Pizza Jesus on 51st Street

By: Lauren Fiorica

I got up early one morning with my roommate to visit the Doughnut Plant for breakfast. Located on West 23^rd, we enjoyed delicious doughnuts, and then decided to walk back and pretend that walking would burn off the calories we just ate. It ended up being really hot and we were not prepared for the weather. We started to walk over a few avenues because we saw there was more shade. I don’t think I’d ever walked down that particular avenue before, so I was looking around taking everything in. As we approached the end of the avenue I thought I saw Jesus out of the corner of my eye. I did a double take and realized that there was in fact a drawing of Jesus on a chalk board/easel sign outside a restaurant.

The illustration depicted Jesus eating pizza and the words “Judas, Don’t Touch My Slice!” written around him. One the bottom of the easel was the hashtag “BSidePizzaBar.” I laughed really hard when I saw this and some of the people inside started looking so I took a picture and left.

Having said all that, I think that this is great example of an American religious artifact. Right off the bat, we see the obvious religious imagery of Jesus seated at what appears to be the last supper, along with a reference to Judas and his betrayal. However, the actual words that Jesus is seen saying has no biblical correlation, beyond just the fact that he is talking about pizza. In fact, during the last supper, Jesus said, “Take it and eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26, NIV).  I think that the disconnect between biblical accuracy and advertising seen here speaks to the religious landscape in America. There is an understanding of basic Christian concepts, but is there a deeper understanding of Christianity?

The majority of Americans are Christian, but I think it can be argued that the proliferation of Christianity across society and media has reduced the religion to names and images with no context. It might be common knowledge to say “Christians are followers of Jesus,” but it might be harder to explain exactly what that means.  In this scenario it might be worth asking if this is even a religious artifact because it seems to be just plain inaccurate. Can a religion even be seen here or is it just an image?

I think that religion can be seen here, in this little, comical pizza sign. I am reminded of Leila Ahmed’s text A Border Passage and her conversation about men’s Islam and women’s Islam. She talked about how men would study a medieval interpretation of Islam, while women would practice an everyday interpretation of Islam. That is to say women might not have learned the technical doctrines that men learned, but they would have learned about Islam through shrugs and movements and sounds. Ahmed writes, “What was passed on, besides the very general basic beliefs and moral ethos of Islam…was a way of being in the world” (121). Just as this can ask the question “how is religion different than culture in terms of how it is passed down?” so to can the pizza board ask the question—is an everyday, or folk, understanding of Christianity less than a technical understanding of the Bible?

I think Ahmed alludes to the answer. The answer is that a detailed understanding of a religion is not superior to a limited understanding of the same religion. I feel a little funny even saying “limited understanding” because I do not think the limited understanding of a religion is as restricted as the word suggests. It might be more accurate to say that different ways of practicing and understanding a religion do not cancel each other out. In fact, I think that difference practices of a religion—be it Islam, Christianity, or any other religion—show how powerful religions can be in meeting people were they are.

So whether or not the pizza Jesus’ artist could answer all the Bible trivia in the world or only knew Christianity in its everyday, folksy form does not matter. What matters here is that a person created a religious artifact based on their own understanding of this religion, while simultaneously generating a great piece of advisement.

Works Cited: 

Ahmed, Leila. A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--a Woman's Journey. New York: Penguin, 2012. Print.