By ACNS with additional reporting by Lloyd Ashton, Anglican Taonga

Anglican leaders in New Zealand have said that a banned, offensive T-shirt being displayed in Canterbury Museum should prompt a nation-wide debate about freedom of speech versus respect.

The T-shirt, produced for an English extreme metal band, was part of an exhibition of 1000 T-shirts at the museum. It features a graphic image of a nun and explicit abuse of Jesus. 

So strong has been the reaction to it that the T-shirt is in a separate corner, with a large warning sign and museum staff checking people's ID before they are allowed to see it.

NZ faith communities targeted

The T-shirt and furore around the garment prompted diocesan and national Anglican leaders to speak out. Archbishop Philip Richardson is one of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia's three Primates. 

He said, “Muslim New Zealanders are becoming the targets of reaction to Islamic State and Al Qaeda, police are this week investigating the desecration of Jewish graves in Dunedin – and the Canterbury Museum is now showing a T-shirt which the censor’s office has described as not only ‘aggressive and misogynistic’ but also as representing Christians ‘as inherently inferior’.”

These three examples, said Archbishop Philip, illustrate the need for an “urgent national conversation” to be held on how “we celebrate and live respectfully with diversity.”

“Freedom of expression and freedom of speech are rights cherished in democratic societies – but we need careful debate about whether there are any limits on such freedoms. Because freedom brings with it the responsibility to exercise wisdom.

“True freedom is not cherished when the exercise of freedom degrades, demeans, humiliates or denies the dignity of any individual or group. We are our brother and sister's keeper.

“Christians need to enter fully into this debate, with humility, and with a determination to help build a respectful, tolerant society where freedom of expression and human dignity are held together.”

Why include the T-shirt at all?

Diocese of Christchurch's Bishop Victoria Matthews was quoted on the website stuff.co.nz as asking why the T-shirt needed to be included in the exhibition at all.

"At a time when we are seeking ways to reconcile extreme views in the international community, this exhibit could feed the accusation that the West is morally bankrupt," she said.

"The inclusion of this T-shirt as art in an exhibition is a conversation for the wider community with issues of mutual respect, common decency and what the public wants and does not want."

A T-shirt that degrades women and Christians

In 2008 the T-shirt was banned from being sold or worn in public in 2008 by the Office of Film and Literature Classifcation. It ruled that the T-shirt would “degrade, dehumanise and demean the woman depicted, and women more generally, to such an extent and degree” that the sale or wearing of the T-shirt in public “is likely to be injurious to the public good”.

It also wrote that the T-shirt “represents Christians as inherently inferior by reason of their religious belief.”