Madonna has provoked outrage with a mock crucifixion live on stage while wearing a crown of thorns.The 47-year- old singer was strapped to a 20ft high mirrored cross on the opening night of her world tour.
Religious groups expressed their disgust at her use of religious imagery to stir up controversy for her Confessions Tour.
The tour, which started in Los Angeles on Sunday and comes to Britain this summer, is on track to be the highest-grossing for a female artist in history. Tickets are priced as high as £200.
David Muir of the Evangelical Alliance said: ‘It’s downright offensive. Madonna’s use of Christian imagery is an abuse. The Christian reaction to this sort of thing tends to be tempered but if the same was done with the imagery and iconography of other faiths the reaction would be very different.’
A Church of England spokesman added: ‘Is Madonna prepared to take on everything else that goes with wearing a crown of thorns?
‘Why would someone with so much talent feel the need to promote herself by offending so many people?’
A spokesman for Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor, the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, said believers would be offended, while others would find the stunt ‘simply sad’. ‘The crucifixion is at the heart of the story of God becoming man and suffering to redeem us,’ he said.
‘To use it as a stage prop is a banal perversion of that magnificent event.’
He added: ‘Madonna clearly has issues from her childhood experience of religion which still need to be worked through. The church or confessional are more suitable places to do so.’
The mock crucifixion came as she sang the ballad Live To Tell to an audience including her Kabbalah guru Rabbi Yehuda Berg.
Madonna is highly respected in the religious sect and is expected to give a large donation from tour proceeds to leaders of the branch of Judaism.
During the concert the singer joked about George W Bush and a video montage on stage juxtaposed images of Tony Blair, Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.
For Madonna, it was a return to a tried and tested formula to whip up excitement around the tour amid fears that ticket sales would flag.
Seventeen years ago, the Vatican condemned her video for Like A Prayer as blasphemous. It featured burning crosses and a black Jesus, who Madonna kissed. She also appeared to have stigmata on her hands from being nailed to a cross.
Trotting out controversy for controversy’s sake is clearly where Madonna sees herself in the autumn years of her performing life.
And her fans seem to be encouraging her. American’s Billboard magazine has forecast that ticket sales for this tour could reach the £110 million mark, making it the most successful tour by a female artist.
Ever more keen to let her fans see more and more for her, she even opted for a rather bizarre backdrop showing the X-rays of bones she fractured in her body following her riding accident last August.
She cracked three ribs, broke her collarbone and fractured a hand when she was thrown from her horse at her country home, Ashcombe House in Wiltshire, where she had been celebrating her 47th birthday with her husband Guy Ritchie and children Rocco and Lourdes.
- Source: Khaleej Times
