The outdoor display at the Claremont United Methodist Church spotlights a black-hooded dummy—in place of where baby Jesus would typically be – slumped over and with blood spilling from his chest into a red pool that reads “A Child is Born, a Son is Given.”
The artist and congregant John Zachary told msnbc that he wanted to spark a conversation about gun violence. So, he chose to center his controversial piece on Martin, the slain Florida teen who was shot and killed by volunteer neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February 2012 (Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter). Zachary first presented his idea to a church committee, which gave the thumbs up to the project.
“My feeling about it is that we have so many guns in our country and there are so many killings and it’s unique to our children. And I think that people still need to talk about it in a reasonable manner until there’s something done about it,” Zachary said, insisting he was not trying to replace Jesus with Martin.
