The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which includes women who have been excommunicated by the Vatican for participating in purported ordination ceremonies, holds the images up as evidence that there were women priests in the early Christian church — and that therefore there should be women priests today. [link]

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Learning from President Lincoln to Build a Team of Rivals: Art + Religion

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 
By Ernest Disney-Britton

"Birth of Jesus" (2010) by Tom Torluemke

On Monday, I gave a tour to the Regional Board of Directors of the Disciples of Christ of the A&OPrize exhibition, "Religious Risks" at Indiana Interchurch Center. The experience reminded me of the book "Team of Rivals", where Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote about Abraham Lincoln's brilliant ability to bring together rivals as part of his administration. Isn't the conflict between the worlds of art and faith simply a rivalry between two great powers of influence?

In the newest issue of SEEN, Taylor Worley wrote: "Is moving beyond this conflict even possible? Can the rivalry be resolved?" Many artists, and clergy, make the argument that the rivalry is good. "Our job as artists is not to seek the easy way but to challenge society and open up some wounds, so that they can be cleaned rather than allow them to fester," said American Theatre director Peter Sellars. If this rivalry is a good thing, and that was the consensus amongst the Disciples on Monday, what should we be doing about it? I suggest we keep pushing engagement, and rejecting avoidance. We need to be more like Lincoln and bring the rivals together. It will benefit us all.

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Evangelical Pastor With a MFA Looks at Private Faith in the Public Sphere

LAS VEGAS WEEKLY
By Kristen Peterson

Dylan Mortimer’s “Prayer Booth” at Trifecta

NEVADA---The idea of western religious art, particularly Christian works, might conjure thoughts of Byzantine art. But throw in some heavy bling, gold chains and phrases that read “Who created yo ass?”, “Amen Bitch” and “Pray-Ya” and we’re talking about an entirely different time and place. The stylized phrases are featured in Trifecta Gallery’s Attachment Room, where works by artist Dylan Mortimer are part of Private Faith in the Public Sphere, an installation that comes complete with Mortimer’s telephone booth reconfigured to be a “Prayer Booth” with kneeling pad, the word “prayer” rather than “phone” and religious-based text and symbolism. [link]

Private Faith in the Public SphereThrough November 24; Monday-Wednesday and Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Trifecta Gallery, 366-7001

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2013 A&O Prize for Clergy Advocate is Rabbi, Yitzchok Moully

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

NEW YORK---The board of Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts is pleased to announce the selecton of Rabbi Yitzchok Moully as the Clergy Advocate for 2013. Clergy advocates are strong defenders of artistic and religious freedom. The voting members of Alpha Omega Arts were impressed with his unique position in the world as an orthodox Chassidic rabbi,  contemporary pop artist, and coordinator of the Creative Soul Gallery. Moully is the Youth Rabbi at the Chabad Jewish Center in Basking Ridge NJ, where he resides together with his wife and five children. He is a Rabbi by day and an artist by night.

Since 2008, Alpha Omega Arts has been surveying members about the impact of Religious Art experiences in the United States, and awarding the ALPHA OMEGA PRIZE.

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Meet Norbert Krapf, A&O Prize for Literary Arts Honoree for 2013

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---Norbert Krapf is one of the first three literary artist honorees to receive the A&O Prize; and on Saturday, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. he will be honored at Indiana Interchurch Center, 1100 W. 42nd Street in Indianapolis. Krapf is also an Indiana Poet Laureate; has recieved a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis; and is author of the soon to be release book of poetry, "Catholic Boy Blues." A native of Indiana, he received his B.A.in English from St. Joseph’s College (Indiana); and later earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame with a concentration in American Poetry. Krapf is also emeritus professor of English at Long Island University, where he taught for 34 years and directed the C.W. Post Poetry Center.  In eleven full-length poetry collections, he explores his German-Catholic heritage. He is also an editor; the author of a prose memoir; music collaborator; and student of the blues.

Below are Norbert's answers to two questions about religious risk. You can thank Norbert, and the other artists taking a risk with religious imagination, by making a gift to the Alpha Omega Prize: Artist Fund via power2give.org. 

1. What is your experience with “risks” relating to religious experience.

The experience written about in Catholic Boy Blues, a collection of 135 poems scheduled for  2014 publication by Greystone Publishing, came about as a religious “risk” that did not involve a choice.

I was a victim-survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a priest, in a German-Catholic community in southern Indiana. That for twenty years after the abuse took place, I could rarely enter a church because of painful associations does not mean that I did not have an active spiritual life during that period. In many ways, the poems I wrote the past 43 years have been a search to find an alternative spiritual life and a new language in which to express my longing for spiritual sustenance (see links below to samples).

All along I felt a desire for religious or, more precisely, spiritual fulfillment, but I did have problems with the religious institution that ignored the abuse, then denied it, inflicting grievous harm on the young people it claimed to serve. Religious risk?  No religion can ignore and violate the moral and spiritual values it claims to uphold and survive as a living force. Any religion that functions this way runs the risk of losing vitality and relevance. Of course there was and remains a risk in writing and publishing Catholic Boy Blues, the ancient tradition of attacking the messenger of bad news. I am the messenger of  bad news of childhood sexual abuse and will no doubt serve as a lightning rod to displaced anger some feel over what their church has done.

Not to have written these poems, however, would have been to violate my calling and mission as a poet. One does not rectify a violation by an institution of any kind, or help that institution recover,  by remaining silent and violating a sacred obligation to help others, in this case my fellow survivors, their extended families, and the clergy and church hierarchy. All of us need to heal.

2. How have you chosen not to use religion to overcome life challenges?

It is difficult if not impossible for a child to admit that all he and his family hold sacred about their religion has been violated by a man who is “God’s representative”  but who is nevertheless revered by his family and community.  It is impossible for an abused child to bring charges against his revered violator within a two year period, as stipulated by law.

What I did, fifty years after the abuse, was to face it and write poems documenting it, to proclaim to all the devastating  life-long effects that such abuse has on the innocent young,  but also to show the possibility of healing and recovery. A religion that covers up such a scandal is left with no moral authority. Ironically, the blues serve as the major agent of healing in the poems, but the thrust of Catholic Boy Blues is not negative. Fifty years after the abuse, I was finally ready to testify, knew that for the sake of my own healing and the good of my fellow survivors, I would speak, from within the church, on their behalf.

The support of our pastor for the past nine years at St. Mary’s Church, Indianapolis, Fr. Michael O’Mara, was monumental. He wrote the lead blurb for Catholic Boy Blues, which concludes: “It has been a spiritual journey to walk with Norbert Krapf through this ‘dark night.’ His courage to share this journey with us will be a resource for others who have experienced abuse and for their caregivers. Publishing this book required a lot of strength and prayer, and the Holy Father should have a copy.”

Lastly, Norbert Krapf also provided some links to his writings (pre-Catholic Boy Blues poems); and they are below including his  along with a brief interview about it:

1. YouTube reading of  a 9/11 poem,” Prayer to Walt Whitman at Ground Zero,” http://iupress.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/podcast-norbert-krapf-discusses-his-september-11-poetry.html
2. Here is a link to ten “Christmas card poems” on my web site: “Christmas Paper Mountain Drifts,” “Songs in Sepia and Black and White,” “Woods Chapel,” “Candles,” “One Long Love Song,” “Going to Church,” “Apples in Rainwater,” “Woods  Hymn,” “Strawberry Patch Song,” and “The Language of Place” all have to do with a religious or spiritual impulse: http://www.krapfpoetry.com/xmascard.htm.
3. Scroll down and you will find “Dogwoods and Rosebuds for Rita.” http://www.krapfpoetry.com/sepia.htm 
4. Scroll down for the prose poem “Legacy.” http://www.krapfpoetry.com/american_toc.html 
5. Four poems from Sweet Sister Moon: http://www.wordtechweb.com/krapf_poems.html 
6. “Still Dark" http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/krapfstill.html 
7. “Letter from a Star Above Southern Indiana,” prose poem. http://www.krapfpoetry.com/letter_from_star.htm 

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Putnam Valley Resident (NY) Displays Massive Religious Art Mural of Postcards

HUDSON VALLEY REPORTER
By Dan Curtis

NEW YORK---Artist Suzanne Kraus-Mancuso of Putnam Valley has produced an art display at Graymoor’s Our Lady of Atonement Chapel that consists of 1,500 postcard-sized paintings of holy places throughout the world, many from the Hudson Valley. The massive display, which has taken her three years to amass, is considered to be the largest of its kind in the world. Many of the churches, temples and other holy places in the mural depict specific places throughout the Hudson Valley from Manhattan to Troy, N.Y. People from around the state and throughout the world have sent Kraus-Mancuso photos of holy places for her to paint and add to the massive display.[link]

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Unholy Art Heist in Ireland Shocks Priests

LIMERICK LEADER
By Anne Sheridan

Stripped bare: Fr Tom Ryan stands in front of one the frames where the paintings were cut out with a stanley knife, in the Holy Rosary church on the Ennis Road, where the theft occurred. Picture: Michael Cowhey

IRELAND---Prayers were said at the weekend for the return of five paintings stolen from the Holy Rosary church in Limerick, which are estimated to be worth at least €25,000. The religious paintings by the renowned artist the late Fr Jack Hanlon had been hanging proudly in the Ennis Road church for over 50 years. But on Wednesday last - some 20 minutes after Fr Tom Ryan left the church - a thief with a newspaper covering his face entered the church and cut the five paintings out of their frames with a stanley knife. [link]

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Art is a Necessity for Teaching Religious Rules, Says Ayatollah Hamedani

AHLULBAYT NEWS AGENCY

"Magnetism" by Saudi artist Ahmed Mater depicts the Kaaba in Mecca

IRAN---The Islamic Jurisprudent, Ayatollah Hussein Nouri Hamedani underscored the telling role of art to proselytize Non-Muslims to the divine religion of Islam. The religious cleric mentioned that using art for introducing the teachings and instruction of Islam and it is incumbent upon officials to give special attention to this realm. To the religious cleric, Art, its eye catching nature, have important effect on promotion of Islamic rules and doctrines. Qom Seminary instructor urged Islamic clerics not to turn a blind eye to this field, all the same using it to fulfill their religious objectives. Ayatollah Hussein Nouri Hamedani also warned about misusing art and called on Muslims to be more vigilant about this issue, taking their steps in the right track. [link]

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Tibetan Monks Begin Work on New Mandala

SANTA MARIA

The Official Mandala Group of Tibetan Monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery chant Tuesday
at Allan Hancock College. The monks will continue to build a sand mandala for four days.

CALIFORNIA---A group of Tibetan monks, in the direct lineage of the Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, began a Tibetan Buddhist artwork known as a sand mandala in an opening ceremony at Hancock College on Tuesday. The monks, who visited the Central Coast as part of a 2013 Art Tour to the U.S., started the inner center of what would by Friday be a five-foot-diameter sand mandala to symbolize compassion and wisdom. A compact crowd of students and community members packed around the monks as they recited prayers and chants in an opening ceremony held at the Ann Foxworthy Gallery. [link]

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Asian Pavilion at Dutch Nat'l Museum Opens With Buddhist Ritual

GLOBAL POST

NETHERLANDS---The Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of the Netherlands, held an inauguration ceremony for its Asian Pavilion on Sunday with 11 priests from a famous Japanese temple carrying out a Buddhist ritual for the two 14th-century wooden statues from Japan to be displayed as the centerpiece of the pavilion. "It is the first time in history for priests from the temple to carry out the ceremony of inauguration overseas," Menno Fitski, curator of the Asian Art department, told the audience at the ceremony held for the official opening of the pavilion at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. [link]

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Rabbi Organizes Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Seminar in Indianapolis

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

INDIANA---In another sign of the growing acceptance of religious art, a rabbi has organized secular religious arts seminar based on "The Binding of Isaac", Genesis 22 at Butler University. Entitled, "Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts: A Symposium," the new initiative of the Center for Faith and Vocation is designed to bring people together from diverse artistic disciplines, practices and religious/spiritual perspectives for a sustained study and reflection on a Biblical text. Participation is limited to twelve artists who engage the sacred text as they seek inspiration to create new work (music, poetry, visual art, dance, drama, narrative, liturgical art). The project is being made possible through the support of Lilly Endowment Inc.

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Tibetan Buddhist Monks Construct a Sacred Sand Mandala at Allan Hancock College

SANTA MARIA SUN

CALIFORNIA---A group of Tibetan Buddhist monks has been making its way across the United States sharing cultural art forms and philosophies. Now on the Central Coast, the group—which hails from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India—will be presenting several cultural pageants locally as well as creating an intricate sand mandala at Allan Hancock College over the course of several days. A sand mandala means many things, explained Geshe Lobsang Tsetsen, the leading teacher among the monks. “The sand mandala, it is a technical meditation,” Tsetsen said. “This is a tradition of hundreds of years. It’s not just colorful designs.” [link]

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LGBT Stations of the Cross Shows Struggle for Equality

JESUS IN LOVE | BLOG
By Kittredge Cherry

Jesus is condemned to death and “faggot” by Mary Button

GEORGIA---“Stations of the Cross: The Struggle for LGBT Equality” is a new set of 14 paintings that link the crucifixion of Jesus with the sufferings of LGBT people. Artist Mary Button painted the LGBT Stations series for Believe Out Loud, an online network empowering Christians to work for LGBT equality. They invite churches and faith groups to download and use the images for free. The whole series will also be shown here at the Jesus in Love Blog this week. Click here for an overview of the LGBT Stations by Kittredge Cherry, lesbian Christian author and art historian. [link]

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Buddhist Monks Visit South Dakota For Ancient Art Demonstration

KDLT NEWS

SOUTH DAKOTA---A group of Tibetan Monks are sending a message through some very detailed artwork at the University of South Dakota. It is a message of compassion. Six Tibetan monks are spending the week at the University of South Dakota as part of a national tour, creating an ancient Buddhist work of art called a "mandala." The process can sometimes take a month. The monks will destroy the final product on purpose in order to send the ultimate message. "Everything is impermanent, so we are showing some kind of impermanence. Even if you are a beautiful person, beautiful boy, beautiful girl, but in the end it will change," said Lobsang. [link]

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This is New York: Wang Lu Ri, Living Simply Within Complexity

THE EPOCH TIMES
By Amelia Pang

Wang Lu Ri, a Buddhist artist who gave up Fine Art to suffer doing caricature on Times Square

NEW YORK---Wang Lu Ri gave up an 8-year graduate degree in art to draw caricatures at Times Square. Wang, 53, arrived in New York 16 years ago. “I left China wanting to become an artist. But what do you become an artist for? People often become artists for selfish reasons, to make a mark in society, to have their work remembered,” he said. “But I don’t want any of these things.” Instead, Wang spends around eight hours a day studying his faded purple book of Buddhist principles. He’s an unconventional monk, if one can even call him that. So he is happy to suffer now in order to have a good future after his human life is over. [link]

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Baptist Church Evangelizes With Hallways Filled With Great Art of the Renaissance

TYLER MORNING TELEGRAPH
By Rebecca Hoeffner

"Ascension of Christ" (1721) by Jean-Francois de Troy and
currently hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy

TEXAS---Green Acres Baptist Church will attempt to evangelize to people who attend all kinds of events in the CrossWalk Center ballroom. But the church will do it without anyone saying a word. The hallway outside the ballroom, which is used throughout the year by many organizations, faith-based or not, now features 16 pieces of Renaissance art depicting the life of Christ. “During the Renaissance and before, most people were illiterate,” said David Dykes, senior pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church. “They couldn’t read the Bible. Art was the main way the Gospel was explained. Artists had more of an influence on theology than the priests did.” The 16 pieces are all replicas — some of the originals are near priceless, Dykes said. The prints were paid for by an anonymous couple in the congregation. [link]
The other pieces are:

• Gerard van Honthorst’s 1622 “Adoration of the Shepherds”
• Jean Auguste Dominique’s 1861 “Jesus Among the Doctors”
• Paolo Veronese’s 1563 “The Wedding Feast at Cana”
• Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s 1633 “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
• Lodovico Carracci’s 1594 “The Transfiguration of Christ”
• Luca Giordano’s 1674 “Christ Expelling the Traders from the Temple”
• Hans Jordaens III’s 1632 “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane”
• Valentin de Boulogne’s 1620 “The Crowning with Thorns”
• Antonello da Messina’s 1475 “Christ at the Column”
• Gerard David’s 1481 “Christ Nailed to the Cross”
• Diego Velazquez’s 1630 “Christ on the Cross”
• Jacopo Bassano’s 1610 “The Entombment of Christ”
• Bartolome Esteban Murillo’s 1658 “The Resurrection of Christ”
• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s 1602 “The Incredulity of Thomas”
• Jean François de Troy’s 1721 “Ascension of Christ.

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Artists and Churchgoers Collaborate on Exhibit at College of Art

THE BALTIMORE SUN
By Mary Carole McCauley

"Everything that ought to have remained" (2011) by Leigh Davis at NYC church, now on display at MICA

MARYLAND---The old arched red wooden door to the Seventh Metro Church is less that two blocks from the modern glass-and-steel panel that floats in front of the Maryland Institute College of Art's newest exhibition space. They bring to mind two different eras and seem designed to be used by two dissimilar groups of people: spiky-haired artists and church ladies wearing fancy hats. But when a white art student in her 20s met a middle-aged African-American pastor, they discovered that both doors opened into sacred spaces where people look for answers to the same big questions. One of the nicest surprises is that the project brought into contact the leaders and members of all five churches. Though they were located just a few blocks from one another, most had never met. [link]

Maryland Institute College of Art: "Congregate art + faith + community" (Ends Sept. 25), 131 W. North Ave, Baltimore, MD; (410) 669-9200, congregatebaltimore.com

In addition, there are several free public arts events inspired by the exhibit:

• The second annual Akimbo Artwalk, which features site-specific dance and movement organized by the Deep Vision Dance Company, will be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at nearly two dozen locations throughout Station North.
• At 3 p.m. Sept. 22, Baltimore Performance Kitchen will stage "Closets" at MICA's Studio Center. This live performance features the real-life stories of congregation members that will be interpreted and performed by members of Single Carrot Theatre.
• "Congregate's" cpmfa@mica.edu closing party will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 25. It will feature live performances by church choirs and will launch the exhibit catalog.
• A picnic and afternoon of stories, support and sharing will be held from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. outside Penn Station. The event is co-sponsored by the rape-eradication advocacy group FORCE.

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