Political Correctness is not one “thing” but it has one way—one mechanism and path. To understand its nature is to understand something never at rest. In biology, maybe a spirochete (“a flexibly spirally twisted bacterium”) provides an illustration. It craves newly conquered terrain, or flesh, to penetrate, in order to live.
Political correctness, if imagined in the gestalt of a person, does not stand back, having swept the house clean, lean on its mighty broom, and say:
“There now! It looks clean. Let’s do something else.”
It searches instead for new imaginary moral dirt, (insults to “identity”) in perpetuity. It expresses itself thus and only thus.
The place in the world where this PC monster organism thrives best is Sweden, where it has become the national religion, displacing Lutheran Christianity.
It has quite literally overtaken the national Church of Sweden, and the details will shock you. In late November, a painting by radical LGBTQ artist, and lesbian, Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, called “Paradise,” featuring gay/trans sexuality in the Garden of Eden, was proudly unveiled in St. Paul’s Church in Malmo, at the altar, on the first of Advent.
“Sweden’s only LGBT altarpiece is received in St. Paul’s Church in Malmo,” the headlines beamed with pride, (no pun intended.). The church was built in 1882. Wallin’s painting was hanging in a private home, when two Malmo Priests begged for it to be hung in the altar, after it was donated by the owner. St. Paul’s agreed, and was expecting a public relations triumph for the ages.
St. Paul’s pastor, Sofia Tunebro, wearing a satin Rainbow stole, told a reporter the painting represented “inclusion for all,” and that it was in the tradition of Luther, to be democratic, as befitting her Church, built round, to signal democracy. She spoke of how it would have pleased Luther himself to show such an open and positive attitude toward human sexuality, and resonated with the work of Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach.
“I think countless people will breathe a huge sigh of relief that they are finally represented in the Church,” Tunebro told Expressen. “No matter how much we preach about how people all have the same value, we need concrete images we can identify with. No matter who we love or how we identify ourselves, we are all included in God’s love.”
The painting features racially mixed gay and lesbian couples, naked, and a transsexual woman in a tree wielding a snake. That transsexual would become the deal breaker.
Within a few days, protests rang out that the depiction of the transsexual as the snake was transphobic. (The transsexual is interacting with the snake in the painting.) Surely this is a peak event in PC.
After intense and anguished soul searching, within two weeks of being unveiled, the painting was taken down. The explanation from the church was that the snake, representing evil, was bound up with the transsexual in the paining, implying that trans people are evil.
A press release from the Church, stressing that the painting itself depicting gay sexuality in the Garden of Eden was “totally uncontroversial,” and re-asserting its commitment to the LGBT cause, stated: “But there is the Serpent, which traditionally stands for evil, and it also turns out to be a trans person, which may be interpreted in a way that a trans person is evil or even the Devil. The Church of Sweden absolutely cannot support this.”
“At first I didn’t grasp the complexity,” Per Svensson, a Vicar at St. Paul’s, told SVT (Swedish TV station.) “But after careful thought and discussion with the Church’s leadership, we see no alternative but to remove the painting.”
Remember what I said about the rapacious nature of PC? Well, this did not end the matter, not by a long shot. Instead, St. Paul’s troubles have only just begun. Wallin has launched a harsh criticism against St. Paul’s claiming they are only pretending to care about transphobia, which she says is a cover for their real intention, fearing the backlash of the “far right.” (In Sweden, one presumes the “far-right” would be anybody having any objection to this painting.)
Meanwhile, she is working on a new Garden of Eden themed painting with no trans-snake, and plans to test the Church’s tolerance by sending it to them to replace the controversial one.
The Church of Sweden has 5 million members and is Sweden’s “largest religious organization,” with Europe’s largest Lutheran denomination.
The Swedish Church has been marrying gay couples for 10 years. I found only one religious objection to the painting, from a Bishop named Johan Tyrberg who said, “A Gnostic painting does not belong in the Swedish Church.”
Brave man.
