Two Statues: An Icon and An Idol
By John W. Wright
Professor, School of Theology and Christian Ministry

Colleges and universities within the Church of the Nazarene are not known for their realistic statues. Shaped by Puritan fears, such statues have historically smacked of “popery”, and thus been assiduously avoided. It is of interest, therefore, that campus now presents two statues: the statue of Jesus calling Peter in between the Ryan Library and the Nicholson Commons and the new statue of the bull and the bear within the entryway of the Fermanian School of Business.

Of course, public statues are not merely aesthetic works for personal enjoyment. As Roland Barthes reminded us in his book Mythologies, such works appear as natural within our environment, and thus obscure the particular histories and interests embedded within them that they seek to naturalize. It is thus of more interest to note the vast differences between these two statues, and to ask what these difference suggest about PLNU.

The statue of Jesus calling Peter stands to the side of pedestrian thoroughfares. A concrete sidewalk invites those passing by to leave voluntarily their paths of business for repose around the feet of Jesus. No benches are present, but a wall behind Jesus closes off the statue from the open space behind it. Jesus stands on ground level, one arm on Peter’s shoulder; one stretched out in invitation to embrace those around Him. Peter, shoulders slightly hunched and bent at the waist from his toil, still has both hands on his fishing nets. He looks plaintively into the compassionate face of Jesus. Jesus beckons Peter -- and the onlooker -- from the struggles of labor into His open arms.

In contrast, the statue of the bull and bear stands high on a pedestal within the main entryway into the Fermanian School of Business. Outside columns and an overhang direct one into the building. The glass doorways are smoky, slightly obscuring the view into the entry. The statue blocks direct access into the center of the building; one is forced to walk around it to enter the building completely. Benches allow a passerby to sit and gaze up at the statue. Restrooms and a custodial closet fill the other wall. Coming out of these rooms, one must gaze at the statue unless one intentionally looks away. A recessed ceiling with indirect lighting centers the statue from above; colored tiles provide the same focus from below. The statue dominates the room, forcing one to gaze upward onto it. The whole architecture of the entryway closely resembles an ancient Greek temple, with its god at the center of the naos, the temple’s inner court.

The statue itself has a bull and a bear, forces of nature, entwined in battle. The bear’s snarl reveals his teeth looking upward to consume the bull; the bull raises his hooves in a charge, neck tilted to ready its horns in defense or attack of the bear. In the midst of the struggle between these irrational forces, one finds a stock market ticker ribbon with stock prices encoded upon it. Out of the conflict between the bull and the bear, wealth emerges.

The two statues thus present two radically different ontologies as ‘natural’: an icon of peace where God calls humans voluntarily from the toils of life to God’s own Self through Christ; an idol of conflict in which human beings involuntarily participate in the blind conflict of nature in order to produce wealth. One wonders which statue more deeply presents the fundamental convictions of the university.