The image is \u2013 according<\/strong> to the press release<\/a>, meant to be deliberately ambiguous: we see Barack Obama once again being presented in the image of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world \u2013 an image and narrative that some clearly can\u2019t communicate enough.<\/p>\n He stands before the Great Seal of the President of the United States, which surrounds him like a golden nimbus, and the effect creates a pentagon over the seal. His head is lowered to the right, and his arms are outstretched, not because he is nailed to a cross, but because he is either raising or lowering (or rending) a dark veil. Or a stage-curtain, take your pick.<\/p>\n Obama wears a spotless white shirt, the red tie, the blue jacket. Yes, that\u2019s the old \u201cred, white and blue\u201d of the U.S. standard, but in Orthodox icon-writing those colors, specifically when adorning the body, are meant to communicate Christ\u2019s transfiguration (and resurrection), royalty and divinity. On the head of Obama -whose life from graduate school on has rolled pretty easy- we see the thorny crowns worn by the suffering servant.<\/p>\n If I did not happen to mention it, the painting is called \u201cThe Truth\u201d.<\/p>\n For one such as I,<\/strong> who is rarely \u201coutraged\u201d by the all of the tedious pop-culture \u201cart\u201d that tries to provoke (and guarantees itself headlines) by bastardizing the name or image of The Christ, this image brought forth a surprisingly visceral reaction from me. I threw up a little in my mouth.<\/p>\n That, I suppose, means this is powerful<\/em> art. After all, neither The DaVinci Code nor Madonna\u2019s Summer Concert Tour Disco Crucifixions have ever elicited more than a yawn out of me.<\/p>\n Or, maybe the rise of my bile had nothing to do with the power of the image, and indicated only that I am powerfully sick of seeing the iconic trappings of my Lord and Savior adorning a man who -until the last 100 days- hadn\u2019t so much as run a hot-dog stand. He\u2019s healed no one, lifted no one from suffering and poverty, invented nothing, taught nothing. Though he has been raised-on-high by his connections and by a sycophantic press that has crumbled upon itself with the strain of supporting him, Obama has himself raised nothing but (for some) expectations, (for others) trepidations and, (for everyone) taxes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Truth.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The artist, Michael D\u2019Antuono<\/strong>, who will be exhibiting this painting at Union Circle on Obama\u2019s 100th day in office, says of the painting<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018The Truth\u2019 is a politically, religiously and socially-charged statement on our nation\u2019s current political climate and deep partisan divide that is sure to create a dialogue.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to the press release:<\/p>\n D\u2019Antuono insists that this piece is a mirror; reflecting the personal opinions and emotions of the viewer; that \u201cThe Truth\u201d like beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. D\u2019Antuono expects that individual interpretations will vary as widely as they do in the political arena. The work will be seen by one viewer at a time behind a voting booth-inspired public installation.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wow, art that subject to interpretation, we\u2019ve never seen that before.<\/p>\n Look, as a piece of art,<\/strong> it\u2019s clever<\/em>. But cleverness is shallow, and this thing -like pretty much all of the messianic art being created around Obama- is part self-promotion, part adolescent provocation and not much else. That the nation is divided by perspective is not exactly an earth-shattering observation, so let us ask what else this artist, and <a href-:http:\/\/www.worldnetdaily.com\/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87040:<all of the artists and photo-journalists<\/a> who are inundating us<\/a> with Oba-messiah imagery, really wishes to communicate.<\/p>\n Although they are more discrete than Louis Farrakan, who once opined that when Obama opens his mouth, it is the Messiah who is \u201cabsolutely\u201d speaking<\/a>, I begin to think that these artists and journalists really do want to communicate Obama-as-godling and messiah, even if they say otherwise. In this I am jumping off an idea from Richard John Neuhaus\u2019s American Babylon; Notes of a Christian Exile,<\/em><\/a> where he wonders if some Protestant Americans -those bereft of liturgy and sacraments- have not created a sort of ecclesiastical substitute for those things in their intense nationalism. That is, are they making up for what is lacking in their worship -the outward pageantry, the sensory cues- within their patriotism? An interesting question, it prompts me to wonder if the journalists, artists and others who are dipping toes into the Lake of Faith that is Obamism (or jumping in with gusto) are not also trying to supplement their Secular Humanist beliefs (or their insistent atheism) with a sense of transcendence that is otherwise lacking.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t like a Eucharistic Procession, an endless campaign with a messianic center will do. Anything to enhance the faith.<\/p>\n Speaking of faith,<\/strong> Obama is a guy who goes to Georgetown and has them cover the name of Jesus<\/a> before he speaks. He tries to sell his economic plans on Jesus\u2019 parable of the building on sand or rock, but can\u2019t be bothered to utter Jesus\u2019 name. But he has never, not once, told these people to stop with the messianic stuff. He\u2019s a Christian, right<\/a>? He sat in Jeremiah Wright\u2019s (for better or worse) Christ-professing pews for 20 years. He allowed George Stephanopolous to correct him when he said \u201cmy Muslim faith\u201d in order to clarify his Christianity<\/a>.<\/p>\n One would think that as a Christian, Barack Obama would have long-ago asked his supporters to stop the messianic stuff. He is a politician; he could diplomatically have said, \u201cyou know, guys, I\u2019m not the messiah, let\u2019s tone it down, can we? The comparisons to JFK, FDR and Abraham Lincoln really are enough\u2026\u201d That would have been charming and it would have stopped this nausea-inducing messianism in its tracks.<\/p>\n But Obama did not do that. He\u2019s never said a word against the images which create a sub-conscious narrative, and so his silence implies a troubling consent<\/a>. It will be interesting if, when he makes his controversial trip to Notre Dame<\/a> for its Commencment, he wears the traditional ND robe, threaded with the name of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n The \u201cTruth\u201d?<\/strong> In its press release, we read: D\u2019Antuono even invites the public to email him with reactions to the piece, answering his posed question, \u201cWhat\u2019s your truth?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n More and more, as I talk to college students and as I encounter people who are committed to the notion of relativism and individual \u201ctruths\u201d I am moved by the prophetic nature of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger\u2019s last warning to us before he became Pope Benedict XVI, against \u201cbuilding a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one\u2019s own ego and desires.\u201d<\/p>\n And all of this reminds me of a story recounted by Daniel Johnson in the New York Sun<\/a>:<\/p>\n G\u00fcnter Grass, in his memoirs, recalls an encounter with the young Joseph Ratzinger while both were held in an American prisoner-of-war camp in 1945. The young Grass, a Nazi who had been proud to serve in the Waffen-SS, was taken aback by this soft-spoken, gentle young Catholic. Unlike God, the future pope played dice, quoting St. Augustine in the original while he did so; he even dreamt in Latin. His only desire was to return to the seminary from which he had been drafted. \u201cI said, there are many truths,\u201d wrote Grass. \u201cHe said, there is only one<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The truth; there is only one.<\/p>\n Not, notice, \u201cwon.\u201d<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong> Mark Hemingway of NRO had an opportunity to talk to Michael D\u2019Antuono on the painting<\/a> and finds D\u2019Antuono surprised and apparently distressed to learn that his image has been taken badly by people of faith. Read the whole piece. D\u2019Antuono sounds thoughtful and I think everyone deserves the benefit of a doubt; I\u2019ll take him at his word that he intended none of what many of us found in his work. After all, it\u2019s easy enough to be misunderstood in speech and print.<\/p>\n