The Church of Sweden, which has been busy driving people away for at least the past decade, is upping the ante with the installation of a new altarpiece in a Malmo church that graphically celebrates homosexuality and transgenderism.
The work by controversial photographer and artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin replaces Adam and Eve in paradise with gay couples that seem pasted in, while depicting the serpent as a transgender woman ascending a tree.
The amateurish, collage-looking piece of “art” is not new. The artist tried to donate it in 2012 to the Skara Cathedral just before the church was preparing to conduct the first same-sex wedding in its 1,000-year history.
Wallin is an open lesbian with a history of blending religious imagery with activism. She said at the time that she wanted to test if the Church of Sweden was as gay-friendly as it claimed to be when it embraced same-sex marriage in 2009. The Skara Cathedral declined the gift.
Seven years later Wallin has gotten her way. Rt.com reported that St. Paul’s Church in Malmo unveiled its new altarpiece on the first day of Advent.
Helena Myrstener, the pastor of St. Paul’s, said that “history was written” in the hanging of the “LGBT altarpiece” and tweeted a photo.
The Church of Sweden, the state Church of the Scandinavian country until 2000 and still by far its largest denomination, prides itself on championing leftist agendas. Despite this, Swedes have been leaving the Church in record numbers lately, according to surveys.
Judging by some comments on social media, the new altarpiece won’t help.
“The politization has gone too far,” one member commented on the news as she announced leaving the church. Another one said that while there were plenty of enlightened priests in the Church of Sweden, radicals from a “PC-pack” have turned it into their own arena.
The Swedes need much prayer.