One reason people before modern times wanted their crucifixions gory and their churches full of images of death was that mortality and its horrors haunted their real lives. Death was everywhere, from the sick beds of people struck down by all the diseases medicine had yet to conquer to public executions whose victims were left to rot on gibbets or, as Bruegel paints them, on open platforms at the tops of wooden poles. 

In other words, when artists 500 years ago depicted the crucifixion they were not showing a totally unfamiliar sight. People were still executed and left to rot in public, just as they had been in ancient Roman times. Death was ever present.

It still is, of course, in cells and war zones. But we in wealthy peaceful countries don’t usually see death on the street. We can turn our eyes away more easily from suffering. That is why we need art’s tormenting images of the crucifixion – to make us see what we would rather ignore.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2017/jan/05/c...

 

may as well use drones to blow the smithereens out of whomever?...

Second, it means the promise of God to the Church of a new Exodus and homecoming: an arrival at the apocalyptic place of final justice. If eternity is the divine name, then now, human names given baptismally in the name of Christ are eternal. Eventually they will manifest the true names of each and every one: the names which coincide with all existence, but of existence realised through the manifestation and reception of nomenclature. The time of final naming of all creatures and their thrice hallowing in the name of the Trinity. The final surprise of the arrival of an astonishing complete harmony and consistency on earth.

Catherine Pickstock is Professor of Metaphysics and Poetics at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Repetition and Identity and After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy.

don't read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/12/29/4598404.htm

How ridiculous is this? Now I don't mind Pickstock expressing an opinion somewhere in paradise but to get published on the ABC is beyond the pale.  And there won't be a "final surprise". This is poppycock from Pickstock. Harmony and consistency on earth would mean blancmange and grand boredom from Bordom. But far more idiotic here is the "of existence realised through the manifestation and reception of nomenclature." What crap is this? Tell this to the philosophical monkeys... 

The Telegraph reports that Glasgow University has taken it upon itself to warn its theology students that in studying the Bible, they will see material that "contains graphic scenes of the crucifixion."

Mind you, these are adults or near adults who have chosen to study the Bible. This is not, presumably, because they don't know how the story ends. The university also warns veterinary students that they will encounter and work with dead animals and that those studying "contemporary society" will discuss illness and violence. One wonders how either of those announcements could come as a surprise, unless the university has launched a campaign to focus on attracting all those prospective students who have been left behind because they live under rocks.

Glasgow University defended itself through a spokesman, who said, "We have an absolute duty of care to all of our students and where it is felt course material may cause potential upset or concern warnings may be given."

Glasgow University isn't the only educational institution taking precautions, on the off chance their students simply picked a major out of a hat, without knowing anything about the subject. Those who have chosen to study forensic science at Strathclyde University, also in Glasgow, are warned in person "at the beginning of some lectures where sensitive images, involving blood patterns, crime scenes and bodies… are in the presentation," the Daily Mail and others report.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701081049380852-UK-unis-trigger-warning-happy/

Far too many seek by violence to shred the garment of our co-belonging, to obscure from recognition that our lives are bound up with that of shell-shocked children in Aleppo, Iraq, and Afghanistan or lead-poisoned children in Detroit for that matter.

There is a cost to all we cherish when we assent to those who tell us that most damning of lies — perhaps it is the only lie — that my life can be secured at your expense, especially if you are darker than I am or pray to God by a name not my own. To believe that lie is to pretend that you and I do not inhabit the same planet, that we do not make our annual sojourn around the same star, that my fate and my well-being is not utterly inseparable from yours.

Perhaps then this should be our central and irrevocable New Year's resolution: in this and every coming year, I resolve that I will so live my life that I will refuse everything within and everything without that tempts me to imagine that I can fashion the trajectory of my life without thinking also of yours regardless of who you are, whether you vote red or blue, whether you are gay or straight, whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or an atheist.

I am an earthling and so are you. We spin through the vastness of space together. Might this not be the most important resolution we can make? There is still time.

John J. Thatamanil is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is the author of The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament.

read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/01/11/4602770.htm

 

Noble sentiments which do nothing to apportion the origin of trauma such as Aleppo and others. We should know where the problem comes from but we’re not prepared to say, nor investigate because we cannot face the possibility that our mob is involved in the shit. So John J. Thatamanil goes around the problem and gloss over the reality that crap exists and does not come from god nor the devil but from simple difference of opinion as well as from religious extremism — in a natural construct. John J. Thatamanil's book summary tells us:

"While traditional Christian thought and spirituality have always affirmed the divine presence in human life, Thatamanil argues we have much to learn from non-dualistic Hindu thought, especially that of the eighth-century thinker Sankara, and from the Christian panentheism of Paul Tillich. Thatamanil compares their diagnoses and prognoses of the human predicament in light of their doctrine of God or Ultimate Reality. What emerges is a new theology of God and human beings, with a richer and more radical conception of divine immanence, a reconceived divine transcendence, and a keener sense of how the dynamic and active Spirit at work in us anchors real hope and deep joy.

Using key insights from Christian and Hindu thought Thatamanil vindicates comparative theology, expands the vocabulary about the ineffable God, and arrives at a new construal of the problems and prospects of the human condition."

The human condition has nothing to do with god. We are evolved monkeys (apes) with animal characteristics at all level, including our self-inflated sense of intelligence. We try to rob each others, even by making “value deals” through economic and through belief manipulations which leave many of us poor and profit only a few of us — those sneaky enough to climb to the top of the pile. It’s the pecking order — human style. It’s part of our nature. Our relationship codes are designed to socially dampen the worse traits in most of us, but due to natural vagaries and narrow-minded education in many cultural frameworks, some of humanities become renegades, thieves, sociopaths, terrorists and propagandists — and not just in Muslim communities. Our Neoliberal social constructs are actually more deceptive, though more comfortable than these uptight religious constructs. No matter how we become saints in our own eyes, we are vulnerable to others' misdemeanours and our own inflation which places our arse at the level of god. The ineffable god is a fabulous invention to give us the right to be “righteous” in a complex context. It does not sort out the problems our masters, rulers and those our own stupidity engender. 
I would propose that "the human condition" is not problematic but we turn it into a problem by not accepting its earthly evolutionary origins — and don't work more realistic ways to manage the condition which is quite fantastic for monkeys. We are a species in progress.
The complexity of our societal structures lead to many lies which are full of deception, including the belief that we are right and others are wrong. Yes we should weep for the kids in war torn countries, but we should also decry the originators of these bloody wars which eventually engender guilty parties on all sides. Religious wars during the Renaissance DID happen for reasons that were far more than just beliefs but also territorial dominance and the relevance of ownership of "souls". Imagine the Catholics losing to Luther — unthinkable — all this glory and cash being a waste of energy… Whether the Cath or the Luther were right or not, both were fighting tooth and nail for existence in the mind of people. The same is presently happening with the Shia and the Sunnis — a battle in which the Western idiots have taken the most hideous side for profit (oil).
"the trajectory of my life without thinking also of yours regardless of who you are, whether you vote red or blue, whether you are gay or straight, whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or an atheist…”

Is there no limit on this regardlessness, as someone else will try to kill you, rob you or bury you? At what point do you draw the bridge? No matter how saintly you are, was or will be, there will always be some morons ready to believe that you owe them your life, or have to be subservient, especially if you are a woman. And if you don't have enemies, you governments will manufacture some so you become docile in fear.
Transcendence is a big deceptive word for earthlings. It means their head is full of lovely shit while the pickpockets are busy.

 

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University.

"God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt."

This is the hallmark sentence of Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology. It is an elegantly simple but dauntingly deep sentence, which took Jenson a lifetime of theological reflection to write.

GUS: THAT IS A LONG TIME TO WRITE A SENTENCE IN SYSTEMATIC FICTION ...

To write such a sentence requires that we discipline our presumption that we know what we are saying when we say the word "God." For it turns out that we are most likely to take God's name in vain when we assume we know what we are saying when we say "God."

GUS: GOD IS A VAIN SADIST CALLED HUMAN IMAGINATION.

Indeed, one of the ironies of the many robust defences atheism published over the last several years is the confidence these atheists seem to have in knowing which God it is they are sure does not exist. They have forgotten that one of the crimes of which Romans accused Christians - a crime whose punishment was often death - was that Christians were atheists.

GUS: BUGGER ! THEN THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE CHANGED AND EMPEROR CONSTANTINE SAW THAT IT WAS EASIER TO MANAGE SHEEP BELIEVING IN ONE GOD.

The Romans weren't being unreasonable. All they wanted was for the Christians to acknowledge there were many gods, but Christians were determined atheists. Christians were atheist because they assumed the primary problem was not atheism, but idolatry. Idolatry, moreover, has everything to do with thinking that you know God's name.

GUS: WHATEVER... IDOLATRY IS TO BELIEVE THAT WE ARE "THE CHILDREN OF GOD" WHEN WE REALLY KNOW WE ARE EVOLVED FROM THE SAME DUDES AS THE MONKEYS... THEMSELVES EVOLVED FROM FISHES, ETC. ETC. ETC...

RELIGIONS, WHATEVER THEY PREACH, ARE LYING SYSTEMS OF GROUP GOVERNANCE. IN THE AGE OF FAKE NEWS, ALTERNATIVE FACTS, RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF DECEITFUL BULLSHIT FOR TOO LONG.

BEING A NON-BELIEVER SHOULD BE THE HALLMARK OF NATURALLY BEING HUMAN. 

 

Seeking the truth should not stop you from taking sides — Albert Camus

Truth is the secret of Eloquence — Ruskin.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes —Joseph Roux

If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash — Leonard Cohen

Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own — Dylan Thomas

Advertising mocks the truth by adding gleaming hubcaps to it — Leonisky

Apparently, according the master, E T Gundlach — the satirical advertising guru who invented the “coupon” in 1915 in order to get truer feedback for his advertising campaigns — Julius Caesar was his own General Outdoors Advertising Company as he leased the walls of corner buildings and had them painted with the news of his Gallic victories, so that when he crossed the Rubicon, he had built some “consumer acceptance”. 

One should thus come to understand that the purpose of what we do, including advertising, is to make a number of humans beings do something that otherwise they would not have done. Religion is like advertising. The product that is sold is the fictitious spot in heaven or the eternal banquet with virgins, and on the way there someone is polishing the hubcaps to attract your attention. 

Contrary to Ruskin’s view, many gift-of-the-gabbers, versed in eloquence, tell porkies. Should religious institutions have to submit to the advertising code, they would be sued and bankrupted forthwith. But religious institutions are protected species. There are many instances where bad religious behaviour is ridiculously dismissed or weighed against the goodwill given as a counterpoint.

 

I will take for example this strange fight between Hauerwas and Hilary Scarsella about a certain John Howard Yoder’s sexual behaviour. John Howard Yoder, a long-time leader in the Mennonite religious groups was a weirdo who tried to explained his sexual fantasies in a pseudo-scientifico-psychologicalicus-phalliciticusii religious manner. In an article called “Defanging the Beast” — Mennonite Responses to John Howard Yoder’s Sexual Abuse — Rachel Waltner Goossen, professor of history at Washburn University, tells it straight without the hubcaps:

During the mid-1970s, the renowned Christian ethicist and theologian John Howard Yoder embarked on an experiment in human sexuality, devising his own guidelines and selecting his own subjects, whom he called ‚sisters.

Writing in 1979 to his colleague and supervisor, Marlin E. Miller, the president of Goshen Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, Yoder laid out a continuum of activities in which he and a number of women had engaged:

- superficial touch as a natural greeting

- discussion of possible deeper meaning of touch . . . .

- more meaningful . . . . touch; may be a handclasp, a hug, or a brief kiss . . . .

- Same expressions as above but they become an expectation . . . .

- May be added a closed door, lap-sitting, a less fleeting kiss.

- token partial disrobing

- total disrobing

- specific touching of penis/pubis

- exploration of partial/interrupted arousal/intermission

Other variables, Yoder continued, cut across these:

- Whether just once as a threshold experience or repeated;

- whether done alone or with others present;

- whether the token nudity was a few minutes or longer.

To these listings, Yoder added an interpretive paragraph explaining that as part of the experimentation, he and whatever Christian sister he was with, talked about, the reasoning behind what they were doing, as well as, about unrelated matters (her ministry, friendships, future vocational choices), or past experiences which made this experience helpful. . . . “Sometimes we talked about mutual friends. Usually we prayed.”

One might reasonably imagine that, upon reading this memo, President Miller called the police and pressed charges against the 51- year-old professor who was methodically perpetrating sexual violence on female students and presumably other women on campus. But this was 1979. Courts had not yet consistently defined sexual harassment, and employers were not predisposed to call in law enforcement to respond to violence against women. No educational institutions in the United States, from the Ivy League to the smallest church-affiliated schools, had yet developed procedures for students to file formal complaints about sexual harassment or assault.

----------

Hauerwas, who knew Yoder, waddles in something unsavoury that is a feeble condemning apology, while trying to make sense of something that has no other sense than full-on contradicting excuses in regard to Yoder. Here is Hauerwas:

I certainly have deep sympathies with the feminist challenge to paternalism. Even more, I think feminist critiques of masculinity to be extremely insightful. Stan Goff’s book Borderline is a model of how feminist insights can illumine what any Christian should think. The work Goff does in his book makes clear that the feminist challenge to “maleness” is a gift to men.

I also think the feminist challenge to the assumption that marriage is necessary for the fulfilment of women to be right and important. Yoder’s account of singleness can be read as a feminist argument. I also think we owe feminists a debt of gratitude for their critique of romantic love. For years in the core course in Christian Ethics, I assigned the work of Marie Fortune because I thought her exposure of the violence present in romantic love to be a crucial insight. Fortune was not only important for exposing the violence occluded in romantic ideals of love, but she also helped make clear that nonviolence is not just about war. Yoder would and did think similar thoughts, but he did so because he thought they were commensurate with the Gospel.

Yet the issue remains how to receive Yoder’s work without that reception seeming to imply that his behaviour does not matter. That surely would be an injustice to the women he harmed. He was the President of the Society of Christian Ethics. Should some notation be put next to his name when past presidents of the society are named? Pete Rose will not get into the Hall of Fame, but Yoder is already there. We cannot act as if he was not the president of the Society. Or what does it mean that Yoder was President of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary? I obviously cannot speak as a Mennonite, for which I thank God since I have no idea what to say, but they surely must say something.

Nor do I think it helpful to call attention to the misconduct toward women by Martin Luther King, Jr., Karl Barth or Paul Tillich. Each in their own way seem to have engaged in misconduct toward women or a woman, but I think it does little good to suggest that they help us understand Yoder’s behaviour. To call attention to these men invites the general claim that when all is said and done “we are all sinners.” That is a way to excuse each of us, with the result that Yoder is left off the hook. That is clearly a mistake, not only because Yoder should not be left off the hook, but, just as importantly, sin should never be used as an explanation.

That is it. That is all I have to say about this troubling matter. It surely feels like I am ending with a whimper. That is the way it should feel, because I have ended with a whimper. I did not want to write this article, but I have done it. I am not happy that I have done it, but then nothing about this situation is happy.

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University. His most recent books are The Work of Theology, Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life and The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/10/18/4751367.htm

Hilary Scarsella counterpoints this Hauerwas pitiful diatribe with more solid argumentation:

The approach to theology represented by Yoder and Hauerwas has so far not been able to make much headway in resisting sexual violence, much less understanding it. As public knowledge of Yoder’s sexually violent and predatory behaviour settles in, what we need is to become willing to consider that this approach to theology is not currently equipped to help us understand sexual violence, hear the voices of survivors and resist this violence’s systemic perpetuation. Hauerwas’s repeated use of logics and rhetoric that perpetuate the harm of sexual violence suggests as much.

Rather than investing our intellectual and spiritual energy in the goal of fixing a system of thought that has produced such harm, we would be wise instead to set our intention on cultivating theological space committed to thinking with and through the experiences of sexual violence survivors and the logics that empower survival and wellbeing in the face of sexual threat.

Hauerwas is right to be anxious that the theological paradigm he holds dear may not survive the transition. It is shortsighted, however, not to realize that inviting the Yoderian thought-world to rest, lie quiet, listen and change is the only response to Yoder’s violence that has the potential to avoid repeating Yoder’s abuses.

Hilary Scarsella is a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University, researching the intersection of theology, gender, violence and psychological trauma. She directs the network Our Stories Untold.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/11/30/4774014.htm

So far we have waded in the religious moralistic content of what we have been “instructed” since day one of our conscious life and we have not scientifically been informed on how to deal with our human nature. Unlike dogs that meet for the first time, we don’t go and sniff each other’s butt. Yet we play games of sorts, including wearing fancy clothes designed to attract others (or repulse in the case of the burka tent). These sexual games are at the core of our innate desire to procreate with functional block and tackles — and flirting should be recognised like birds of a feather canoodling each other. The hormones are playing with us, in the most natural way, but as we need to participate in a complex social order, we need to restrain our impulses which would destroy this order — and formalise our sexual unions, including age of consent. Predatory behaviour is a major problem in non-consensuality, but some religious males will play devious games to induce concensual sex by “intimating that’s what god wants”, especially with the young and vulnerable.

Away from morality, the games can be played with fun and delicate moments of furtiveness. Here is another Rimbaud poem translated by Jules Letambour:

First night (the title is really “first evening” but for poetry’s sake, “first night” is better says Jules. He also said that poetry is IMPOSSIBLE to translate.)

— She was without much clothes

And very indiscreet big trees

At the window moved their leaves

Teasingly, too close, too close.

Sitting on my big recline

Half-naked, she joined her hands

Shivering happily on the land

Her little feet were so fine, so fine. 

— My eyes followed a little shimmering ray

Coloured like a star

A butterfly in her smile

On her naked breast — a dew drop for a rose

— I kissed her ankles

Her soft laughter quite brutal

pearled in clear trills

A beautiful laughter like crystal

etc

In terms of sexuality, in most cases, nature does not ask questions. Trees and grasses "send their wild oats", bees pollinate and most female whales get gang-ravished. We ask crude questions and often answer with excuses that do not fit our social dictums. We become fallen angels. We seek forgiveness, blah blah blah.  In all this we become hypocrites under the shadow of god. In fact we should help develop a healthier relationship between sciences and arts, not so much to communicate the complexity of sciences but to promote enjoyment and a decided purposefulness away from the dismal dictums of religious deceptions, in all our activities.. 

And this goes for sexual behaviour too. Place a bull in a bunch of heifers and you will discover what you did not want to know. 

 

Gus Leonisky

Your local (retired) faded sex symbol

 

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A top Vatican astronomer has said that a number of public scientists claim to be atheists in order to appear credible, noting that a surprising number of scientists attend church.

Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, who has spoken on a number of topics concerning science and faith, told Vancouver Sun in an interview earlier this week that many "public scientists" are insecure about their rank.

"The scientists that you see on TV who are proclaimed atheists because they think it gives them credibility in science — which it doesn't — are turning off the nine-tenths of the population that don't call themselves atheists," Consolmagno said, without naming names.

read more:

https://www.christianpost.com/news/how-many-atheist-scientists-secretly-...

"A top Gus representative" knows many (actualy more than two) priests who do not believe in god... but Gus cannot name any names as this would interfere in their little belief racket, that is at the core of the only way they can be employed — holding a Sunday collection plate after preaching hell and damnation. As the joke goes: 

Priest, looking at his parishioner's offering: "that's a lousy two bob, sir"

Parishioner: "that was a lousy sermon, my dear man..."

 

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• 

  3. The Bridge

  42:26

  Mary Kahn was an everyday parishioner who ascended to the Church of Scientology’s highest levels of spiritual enlightenment. But as she shares with Leah, the price tag of her experience was extreme - eventually including the relationship with her youngest son.

• 

  2. Fair Game

  42:47

  Leah visits the spiritual headquarters of Scientology - Clearwater, Florida - to hear Mike Rinder’s personal story. As the head of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, Mike Rinder was expected to discredit and destroy critics of the Church. But after leaving the Church, Rinder himself became Fair Game.

• 

  1. Disconnection

  42:33

  Leah Remini begins her journey with a trip to Seattle to visit former Scientology executive Amy Scobee. After hearing Amy’s tragic story of being disconnected from her mother, Leah is determined to reveal the truth of what’s really going on in her former Church.

 

 

Farming for desperate naive dudes who have cash is the name of the game... Welcome to the Ponzi scheme of religion. ALL RELIGIONS WORK ON THE SAME PRINCIPLE of mind control with different narratives, whether you're a Wahhabi, a Methodist or a Scientologist. As soon as you want "certainty" in your beliefs, your mind will be taken over by full blown psychotathic pseudo-psychs and tax evasion masterminds who will suck you dry. Some of the religions will turn you into murderers and idiots (if you're not one already)...

 

Welcome to the Church of Gus Leonisky: send cash to ....

 

 

see:

https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/scientology-and-the-aftermath

 

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Thursday evening on Weekly MTG, Wizards of the Coast revealed that they have apparently ended their relationship with controversial artist Terese Nielsen.

“We haven’t commissioned new art from Terese Nielsen in quite a while,” said Doug Beyer, Principal Game Designer on the Worldbuilding team for Magic: the Gathering. “The last product that will have any reprint art from her is this Fall with Zendikar Rising.”

Beyer’s statement is Wizards of the Coast’s first acknowledgement of the controversy surrounding Nielsen. It came on the same day that it was revealed that Nielsen will have at least three cards in Jumpstart, Magic’s newest supplemental product, with her art: Death’s Approach, Hunter’s Insight, and Rhystic Study. Many in the Magic community were upset that Wizards was continuing to use Nielsen’s work after the information that has surfaced throughout 2018 and 2019.

 

Nielsen, who lives in Carson City, NV with her wife, was one of Magic’s most popular artists and began illustrating cards in 1996’s Alliances expansion set. But in 2018, people noticed that Nielsen had been following members of the alt-right and conspiracy theorists on Twitter. Those follows ranged from alt-right activists like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, to InfoWars—home of conspiracy theorist and Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones—and the white nationalist Stefan Molyneux.

She was also found to have liked a number of racist tweets that spouted anti-Semitic theories and made memes about white power.

When all of that was brought to light, she unfollowed many of those accounts and unliked the offending tweets. However, the controversy would not die down, and it resurfaced a year later in April 2019, at which time she issued a long statement on Twitter.

“Being excommunicated from a community and ostracized by family for following my convictions is not new to me,” Nielsen wrote. “The Magic community has blessed me and taught me in a myriad of ways in the past 25 years…I embrace the fact that many different viewpoints can, do, and should co-exist. In these stressful times, it is my intent to navigate in harmony with my core values (beauty, compassion, love) to the best of my ability without any need or desire to stifle, censor or demean another for differently held viewpoints.”

Many found her statement vague and underwhelming, especially because it didn’t address her alleged trans-exclusionary beliefs. Nielsen later posted a second statement celebrating pride month, saying: “Just so nothing I have expressed thus far can possibly be misunderstood…for the record, I support human rights, trans rights, gay rights, as well as religious freedom and the sacredness of life in all forms.”

Just a few months later, Nielsen’s work ended up on the racist, QAnon and conspiracy-focused YouTube channel Edge of Wonder. The show posted a video on July 12, 2019 in which the co-hosts present art prints that Nielsen had gifted them

 

“So, a painter sent us these,” Rob Counts says in the video. “Terese Nielsen. She sent us all of these paintings and they’re actually incredible.”

“And signed them!” replies co-host Ben Chasteen.

Despite the building body of evidence that Nielsen held fringe views, Wizards didn’t make any public statements about the situation while the community grew increasingly uneasy. When Nielsen was given another card in June 2019’s Modern Horizons set, Echo of Eons, Wizards still hadn’t given any indication that they aware of the community’s concerns.

Then, in November of that year, controversy bubbled over once again at Mythic Championship VI. Autumn Burchett, winner of Mythic Championship I the first non-binary player to win a major tournament, wrote “NO TERFS ON GRUUL TURF!” on their (very expensive) Guru Forest and Island that feature artwork by Nielsen. (TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist and is often used to describe people who do not believe that trans women are women.) Burchett tweeted that Wizards asked them to remove those lands from their deck, causing an uproar in the Magic community as it appeared that Wizards was trying to stifle a very public criticism of Nielsen and her views.

 

Nielsen proceeded to fade into the background as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the entire world. Attention turned the delay of Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths’ release and the cancellation of Magic’s entire 2020 in-person schedule, from MagicFests to the Players Tour and Mythic Invitationals. On Memorial Day, George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, MN, generating waves of protest in the United States that dominated the headlines. The protests forced companies like Wizards to acknowledge how unwelcome many minorities felt in its game, resulting in the banning of seven cards for their racist depictions and an acknowledgement that “[t]here’s much more work to be done as we continue to make our games, communities, and company more inclusive.”

A week later came the beginning of Jumpstart’s preview season—and the revelation that Nielsen would once again have cards with her art appear in a brand new Magic set.

“We hear you,” Beyer said Thursday. The implication of his words—that “the last product that will have any reprint art” from Nielsen will be in Zendikar Rising, combined with the fact that they “haven’t commissioned any new art from [her] in quite a while”—is that Wizards has stopped working with Nielsen and will cease printing cards with her art. When Hipsters reached out to Wizards for confirmation, they declined to comment any further.

 

Read more:

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/wizards-ends-their-relationsh...

 

 

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