A Christian strikes back: Kathleen Folden was right

On Wednesday, Oct 6, 2010, Kathleen Folden entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery with a crowbar hidden on her person and destroyed part of Enrique Chagoya’s lithograph “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals.” Witnesses claimed that, as she destroyed the piece, she asked, “how can you desecrate my Lord?” Afterward she was arrested, and as she was led away she reportedly stated to reporters: “Remember; God is real.”

On Friday, Oct. 8, the Denver Post compared Folden’s attack on the lithograph to the Taliban’s destruction of monumental statues of Buddha. Readers left similar comments on the Post website.

One attempted to claim that Christians have somehow decided to embrace the fanaticism of Muslims who defend their religion with violence: “I think all the funny business over that fat pastor threatening to burn the Koran, and the ensuing sanctimony of Muslims, has influenced Christians, this lady specifically, to embrace Islam.”
Another directly accused Folden of terrorism: “The woman is a terrorist, plain and simple. She executed pre-meditated terrorism and carried out the plot. The Taliban has come to America disguised as Christianity.”

The Post interviewed Adam Lerner, director of the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, who said, “I really hope this doesn’t create any kind of precedent.”

It is very easy to understand how this event could shock liberals who cannot comprehend how a sane person could possibly be motivated enough to drive from her Montana home to Loveland, Colorado, in order to destroy a piece of art. To these people, the fact that the so-called “art” depicted Jesus Christ’s head on a woman’s body with another man apparently performing oral sex on Christ should not be good enough reason for such a horrendous response.

The anger and apparent offense they express give me the impression that they feel victimized by a particularly brutal form of secular blasphemy.

This is easily understood, as the very first amendment to our beloved constitution defends the individual’s right to freedom of expression, and we all would agree that even obscene and offensive forms of expression are to be tolerated.

Interestingly, however, we must for a moment remember that not all expression is protected. Just as one cannot call out “FIRE” in a crowded theater, because it creates a safety risk, Liberals have also passed a number of laws denoting “protected status” on certain groups within our society, and identifying certain types of speech that are felonious “hate crimes”.

From this reasoning, it is understood that a black man who punches a white racist who called him “N-----” has committed a lesser offense than the man who was “expressing himself” with that hateful term. A homosexual who defends himself after being called a “queer” or “fag” would be defended as being “in the right”.

And as Mr. Lerner indicated, an isolated event is not as worrisome as a “precedent” indicating the start of a trend. If only one white person were to have ever called a black person the “N” word, then it would not be such an offensive situation, would it? But when we consider the greater history around that word, and the litany of offenses and crimes associated with the kind of hate the word represents, then we understand that the black man struck the offending racist not because of one word, but because it was the tipping point in a series of offenses that pushed him over the edge.

Perhaps it’s time to examine the long list of offenses perpetrated by the “art world” and defended by the liberal mindset that has finally driven Christians to the point of violent reaction. I don’t even have to search very far. Anti-Christian sentiment is inspiring violent vandalism against Christian buildings and symbols. Virgin Mary statues were destroyed in Boston, Mass. and in Leadville Colorado. One man, Jay Scott Balinger, admitted to between 30 and 50 Church arsons across various states. You might think this sort of serial-arsonist would be accused of hate crimes, and that his crimes would have garnered national attention. But he wasn’t, and they didn’t.

The disrespectful representation of Christ in the Chagoya painting was not an isolated incident. This was just one more in a series of highly offensive and religiously blasphemous artistic expressions designed specifically to insult Christians. Here’s a short list: The “Piss Christ” sculpture by Andre Serrano. “Corpus Christi”, by Adam Cullen. “The Ninth Hour”, by Maurizio Cattelan. “Bearded Orientals: Making of the Empire Cross”, by Priscilla Bracks.

The fashion to insult Christians goes beyond the plastic arts. Plays that portray the Christian Prophet as a homosexual have been staged for the sole purpose of inciting the Christians for their opposition to gay marriage and other aspects of “the homosexual agenda”. At Mount Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan, gay activists interrupted a church service by yelling “Bash back!” outside the church and screaming “Jesus was a homo” through a megaphone.

So yes, there has been a precedent set, but it is not the one that Mr. Lerner feared. To the contrary, the precedent has been that, while Liberals clamor to show respect to Islam and all Muslims, they participate in a hateful orgy of insulting, degrading, attacking and offending Christians. Perhaps this is why so many of their attacks are tinged with vulgar sexual and scatological references.

One Denver Post reader stated the obvious: “To the extent that the Loveland art was an attack on Christians, it provoked an in-kind response. Some jurisdictions recognize the concept of 'fighting words' in inciting violence. The Loveland art was the lithographic equivalent of 'fighting words'. If this were a black man smashing art that contained race controversy, DP bloggers would be expressing a very different viewpoint.”

Many Christians will publicly state that they wish she had not resorted to vandalism. But we must face the fact that the onslaught against Christians has been going on for decades in this country and has pushed them to a tipping point. With both cheeks already battered and torn, who can reasonably expect them to accept one offense after another without striking back?

Kathleen Folden, unlike the Taliban and other Muslim extremists, did not bomb a building, or torch a church, or stab an artist to death. Like Jesus overthrowing the carts of the money changers in the temple, she has simply destroyed one lithograph that was, without any doubt, a hateful expression against her religion. She will bear the burden of fines and a criminal record. But she will also be able to proudly declare that she fought back against hateful indecency.