By Chelsen Vicari, Juicy Ecumenism.
The following remarks were made by Chelsen Vicari at the annual Springtime of Faith Foundation on April 25 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Last year, I talked to you about a very personal issue highlighting several areas of common ground that our Christian communities share when it comes to the harmful effects of contraception and areas where we can share in the benefits of Natural Family Planning.
This year, I want to change gears and talk with you all about a very serious public matter that, again, Catholics and Evangelical Protestants find commonality. That is, we share a concern for culture’s distortion of the Gospel within our own sanctuaries and chapels.
Whenever somebody mentions Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, what do you imagine?
Likely, your thoughts drift to the painting’s infamous stoic expression or its mysterious legacy. What you probably don’t think about is the thick bulletproof glass that sits between the Mona Lisa and art gallery patrons. Did you know that there are these protective measures for a painting people just have to walk up to and look at?
I learned recently that the reason for this thick glass over the Mona Lisa is because vandals have attempted to distort the portrait by throwing acid, rocks and red paint at the portrait for centuries. So the world’s most famous work of art must be protected.
Our broken world constantly tries to vandalize famously cherished works, so why would we expect God’s valued work of art, His Holy Scriptures, to be any different?