Acrylic on canvas 12" X 12" Painted in 1994

Question; Why does this man have a forked tongue?

Answer; It is not unusual for Humankind to use the name of Jesus Christ to justify our selfish desires. Our actions, supposedly motivated by belief in God, make a mockery of the ethical teachings of the Christian religion.

Mankind has made a liar out of Christ. That is why I have given him the tongue of a snake.

If Christ exists as the son of God in a literal sense is not really the question. The ideals represented by the symbol of Christ should be the point. I believe that we should look to our individual interpretations of Christ and analyze the choices that we make everyday in the mirror of his eyes.

Is it important to be ethical? Is it important to choose good? To be charitable and caring of our fellow man? I believe it is. I believe that our species has advanced as far as we have because we have at times acted as though we are all in this together ... NOT by fucking each other over.

Some will say that it is our instinctive nature to aggressively propagate and defend our territory which has caused us to expand and become the dominate creatures on this planet. But if that is true then we are no better than ants or termites, other socially ordered beings, (Which outnumber us by quite a bit I might add).

But, as far as I know, ants do not create art. Nor have they evolved the ability to make choices … to think in abstract ways.

I believe that humankind must follow a code of ethics in order to avoid chaos and anarchy. If we can not follow a code of ethics of our own design ... then perhaps we need Jesus Christ and all that entails.

We are all intertwined. If we fight amongst ourselves for the fewer and fewer crumbs remaining, we will parish as a race. It's already happening! We must find a way to exist, or we shall cease to do so.

I don't care how we find a way to survive ... If following a set of rules embodied in a religion which teaches that a man named Jesus Christ is our connection to God can save us, then let us be saved ANY way we can.

The legitimate teachings of Christianity have been twisted by the lying tongues of men to serve their own purposes. All sorts of horrors have been perpetrated over the centuries in the name of the Christian church ... that's not new news. But look around you now ... Turn on the fucking TV and look at these fat assholes asking you to believe their shit ... "PRAISE THE LORD AND SEND ME SOME MONEY, SUCKER!'. And of course, it's the most gullible and needy that fall for it.

Man has given Jesus the forked tongue that I have painted for him here.

Some people are offended by this painting. I think that Christ would encourage the provocation of thought, even at his own expense ... It's when people don't think, and react impulsively to what they THINK they are seeing, that the foolishness begins.