Bradley Cooper, in an interview about "The American Sniper", made a very interesting comment about art, not from the point of view of the artist, but the recipient. When "art" is made, it is for the consumer to own and react to. We are not taking about buying the artwork to 'own' it. Ownership comes from interaction, from consideration, from a reaction informed by our connection to that artwork. And the "art" of Charlie Hebdo led to mass murder.
The sum total of my experience with Charlie Hebdo is a cursory internet search of cover images. Now, I like satire. And it ain't Mad magazine. And it sure ain't Monty Python. My idiomatic French is enough to be offended by what they are doing. I have owned the "art" of Charlie Hebdo as far as I care to. I've been provoked, and I, the consumer, do not find it to particularly appealing.
I have experience with people of my own faith who have, in the name of religion, come out in criticism of some piece of "art", whether photographs by Mapplethorpe, a magazine by Larry Flint, this movie or that book or such a video. Whatever is being criticized, rarely have the critics seen or listened to or experienced the art in question. There is no 'ownership'. I wonder if the terrorists ever actually read Charlie Hebdo. Or did somebody tell them what to think and what to do?
Here is the real kick in the pants for me. I have been trying to figure out why this has provoked my thinking. It just clicked. This is how Jesus died. He was crucified for things people thought he had done. He was killed for political expediency and by a conspiracy of the powers that were at that time who did not like what he had to say.
I know God has a sense of humor. My own vocation as a pastor is proof of that. But is there a transcendent satire here
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