Art students at Pensacola Christian College are, according to the their website, “equipped to share Christ through the visual arts, music, or dramatic performance”. However, they are forced to study from heavily censored books. How are students supposed to learn the history of art when the realities of the times are fastidiously covered up? Someone, somewhere, had the onerous task of “clothing” an entire textbook’s worth of iconic figures deemed too sinister by the prudish art department, with specific areas crudely drawn over in black marker.
Denial of history is a common tactic among the more hardcore religiously-minded, and while it’s not exactly the Taliban blowing up ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, feeling the need to censor the slightest hint of cleavage on the Mona Lisa is sensitivity bordering on the extreme.
The results are sad for the students, whose worldview is tragically limited by the religious police, but quite hilarious for us, as we see the lengths that some Christians will go to maintain their ideological purity’
Pensacola Christian College is located in Pensacola, Florida and was founded in 1974. Their goal is to “train young men and women in higher education for a life of service to Jesus Christ,” and to “promote the cause of Christ by providing a distinctively Christian-traditional, liberal arts education that develops students spiritually, intellectually, morally, culturally, and socially.”
This school is free to teach as it chooses, but what do you think about this kind of censorship? Let us know in the comments!
Laughing through tears of anger …
Just too ridiculous to be believed!
censorship is part of art history, too. Not a good part, but many of the fig leaves covering up people in old paintings were painted on later.
this here is, however, even sillier. (I am not “angry” as such, though, as in many paintings, nakedness isn’t what tells the story, and they only ruined a book, not any originals (I hope)
Is this not just an early Calvin Klein underwear ad campaign?
‘Fraid I don’t believe it. A college would more simply not buy these books, I bought an old book called “Sands of the Kalahari” at a library sale. A lot of the cuss words were inked over by someone and I doubt very seriously it was the library. If these art books were inked over, it was probably someone who was just a bit of over zealousness.
I like how they left the bloody part uncovered while covering clearly unaccaptable work like the Mona Lisa. Religion is so much fun!
I’m just glad it was a book they defaced, and not the actual masterpiece.
But Melania Trump’s photo shots are ‘classy’.
I visited this school and received a scholarship from them, but after seeing their “dating parlor” I knew it was CRAZY TOWN!
I speak from experience, this is an actual textbook. I used their texts in my tiny baptist high school. Stuff like this is why the Cheeto is president.
Yeah. I went there. It’s actually like that. It’s terrible. They don’t tell you until you’re too far into your term that your credits won’t transfer.
This post is the tippy top of the iceberg.
I like naked people
No excuses. It is the attitude that counts. See something sinful in these pictures? It is your own mind that is sinful. These censors are so overly concentrated on nudity that I would call it an obsessive anxiety.
In museums, especially the old ones with the most money they have rooms of genitals, and all the rare ate that is too much for the masses to see. I’m not making this up. People in charge of this sort of thing actually made small genitals to replace the original ones or painted smaller ones on painting or used painted ribbons like early censorship bars. The worst part of this moral crusade against art is that when the Victorians were discovering Pompeii they destroyed countless mosaics because they depicted sex, a normal thing for the Romans. I get sick thinking of the countless eons of history marred and changed by these sickos who are afraid of their own bodies.
* art
I went there. It’s all true! All the library books were censored with black marker.
That’s right up there with the popes who ran through the Vatican with hammers, knocking off sculptural pieces they deemed offensive.
Huge amounts of money from their parishioners to purchase world art and information to educate others.
Total buffoons deciding they know better 🤦♀️
Anyone who believes this is is “censored” is an idiot. Looks like someone went through the book with a marker for fun.
Did they forget a titty or is that a dude in the middle
Halal Painting 😁
Yes, only a book, the originals are next, man up.
Hard to believe this is genuine. With all of the ‘modesty’ work done on this book, it’s of absolutely no value for teaching art history.
Extreme Christian’s are complete morons
If the Christain right had their way in the USA, there would be no difference between them and ISIS or the Taliban. Real or not Catholics are raping children, Evangelicals are taking away rights from women and LGBTQ, all the religions are spreading flat earth stupidity and measles and on and on.
This is genuine. I actually watched the people tasked with marking things out. This is
How it was and possibly still is there
Retards
Next up: Book burning!
you mean: witch burning?
You can clearly tell someone took a marker and went through the entire book with it. This is vandalism, not censorship.
Okay, you guys DO realize this is a joke, right? As an art major at a different (but also conservative) Christian college, I can assure you that this tripe is entirely bogus. First of all, this is NOT a college text book. It’s a standard coffee table picture book from DK publishers. Secondly, how in the world could any college obtain copies of ANY book with pre-printed, uniformly censored black-outs? They couldn’t! There’s not a publisher in the world that would consent to printing a subset like that, which leaves the only other option of the college
professors themselves going through each and every book to ink out every picture by hand … which is beyond ludicrous. Third, most Christian colleges are committed to raising up reasoning, broadly-read adults who are capable of thinking through issues on their own. Christian universities and colleges don’t shy away from tough subjects (and bare bottoms on cherubs scarcely qualifies as a “tough subject”) but, rather, demand that students consider all points of view, weigh them against scripture and come to their own informed decision. Why? Because if you don’t understand and “own” your faith, it’s not really a viable faith, is it? (In fact, I wish secular universities would require the same rigor of requiring the reading of source material from all sides of an issue in each of their disciplines, but from what I’ve noticed, secular colleges are far more biased, close-minded and wed to their own opinions than most Christian colleges I’m aware of. The liberal viewpoint is currently the accepted narrative so no one questions it.) So folks, I encourage you to get over your bigoted stereotypes of what you presume Christian thought is and do some research on your own rather than believing the liberal nonsense you’ve been spoonfed since kindergarten. Seriously, go meet some real Christians. Granted, we are all imperfect “works in progress” but we’d love to have a rational, calm discussion with you over coffee sometime. If nothing else, we’d love to share with you how deeply God loves you and wants a relationship with you. Peace and blessings to each of you.
@Happy Camper ew. you’re centuries behind, catch up. the universe is big. you don’t matter. no one is watching you. stop being so self absorbed and try to understand the actual reality, not just the fantasy you’ve been lead to believe.
Ha, this book of censored art images reminds me of a National Geographic of the historical pictures, from the last century (the 1890s to the 1920s) I once borrowed from a library in a more conservative area. A suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. That book featured a few pictures of women and men in native costume in New Guinea and Africa. Women and men who were naked. Yet some prudish busy body had gone through the whole book and covered up nipples (even men’s nipples) and genitals and buttocks and children’s areas with thick electrical tape. I was rather perplexed, then annoyed, then angry. I thought, what right, does some self-appointed censor have to go through a library book and vandalize it. There isn’t any place now where anyone cannot see these same images online elsewhere. I carefully removed all of the electrical tape, which fortunately didn’t stick to the paper on the book or rip any of the images. I wasn’t some voyeur or someone looking to get off on the images. As the other images in the book focused on Paris in the 1910s, Egypt, the USA, and other venues around the world at the turn of the last century. Yes gosh, did that self-appointed censor make me angry.
DK publishing would not censor their own books for the vast public market. This was either done to suit this college by someone else or was done for the college to appease them. Gosh only knows there are enough Baptist closed minds out there, with money, to demand that sort of thing.
anonymous #7 is a genius
and 12
Fundamentalists are obsessed with covering up their contempt for humanity with insincere BS about Jesus. If Jesus actually came to earth right now do you really think he’d be pleased with how fundamentalists have done their best to destroy the planet, cage children, support the muders of countless innocent black and brown people, and put the anti christ in office? So busy trying to shame and punish others for wanting to be free you became malignant narcissists instead of following Christs example! Shame on you!!!!
I accept censorship of exposed privates especially men but wth ru doing with the Mona Lisa it is a tiny little show!
Sad but true
Stupid effing christians and their self-righteous false purity.
@Happycamper is mostly correct. The secular schools I’ve been to are exactly like this. Pensacola, however, was exactly like these pictures depict though. When I visited, there were all sorts of ridiculous things. Women weren’t even allowed to eat bananas because it “looked like oral sex”. SMH who in their right mind is having a wank to a delicious banana?
@Tea usually I like your POV and comments (or at least the ones under the same name), but this statement comes off as no less ignorant than saying “Blacks and their drug dealing” or “Gays and their child molesting ways”. It’s a ridiculous blanket statement based on unfair stereotypes. Christianity doesn’t necessarily make one an intolerant hypocrite, any more than a parent, by definition, beats children. People are people, some are good, some are bad, and some are ugly (some make movie references for comedic levity…). Lastly I’m replying to your comment, out of the several like this, because generally I like your comments on here. Only reason I picked it out, because I like to think I like you normally.
I repec this