I haven't finished my coffee yet, is this something you were hoping for or, as in the past, have I missed your point completely?
ken -----------------
Yes, and no you haven't. I have to go to gum surgery, part two, but here is the larger point. By the way, I never put gender into the mix. These icons are to the homely protestantism that I grew up with, as my kid's elementary school theater is to mega-cinema in surround sound. They are in entirely separate worlds. While I focus on the US rightwing mega-christians, it is only because I don't know anything about the middle east at this level and certainly less about Judaism and Islam. I went looking for modernist architecture in the Middle East, but couldn't find much because I didn't know where to look or what cities. But there has to be something, some cheezy, gold and white modernist mosque, or some rock hard temple or some kind of equivalent to the Crystal Cathedral.
All these religions came out of the desert and there is some part of that bareness that they all share---a kind of absolutism---hard as nails (or diamonds, or rocks), and merciless at heart. So I was looking for icons, images, expressions that form some kind of physical equivalent to their nastiness. I mean they all keep talking about love and law, but man, its a damned strange idea they have of them.
Maybe, if the Romans had been more diligent?
Chuck Grimes