Religion: Vexing Christa

The Maundy Thursday services at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan included such now familiar symbols of a progressive liturgy as a dramatic reading and a symbolic dance. But when a four-foot bronze statue of Jesus on the cross was unveiled, gasps could be heard throughout the main chapel. The Christus was, in fact, a Christa, complete with undraped breasts and rounded hips.

The work, created in 1975 by Sculptor Edwina Sandys, 45, for the United Nations' Decade for Women, had been shown in galleries and art exhibits, but it had never before been displayed in a church. To New York Suffragan Bishop Walter Dennis, it was a "desecration" of Christian symbols. He urged parishioners to write the diocese's presiding bishop, the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore Jr., "if it shocks you as much as it did me." Cathedral Dean James Parks Morton, who organized the display with Moore's concurrence, responded that the effort to "send a positive message to women" had upset only the same people who oppose ordination for women. Said Sandys (who is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill): "It shows that the church still has power and that people do care."

As for those who made a point of walking behind the cathedral's main altar to have a look during the statue's ten-day showing, the reactions were mixed, but rarely mild. It was "not at all blasphemous" to Katherine Austin, who thought it reflected a mystic Christian view that "sees Christ as our mother." Beverly Stewart, on the other hand, said, "It's disgraceful. God and Christ are male. They're playing with a symbol we've believed in for all our lives." The Christa seemed to be doing her job as a focus for provocation, if not of prayer.