Thanks everybody for the all the interesting responses.

It's apparent that Christianity doesn't play much of a role in in most people's attitudes (at OLO anyway) to Henson's artworks. Perhaps, as Graham suggests, it's fundamentally a free speech issue, and in that sense is neither intrinsically religious nor incongruent with mainstream Christian thought.

I'm particularly grateful to GrahamY, R0bert, Steel Mann, chainsmoker, Foxy, Col Rouge and pelican for their perspectives in this thread. I think R0bert's point about the association, by critics of Henson, of his images with child abuse is insightful - I can imagine that the association in itself would be inhibiting for a Christian who wished to openly defend Henson, given the fraught experiences of Christian churches with child abuse in recent years.

Chainsmoker also makes the salient point that much of the identifiably Christian comment at OLO is rather more extreme than most of us would encounter in daily discourse. The contributions of runner, Gibo and Boazy in this discussion are good examples. However, thanks to the comments of others I think I can safely retain the null hypothesis that Christian sentiments aren't particularly explanatory in whether or not someone approves of Henson's images of nude adolescents.

Cheers :)

CJMorgan, I think this thread is a really poor sample. The history of censorship in Australia is filled with the religious pressing Australian politicians to implement ever more censorship http://libertus.net/censor/odocs/pj-rrrlobby.html and it works in a similar manner to the usa as explained here: http://www.alternet.org/sex/87015/?page=entire

I'm not sure why you made such a comment, but that kind of wilful blindness and gullibility is why they wield so much power...because everyone makes excuses for them and points to the moderates of no consequence. I've said this in a post before, but the religious moderates in the case of religion are the ones who wield the least power, politically and in their own religion. They end up following along in practice anyway. Just take a look at Rudd.

:) No matter what is written by 10,000 X 10,000 authors, anywhere, on any subject, the truth in the Book of Revelation, is that the Christians win.
No man or woman, with any thought they might have, can change this fact.
The worldlies...the humanists... the seculars...those deceived by the eastern religions... loose, unless they come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You chaps need to read the last Book of the Holy Bible and get ready. Its all beginning to happen.
Gods finishing earth off.
Mankind is not going outwards to conquer outer space.
You need to go to The Lord in prayer for help even in these early days before the big troubles begin.

steel

question for you

the topic states christianity and henson

bill hensons photo's do not express christianty

they exploit a child

answer this ( steel )

would you aloow your child or a young member of your faimly to be portrayed like this and would any others here do that as well

see you all want it to be art

and others like me call it porn

and if you don't like my opinion well unlucky

as far as im concerned this does leave a loop hole for the pedophiles out their ,

as they will use hensons art as an excuse for their sick perverted
ways

so as it is the law is saying it is art ,

well ithink they got it wrong ,,

we are all allowed our opinion and its sure fact that you can not handle some one's opinion like mine (steel )

are you speaking for bill henson or for your self just would like to know

as im speaking for my self about this issue of which i have a right as all other members on the web site

your low cristiciam of me i can handle as you are lowering your self by attacking me

i thought grame young would of barred you for a few weeks guess not

rip into as much as you want the better for me just shows how immature you really are ,,

also i noticed that their was only one person who said they would let their child do a photo shoot , so it shows their is not really much suport henson has , because if you were all true suporters of his you all would of answered yes to my question,

( would you allow your child to be potrayed like this ,)

so i give it back to you all here in the forum , i have said my bit for now

the forgotten australians will not be forgotten no longer

regards huffnpuff

This could be a modern parable about two men going to pray:

First man's (Gibo's)prayer to God "Oh god in Heaven, I'm so glad that I'm so good. I write lots of religious things on the internet all the time. I quote lots of Bible verses and be really good. Of God, I'm so good aren't I God, not like Steel Mann - look how sinful he is.

My prayer: "Thank you Jesus for having mercy on a sinner such as me, and dying in my place."

Gibo, you need to discover the real Jesus, and not the delusion you have. I think you would find that even people in your own church would be embarressed at what you say. Jesus died to give us freedom, not to bind us to religious slavery.

huffnpuff,

I don't know if you are referring to me or the other poster just known as steel (I was just going to call myself steel, but he had taken that name.)

The debate about whether this is pornography or not lies as to the legal decision made by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. This is a board of well balanced people from the community to make decisions as to what classification should be given to films and printed material. The decision that was made on this occasion was that Bill Henson's work was not offensive, and was rated PG. The fact that you and Gibo and others find it offensive is purely your opinion. In my opinion it is not offensive. It the eyes of the law it is not offensive and that is what matters most of all.

Fundamentalist Christians such as Fred Nile should not be allowed on the board of the OFLC as they will not make balanced decisions. Likewise, you wouldn't allow a convicted paedophile a position on the board of the OFLC.