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ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB Kim as Mary, and baby North as Jesus Graphic designer Hannah Kunkle shocked NYC, and much of the Christian world with her depictions of the celebrity-hunting Kim Kardashian as May of the Virgin mother of Jesus. Outside of the celebrity factor however, the image isn't half-bad and so it's Monday's Madonna & Child .

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ton Mashberg A view of three Hopi masks from Arizona during a Paris auction in December 2013.   FRANCE---Prompted by another large sale on Friday of American Indian religious items — the fourth such auction in the past 18 months — embassy officials invited an American judge, who is herself a member of the Hopi tribe, to explain to government officials, art dealers, academics and lawyers why treating spiritual objects as commodities is insulting and sacrilegious. The embassy’s efforts did not pay off last week despite two legal challenges to the auction, which included 29 vibrant Hopi spiritual headdresses and masklike items, known as Katsinam, that are treated as living entities by the tribe. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Roberta Smith "The Warriors" (1913) by Marden Hartley GERMANY---Before Jasper Johns or Jackson Pollock, there was Marsden Hartley , America’s first great modern painter of the 20th century. He achieved this distinction in Paris and most of all in Berlin between early 1912 and late 1915. These canvases are memorials to Karl von Freyburg, the young German officer — possibly the great love of Hartley’s life — who was killed in the first weeks of World War I. Hartley’s world-class status is confirmed by “ Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings, 1913-1915 ,” an exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie here that should thrill and surprise even the most devoted Hartley fan. [ link ] The exhibition in Berlin ended on June 29, but will travel only to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in August. It should however be traveling to every state where same-sex marriage is in debate including Indiana where his reinterpretation of the Three Kings hangs as ...

THE WASHINGTON POST By Emily Yahr Lucy Warburton, the mayor, and Kevin Garvey, the police chief, on the series premiere of “The Leftovers.” HBO’s new series “The Leftovers,” as you may have heard, is quite the bleak drama. The premiere picks up three years after 2 percent of the world’s population — 140 million people — evaporated into thin air for no rhyme or reason. The show begins to deftly illustrate the many ways the horrifying event affects the citizens of Mapleton, a small town in New York. In short, no one is doing very well. The characters don’t talk a lot about about the confusion surrounding the Sudden Departure, so the audience has to fill in the blanks. After years of research, they have absolutely no idea what happened. Congress is not pleased. Every talking head feels differently about the reasons behind Oct. 14.  It’s all a very weird, sad world, and we know it gets only more twisted from there. [ link ] [Related:  'The Leftovers' review: A biblical ev...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM L’Incoronazione di Poppea In a new Robert Wilson production of this Monteverdi opera, singers recreate the tale of a mistress who wants to be empress. After a run in Paris, the work will continue in Milan early next year. FRANCE---Nero and Poppea never touch in Robert Wilson’s new production of Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” for the Paris Opera, which ends its run at the Palais Garnier on Monday. Their love affair, which drives anyone who gets in its way to death or exile, is one of the most violent portrayed in opera. The tension between the frosty beauty of Mr. Wilson’s production and the simmering passions of its characters is disconcerting at first. What Mr. Wilson offers is a geometry lesson in human passions. In Monteverdi’s opera, the historical events are introduced as a test of strength between Amor, Virtue and Fortune, which Amor is determined to win. The libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello reflects the ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Stephen Holden HOLLYWOOD ---War and peace. Humans and animals. Contemplation of our bestial versus our spiritual sides. These may be too much heavy baggage to attach to a corporate product like “ How to Train Your Dragon 2 .” But such matters are there for you to ponder in this sequel to the 2010 blockbuster that recertified DreamWorks Animation, after a fallow period, as a major player in Hollywood’s cartoon sweepstakes. And pop mythology nowadays has a way of seeping into the culture and sending far-reaching undercurrents. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Dale Carpenter PUBLISHING---For more than four years a group of prominent lawyers led by Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, along with political consultants and Hollywood celebrities, campaigned against Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriages approved by California voters in 2008. The latest triumphal installment comes from Mr. Olson and Mr. Boies, in “Redeeming the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality.” This self-described “odd couple”— Mr. Olson is a Republican, Mr. Boies is a liberal Democrat — were legal adversaries in the contested 2000 presidential election, Bush v. Gore, before teaming up to challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 8. [ link ] REDEEMING THE DREAM The Case for Marriage Equality By David Boies and Theodore B. Olson Illustrated. 310 pages. Viking. $28.95.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB This past week, the Center for Civil and Human Rights opened in Atlanta and gay couples earned their freedom to marry in Indiana. For three days, gay couples married as part of the equality movement inspired by Civil Rights heroes like Coretta Scott King , Bayard Rustin , and current Congressman John Lewis . It is Lewis's life and example that are told in 37 expressionistic works by Georgia artist Benny Andrews , now in the center's collection . The works feature John Lewis’s recollection of key episodes in his life and his unwavering fight for civil rights. For a week when freedom both  waxed and waned , "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaking" (above) by Benny Andrews is my NEWS OF WEEK .

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter "Witness (detail)" (1968) by Benny Andrews (American, 1930–2006). NEW YORK---This imaginatively chosen show lays to rest the idea that photography was the only memorable art the civil rights era produced. Most of what’s here is painting, sculpture and collage. The roster is racially and ethnically mixed, the artists varied in degrees of familiarity. Some, like Jacob Lawrence, Frank Stella and Norman Rockwell , are well known. Others — like [ Benny Andrews , ]  Cleveland Bellow, LeRoy Clarke, Virginia Jaramillo and John T. Riddle Jr. — are rare visitors to our major museums. The show gets the balance of history right in other ways too, by letting it be confused and confusing, a thing of loose strands and hard questions still looking for answers. [ link ] Brooklyn Museum: " Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties " (Through July 13); 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY; (718) 638-5000; brooklynmuseum.org

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Thomas Erdbrink Iraqis walk past the damaged al-Askari mosque following an explosion in  Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Courtesy of TIME. IRAQ---A dozen miles outside this shrine city, on the edges of the uninhabitable western Iraqi desert, a group of paramilitary policemen provides the only visible line of defense against the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Hunkered down in a command post, its walls fortified with concrete and rubble, the policemen’s leader, Col. Hossein Alegeli, is dispatching one of his ranger teams deep into the sultry wastes in search of Islamic extremists determined to destroy the holy shrines of Shiite Islam. The team might be the first line of defense, but as Shiite officials in the area scramble to meet the threat, it is hardly the last. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Sharon Otterman Holy Innocents, on West 37th Street, dates to 1869. Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times NEW YORK---As the Rev. Justin Wylie took the pulpit at the Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan last month, anger and anxiety emanated from the pews. The church is the only one in New York City to offer a daily traditional Latin Mass, but an archdiocesan panel had recommended that it be closed. Nationally, about 440 churches celebrate the Latin Mass at least once a week, double the number that did so in 2007, according to Coalition Ecclesia Dei , an organization that promotes the Mass. Faced with a shortage of priests and a declining number of parishioners, the New York Archdiocese — which includes the Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and seven counties north of New York City — has been determining which of its 368 parishes it will shutter through a planning process called Making All Things New. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michael Wilson “Deliver Us From Evil,” based on a former policeman’s book, opens July 2. Credit Earl Wilson for The New York Times NEW YORK---The worried woman described the bizarre goings-on at her home in the Bronx, which she suspected was haunted, to the police officer standing before her. “Let me explain your problem,” the officer, Ralph Sarchie, replied. “Your home has been invaded by a demonic spirit, which is causing the phenomena you’ve described. Mr. Sarchie wrote a book, “Beware the Night,” with a co-author, Lisa Collier Cool, about encounters like the one above in the Bronx. It was published in 2001 by St. Martin’s Press to little fanfare, and he retired in 2004. But 10 years later, a horror film based on the book, “Deliver Us From Evil,” is set to open July 2, and the countless posters advertising it all over New York announce its source material in bold red letters: “Inspired by the Actual Accounts of an N.Y.P.D. Sergeant.” [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By GIA KOURLAS ". . Moses(es)" by Reggie Wilson, at St. Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island. Credit Darial Sneed NEW YORK---In the stage version of “ ... Moses(es) ,” performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last December, the choreographer Reggie Wilson began by introducing himself to the assembled crowd. His dancers followed suit, adding how long they’d spent as members of his Fist & Heel Performance Group. Mr. Wilson then stuffed armloads of silver tinsel into a suitcase. He packs a lot into his dances. In Mr. Wilson’s low-key iteration of the production, shown at St. Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island on Wednesday, the space changes everything. The chapel’s crumbling white walls, arched windows and depth give the dancers pronounced individuality; instead of sculptural red costumes, they wear red practice clothes. The swooping, almost feverish choreography was just as potent here as it was at the Brooklyn Academy, but Mr. Wilson’s structu...

ARTBEAT | NYTIMES By Tom Mashberg MASSACHUSETTS---The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has returned eight works of art to Nigeria after determining that the documentation accompanying some of the items, six of which were bequeathed in early 2013 by a prominent donor and collector, was suspect or fraudulent. The repatriated antiquities include two Nok terracotta figures and a terracotta head, items known to be at high risk for theft; a wooden ancestral figure from the 18th or 19th century known as an ekpu, which disappeared from a Nigerian museum in the 1970s; an elaborate bronze altar figure of a warrior from the 1910s, which was likely stolen from the Royal Palace in Benin City in 1976; two terracotta heads from the Kingdom of Benin, and a group of three figures made of wood and fiber known as Kalabari. [ link ]

WTHR CHANNEL 13 | NBC By Emily Longnecker  -  Bio  |  Email   Ernest & Gregory Disney-Britton, co-founders of Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts INDIANA---Members of the gay community are upset with Friday's appeals court stay of the ruling that allowed same-sex marriage in Indiana . They see it as a fight to protect their rights and this ruling calls that into question. The ink was barely dry on their marriage license from Wednesday when Ernest and Greg Disney-Britton learned other gay couples still wanting to get married would have to wait. "That's why its even more of a letdown, because it was unexpected to even happen and then you rip it away," said Greg. "I thank God for Wednesday and Wednesday's going to come again," Ernest added. It has to, they said, and they believe most Hoosiers agree with them. [ link ] Watch Video:  [ Same-sex couple reacts to stay ]

CLEVELAND JEWISH NEWS By Carlo Wolf “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” at Cleveland Museum of Art OHIO---Yoga’s widening influence on art and culture, starting in ancient India, is on fulsome, sensuous display at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Wandering from room to room in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall engenders a feeling of peace – if, perhaps, not quite the enlightenment the yogis and yoginis were said to attain. A blend of all kinds of art, from ancient sculptures to golden-hued paintings to garish, mystical woodcarvings, along with vintage photography and magazines, “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” delights the eye and stimulates less visible neural pathways. Organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and curated by Debra Diamond, associate curator of South and Southeast Asian Art there, it debuted at the Sackler last October. Cleveland is its final stop. [ link ]

THE CHRISTIAN POST By Michael Gryboski Pastor Chris Seay of the Ecclesia community at Montrose Church in Houston, Texas. Televangelist Pat Robertson has weighed in on whether or not Christians should get tattoos, stating that it is a "heathen practice" to get a tattoo. On a Wednesday installment of the long running program "The 700 Club," Robertson was asked by a viewer about his opinion on Christians getting tattoos. During the "Bring It On" segment of the program, a viewer named "Glenn" asked about whether or not a Christian tattoo was acceptable. Robertson responded that "it doesn't make it OK, because it's religious, believe me." He then asserted that getting tattoos is a "heathen practice." "You look at the Bible, the people are told not to mark their bodies and cut themselves like the heathen did. Tattooing is a heathen practice, it is not a Christian practice." In some Christian circles, tattoos ...

CREATE EQUITY | AFTA By Ian David Moss One of the dangers of project support, when pursued too zealously, is that it can take the funded organizations away from their core mission—and often, then, their core competencies. The whole point of supporting the arts, to my mind, is to encourage innovation, expectation-challenging, and all what goes along with leading a creative life. Laying out the path ahead of time with too-great specificity potentially squashes the very thing that makes the arts special. I think the same principle can be applied to artists, either when they are funded directly or when their activity is supported through a grant to an organization. I would like to think that most philanthropists who truly believe in the arts can trust creators enough not to try to do their work for them. [ link ]

NUVO MAGAZINE By Mark A. Lee Ernest Britton and Greg Disney hold hands as Beth White officiates their wedding on Wednesday. Their union was originally blessed on January 28, 2008 at Life Journey Church in Indianapolis. INDIANA---Chief Judge Richard Young's historic decision on marriage equality in Indiana opened up the doors to over a thousand Hoosiers getting married on Wednesday June 25th, 2014. The City County Building in Downtown Indianapolis stayed open past 10PM to perform ceremonies. [ Slide Show ]

ISLAMIC ARTS MAGAZINE MALAYSIA---The ' Capture the Spirit of Ramadan' International Photography Competition™ (IRPC) is a unique 30-day visual celebration of the holy month that aims to educate and enlighten millions of viewers around the world through the art of photography. It is an integral part of the world renowned ' Capture the Spirit of Ramadan ' initiative founded under the context of ' Bridging Cultures & Inspiring Creativity '. Currently in its 4th year, the initiative offers an international platform for talented and professional photographers around the world to share their creativity in an effort to showcase the beauty of Islam through its art, architecture and cultural diversity. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS "Artful Contemplation: Collections of the National Museum of Bhutan" by Ariana Maki BHUTAN ---The National Museum of Bhutan announces its publication, Artful Contemplation: Collections of the National Museum of Bhutan by Ariana Maki, available at the NMB gift shop   or download the cover at Academia.edu .

ALBAWABA Visitors can revel in a warm, welcoming and truly celebratory ambience with hues of purple enveloping the tent, which opens to unmatched views of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building UNITED ARAB EMIRATES---The rich heritage of Arabian hospitality will meet the captivating beauty of Islamic art this Ramadan, at ‘Downtown,’ Emaar’s Ramadan tent in Downtown Dubai. ‘Downtown’ provides visitors with an experience like no other; a journey that begins at the spectacular entrance, where they can observe the design aesthetics of Emaar’s upcoming projects, including The Opera District and Dubai Hills Estate models, spread across the venue. Visitors can revel in a warm, welcoming and truly celebratory ambience with hues of purple enveloping the tent, which opens to unmatched views of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. They can enjoy world-class traditional and contemporary cuisine, catered by Emaar Hospitality Group, the hospitality and leisure subsidiary of Emaar. [...

THE WASHINGTON POST By Amanda Greene | Religion News Service NORTH CAROLINA---Words and music are the stock-in-trade at most Christian festivals, but the Wild Goose Festival is adding another component: the visual arts. This year’s progressive Christian smorgasbord of culture, justice and spiritual exchange June 26-29 in Hot Springs, N.C., near Asheville, will feature plenty of speakers. Keynoters include newsmakers such as the Rev. William Barber, leader of the state’s Moral Mondays campaign; Jim Wallis, poverty activist and founder of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Schaefer, the United Methodist minister who was defrocked in December for performing his son’s same-sex wedding. But as with last year, the festival is making an intentional shift to include more visual art; more than 13 artists and arts groups will present their work. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS CONNECTICUT---Curated by Jewish Art Now, " ARTFEST " celebrates the vibrant infusion of creativity and artistic engagement in a diverse, eco-conscious Jewish community. ArtFest offers a wildly diverse array of opportunities to learn about, create, and engage with the emerging universe of Jewish art and the art of Judaism — with over 15 presenters from all walks of art. This year’s exploration of of Jewish culture takes place June 30-July 3 at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, in the Connecticut Berkshires. Begin your exploration by RSVPing on Facebook today.

LIST FILM By Paul Gallagher Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) This deliberate, meaty, provocative drama brilliantly uses the structure and form of religious art to deconstruct the damaging effects of religious indoctrination. Through 14 sections, each consisting of just one take, shot from a fixed camera position (with two significant exceptions), director Dietrich Brüggemann charts several significant days in the life of Maria, a teenage member of the Priestly Society of St. Paul, a strict Vatican II-denying branch of Catholicism. Each section takes the title of one of the Stations of the Cross – the 14 markers of Jesus’ Passion as defined by Catholic tradition – making Maria an explicit parallel to Christ; a parallel that becomes more poignant and devastating as the film develops. Yet while heavily critiquing the destructive power of heavy-handed religious structures, the film also asks searching questions about the value of Christian faith, and the potentially miraculous power ...

WORLD BULLETIN The planned mosque would be the third-largest in the world outside Mecca and Medina. SPAIN---Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the ruling Emir of Qatar, has reportedly offered to invest $2.99 billion over 5 years to convert Barcelona's Monumental bullring into a 40,000-capacity mosque which would be the biggest in Europe. The planned mosque would be the third-largest in the world outside Mecca and Medina, featuring a 300m minaret and would include a conference hall, a 300-capacity Quran study center and a museum of Islamic art and history. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By JAMES R. OESTREICH Scott Metcalfe conducting the vocal ensemble Tenet at St. Jean Baptiste Church as part of Early Music Festival: NYC. NEW YORK---The new Early Music Festival: NYC , which ended last week, gives reason for cautious hope. It has powerfully influenced the classical music mainstream with its concern for period style: its ethic of exploring the ways music might have been performed, and the meanings it might have held in its time; its use of — its very need for — improvisation and conjecture to fill in the gaps of sketchy sources and scores and breathe new life into age-old obscurities. [ link ]

THE TABLET PENNSYVANIA---Two large swastikas were spray painted outside the Congregations of Ner Zedek in northeast Philadelphia Sunday night, JTA reports . The city sent a maintenance team to remove the graffiti when congregants discovered it Monday morning. According to Fox 29 News , the Conservative congregation includes many elderly members, some of them Holocaust survivors. Of course it brings back all sorts of terrible memories of what they went through,” the synagogue’s rabbi, Reuben Israel Abraham, told reporters. According to Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent , an Anti-Defamation League report released in April revealed a rise in anti-Semitic incidents the previous year, with a total of 45 incidents reported. [ link ]

KHALEEJ TIMES UNITED ARAB EMIRATES---Emaar have commissioned a ‘Ramadan Downtown’ tent, which lets visitors enjoy traditional Islamic art, culture and cuisine during the Holy Month of Ramadan. ‘Downtown’ will be home to handpicked Islamic art from London-based gallery Ahlan Art.The Emaar Pavilion will showcase a collection of 27 paintings by artists from Africa, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria and the UK, which organizers say embody the essence of Islamic culture. The paintings incorporate verses from the Holy Quran as well as illustrations of mosques. ‘Downtown’ will be open from the first to the last day of Ramadan. [ link ]

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FREEDOM TO MARRY INDIANA---Today U.S. District Judge Richard Young ruled that Indiana’s state law denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry violates the U.S. Constitution, becoming the latest of more than 20 federal and state judges to rule in favor of the freedom to marry in recent months. Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry , released the following statement:m"Judge Young held today that there is no justification for denying same-sex couples the freedom to marry, the latest in a unanimous wave of favorable rulings over the past few months. The judge noted the harm marriage discrimination inflicts on Indiana families, while benefiting no one. With more than 70 marriage cases pending and a strong majority of Americans backing the freedom to marry, today's decision out of the heartland underscores that America is ready for the Supreme Court to bring an end to marriage discrimination once and for all." [ link ]

COSMOPOLITAN By Claire Hodgson Kim as Hindu goddess Kali NEW YORK---“Kim Kardashian is God," according to graphic designer Hannah Kunkle , who has created a series of pictures showing Kim as various religious icons. Needless to say they have proved a tiny bit controversial (understatement). The graphic collages see Kim reimagined as everyone from Jesus and the Virgin Mary to Joan of Arc and Aphrodite for an exhibition in New York titled "The Passion of Kim Kardashian." [ link ]

RADIO BOSTON Brazil's  Os Gêmeos  converted structure into whimsical character in Boston MASSACHUSETTS---Boston’s burgeoning arts scene will get a boost when Mayor Marty Walsh appoints a new cabinet-level Arts and Cultural Affairs Commissioner this summer.  Os Gêmeos , two Brazilian twins who are famous for being at the forefront of Brazilian street art, have their first US solo show at the ICA in Boston. As part of the exhibit, they converted an air intake structure into this whimsical and colorful character on the Greenway in Boston, MA. So  what should the city’s new Arts Czar do  to foster creativity in Boston and make it a more vital city of the arts?  [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Kathryn Shattuck Mormon brides sitting before mural of angel talking to the Mormon prophet Talk about scandalous. In “ Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs ,” on Saturday night at 8 on Lifetime, Tony Goldwyn channels Mr. Jeffs, the president and prophet, seer and revelator, of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — who in 2006 joined Osama bin Laden on the F.B.I.’s 10 Most Wanted list for having arranged illegal marriages between his adult male followers and under-age girls. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Zachary Woolfe The ensemble Alarm Will Sound performing “I Was Here I Was I,” the Kate Soper work, at the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing at the Met. NEW YORK---The sandstone temple was built around 15 B.C. on the west bank of the Nile, roughly 600 miles south of Cairo. With the construction of the Aswan Dam, starting in 1960, the temple was threatened with inundation. In gratitude for the assistance of the United States in saving the structure, Egypt gave it to the American government, which in turn awarded it to the Met. The tranquil, soaring space in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that has housed the Temple of Dendur since 1978 is so beloved that New Yorkers could be forgiven for thinking that the temple itself is beside the point, merely an excuse for the glamorous room, with its sweeping wall of glass. Its millenniums-spanning past is explored in “I Was Here I Was I,” a serene, sometimes elegant, sometimes listless new music-theater work by the ...

THE JEWISH WEEK By  Hannah Dreyfus NEW YORK---The 2013 Pew Research's Center's " Portrait of Jewish Americans " painted a rather gloomy picture, reporting 22 percent of Jews describe themselves as having "no religion." However, PEW-ish, an unusual new project designed to expand the conversation about Jewish identity, has decided to take a more proactive approach--on the stage. On June 26, Pew-ish will launch a special dramatic production of 10 new plays written by well-known playwrights including Bekah Brunsetter (ABC's Switched at Birth, upcoming “Cutie and Bear” at Roundabout Theatre), Jonathan Caren (“The Recommendation” at the Flea) and Anna Ziegler (“Photograph 51” at Theatre J). [ link ] The first event will take place at the Loft at Judson Memorial Church in New York .

DFW CATHOLIC.ORG David Clayton, art teacher at Thomas More College in New Hampshire KANSAS---Two sacred art experts have stressed the importance of the Catholic visual arts in the new evangelization, saying the arts have the potential to change individual lives, and cultures as a whole. David Clayton and Caroline Farey will teach a two-day weekend program, “Sacred Art and the New Evangelization”, at the Savior Pastoral Center in Kansas City, Kansas July 11-13. Clayton, an English-born artist and art teacher at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, told CNA June 19 that the beauty of art can help “open up people’s hearts so that they are inclined to be receptive to the Word when presented to them.” [ link ]

NPR | PROTOJOURNALIST By Linton Weeks Glance at the map above, Second Largest Religious Tradition in Each State 2010 , and you will see that Buddhism (orange), Judaism (pink) and Islam (blue) are the runner-up religions across the country. No surprises there. But can you believe that Hindu (dark orange) is the No. 2 tradition in Arizona and Delaware, and that Baha'i (green) ranks second in South Carolina? The map — created by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and published recently in The Washington Post — "looks very odd to me," says Hillary Kaell. [ link ]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Mary Thomkins Lewis "The Sacrifice of Isaac" (c.1526/32) by the Spanish artist Alonso Berruguete. Museo Nacional de Escultura SPAIN---The ancient story of Abraham and his beloved young son Isaac is threaded through the sacred narratives of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, and has long raised unanswerable questions about sacrifice, authority and blind obedience to divine will. The sculpture is housed today in Valladolid's Museo Nacional de Escultura. Though isolated, along with related figures, from the fragments that have been reassembled in an adjoining gallery too small to hold the retablo in its entirety, its staggering power as an image is scarcely diminished. Unlike Donatello's more narrative work, in which the protagonists' dawning awareness of their redemption draws us around the sculpture, we are stopped in our tracks by Berruguete's freeze-frame of the final moment before the angel's arrival. [ link ]

SAINT LOUIS-DISPATCH By emhill MISSOURI---Westminster Christian Academy has named current middle school vocal music instructor and chorale director Kathy Eichelberger as director of fine arts, effective August 1, 2014. Eichelberger will utilize her considerable talents and experience to coordinate faculty and programs within the fine arts department at Westminster. “Since we are made in the image of God, we have been made to create,” says Eichelberger. “It is our calling as Christians to create art whether in music, art, drama, or dance that is excellent, honorable, lovely, and praiseworthy. I look forward to continuing to be a part of this creative process at Westminster Christian Academy.” For more information, visit http://www.wcastl.org . [ link ]

GLOBAL RESEARCH By David Walsh The decision by New York City’s Metropolitan Opera to cancel its plans for worldwide high-definition video transmission and radio broadcast of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer is a scandalous and cowardly capitulation to right-wing forces, with far-reaching implications. The claim that the work is “anti-Jewish” (per the cover of Rupert Murdoch’s gutter New York Post on June 18) is libelous and absurd. It can only be credited by those who have neither seen the opera nor read the text of its libretto—or who have an ideological axe to grind. The musical piece, which opens with choruses of “Exiled Palestinians” and “Exiled Jews,” respectively, is a poetic, somber effort to come to terms with the historical tragedy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The only anti-Semitic lines (often cited by opponents of the opera) are given to a character nicknamed “Rambo,” an obvious sadist and thug. The Metropolitan Opera’s decision has outraged many around the wo...

NONPROFIT QUARTERLY By Rick Cohen Many black museums face significant financial challenges, but that hasn’t stopped people in communities small and large from attempting to get museums established and operating. One-fifth of all revenues supporting arts and museums come from individual donors. While allowing for funds with multiple purposes, only 12 of the 75 African-American funds included the arts as one of their giving priorities, compared to 54 for education, 34 for economic empowerment, 24 for health, and 19 for children and youth. If the African-American community of this nation is going to educate others about the centrality of race in American history and the importance of African-American culture in the past and going forward, the ultimate success of fundraising for black museums may be in connecting with and mobilizing large numbers of African-American charitable givers and not waiting for seven-figure grants from Oprah. [ link ]

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION By Bo Emerson Portraits of rights activists. ATLANTA---On Monday, June 23, 2014 the National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens its doors, offering visitors a history of the freedom movement in this country (told from Atlanta’s perspective) and an accounting of the modern human rights activism that civil rights pioneers inspired.The museum is in downtown Atlanta, to the east of Atlanta's Auburn Avenue District. Its immediate neighbors in the Pemberton Place tourist mecca are the World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium. Nearby are Centennial Olympic Park and CNN Center. [ link ]

NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS By Simon Willis A view of Bill Viola’s video installation Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) on display at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London UNITED KINGDOM--- Martyrs , a new work by the American video artist Bill Viola , is difficult to take as seriously as it takes itself. It is being shown as a permanent exhibit in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, just a few feet from the high altar, and is designed as a kind of altarpiece. The difference between Viola’s installation and these other memorials is that Martyrs is not about any particular people who died for any particular cause. As images of martyrdom they are rather limp and risk-free. The effect is that the videos—when compared with many other depictions of martyrdom both old and new—are one-dimensional. [ link ]

ARTSBEAT By ALLAN KOZINN Soul Doctor Eric Anderson in this musical about the life of Shlomo Carlebach, now at the Circle in the Square. NEW YORK---“Soul Doctor,” the musical about the guitar-strumming, folksong-composing rabbi Shlomo Carlebach that had a brief Broadway run at Circle in the Square in 2013, will return in an off-Broadway production at the Actors Temple Theater. Previews begin on Nov. 25; the show opens on Dec. 13. Jeremy Chess is producing. Casting details for the production have not been announced. The show, which uses adaptations of Carlebach’s music and has a book by Daniel S. Wise and new lyrics by David Schechter, offers a sweeping overview of the rabbi’s life (he fled the Nazis as a teenager, moved to New York, started congregations in San Francisco and Israel and died in 1994), with particular attention to his long relationship with the jazz singer Nina Simone. A Yiddish production of “Soul Doctor” is running through June 29 at the Segal Centre in Montreal...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Charles Isherwood Heidi Armbruster and Aasif Mandvi as a married couple in “Disgraced,” in 2012 NEW YORK---Matters of faith and family, gender and culture are stirred together into a fiery-flavored stew in “The Who & the What,” the probing new play by Ayad Akhtar that opened on Monday at the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center . Like Mr. Akhtar’s “ Disgraced ,” which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and will be seen on Broadway this fall, this new work considers the itchy frictions that emerge when religious belief and contemporary life rub up against each other, as they do for the family at the center of the play, a Pakistani immigrant and his two grown daughters. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michael Hayle The angel battle begins in new teaser trailer for Syfy's Dominion series BROADCASTING---“ Dominion ,” beginning Thursday night on Syfy, is a television series spun off from a movie. But we’re not talking about something like “The Avengers” or even, say, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The source in this case is the little-noticed 2010 film “ Legion ,” in which a motley crew of humans, holed up in a desert diner, fight off a crew of malevolent angels with the help of the archangel Michael, who takes our side for one reason or another. Maybe pity? Hey, it’s been a while. The TV show picks up the movie’s story 25 years later, when the angel-human wars have left the planet with a lot fewer humans. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Azam Ahmed A LONESOME PIETY A former Muslim prayed somewhere near Kabul, Afghanistan, in hiding from relatives who want to kill him for forsaking Islam and converting to Christianity. AFGHANISTAN---In a dank basement on the outskirts of Kabul, Josef read his worn blue Bible by the light of a propane lantern, as he had done for weeks since he fled from his family in Pakistan. The documents are the reason he is hiding for his life. On paper, Afghan law protects freedom of religion, but the reality here and in some other Muslim countries is that renouncing Islam is a capital offense. For Josef, 32, who asked to be identified only by his Christian name to protect his wife and young child, the path to Christianity was only one segment on a much longer journey, a year of wandering that took him through Turkey, Greece, Italy and Germany, seeking refuge from Afghanistan’s violence. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Marisa Meltzer NEW YORK---On a Saturday afternoon in Chelsea, a group of a few dozen people milled around the International Print Center New York, drinking Champagne and making small talk about the show New Prints 2014/Winter. But this wasn’t a gallery opening, nor was it an artist’s talk. Rather it was a salon by Gertrude , a new company organizing events to discuss art. “If you do a high-level description of what the art world is, you have the commercial side of the art world, which is about selling art work , and then you have institutions on the other end of the spectrum, with education as the main goal ,” said Kenneth Schlenker, 26, the founder of Gertrude. “What we want to offer is something in the middle that’s an educational experience and a social one,” said Mr. Schlenker.  [ link ]

ALJAZEERA AMERICA By Judith H. Dobrzynski NEW YORK---Roger S. Wieck is glowing like a doting father, though the cause is a tiny painting that sits in a glass vitrine in the center of a gallery at the Morgan Library & Museum. Occupying the left-hand page of a 2.75-by-2-inch prayer book made for Queen Claude of France (1499–1524), the painting portrays the Holy Trinity. His fervor is understandable. The 500-year-old prayer book is the centerpiece of Wieck’s new exhibition, “ Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France .” At a time when society is increasingly secularized, when adherence to religion, at least in an organized form, is waning, it’s Wieck’s job, as the Morgan’s curator of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, to wax enthusiastic about religious art.  So it comes as a surprise, perhaps, to discover that Wieck himself does not believe in God. Though raised Catholic, he says he “became a nonbeliever gradually when I was in my 20s.” [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB The Old Masters , who worked through the Renaissance continue to inspire and fascinate us with their skill and faith, but most of all by the value placed on their work by their patrons. There is no other generation that better embodies the ideal of arts patronage—a time when both private collectors and institutions banded together to collect works that lifted-up religion, but also lifted-up the careers of artists. Francesco Botticini was one of those artists who created works for both, and one of his private devotional works realized $425,000 at auction this month when sold by the Indianapolis Episcopal Diocese. It's a genuine honor to showcase this sale as my NEWS OF WEEK .

VOX MAGAZINE By Brandon Ambrosino Promotional poster for 'Just Me and Allah.' When Samra Habib started attending art shows as a teenager, she quickly realized something: queer Muslims are seriously underrepresented in art. As a result, she says, many Muslims "don't have the cultural understanding about how to talk about these issues — they just don't have the tools." Habib decided to try to correct this problem with a photography exhibition that opened this week at Toronto's Parliament Street Library. The exhibition, titled Just Me and Allah: Photographs of Queer Muslims , features ten close-up photographs of out queer Muslims from all over the world. Habib's subjects represent a "range of religious beliefs." Some of them pray five times a day, while others merely observe certain holidays. All of them, however, have two things in common: they were raised in Islam, and they currently identify as queer.[ link ]

TIMES OF INDIA  By Rashmi Henriques Most Indian festival have their roots in either religion or mythology, there are also fun festivals like Pushkar Fair, held in Rajasthan INDIA---Festivals have gathered together millions of people on the streets, strengthen bonds with family and friends and made us believe in the triumph of good over evil. Religious festivals, melas, fairs create memorable moments and everlasting friendships. Don't we all have a cousin, colleague or friend who wants to visit India during jubilant days such as Holi, Kumbh Mela and Rath Yatra. The joy of the festival is extended beyond the significant days, the preparations, night long discussions on the decoration of the pandals add to the experience. As most Indian festival have their roots in either religion or mythology, there are also fun festivals like Pushkar Fair, traditionally an annual five-day camel and livestock fair held in Rajasthan. [ link ]

THE FRONT PORCH By Thabiti Anyabwife Black Millenials raised in the black church are staying in the black church Rather than leave the church in large numbers, it seems many African-American millennials look for churches that seem to “fit” their preferences. We’re not seeing attrition as much as we’re seeing shifting. The apparent unfamiliarity of African-American and Hispanic young adults with being treated as “special” hints at another reason why the general trend toward irreligion among millennials hasn’t taken root among African-Americans.  While overall numbers and rates of “irreligious” millennials have been growing in recent years, the same has not been true of African-American millennials. So-called “Black millennials” make up about 24 percent of Black church attendance, essentially unchanged from their parents and grandparents’ generations. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB M.F. Husain, Ganesha, 2008. Courtesy of Usha Mittal, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London UNITED KINGDOM---London's Victoria & Albert Museum presents " M.F. Husain: Master of Modern Indian Painting " through July 2014. Known as M.F. Husain (1915-2011), he is one of the most celebrated and internationally recognised Indian artists of the 20th century. Using freehand drawing and vibrant colour, he depicted Indian subject matter in the style of contemporary European art movements, particularly Cubism. Indian Civilization is an ambitious series of eight triptych paintings, commissioned in 2008 by Mrs Usha Mittal as a tribute to the richness of India’s history. Interweaving religious and symbolic iconography with historic figures and events, the paintings also incorporate memories from the artist’s own life.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Elisabetta Povoledo Questioned Michelangelo Made Crucifix Donated to The Louvre. Courtesy of Blouin Artinfo. ITALY---Two wooden crucifixes dating from the 1490s that are included in a Michelangelo exhibition at the Capitoline Museums in Rome are inciting fresh debate over issues of attribution. The crucifixes are among the two dozen or so works, mostly copies, on display in a show that runs until September. The two in question are identified as “Michelangelo (attributed to),” from the collection of the Bargello National Museum in Florence, and “Florentine sculptor, Michelangelo?,” from the Louvre Museum in Paris. [ link ]