A massive painting of Jesus walking on water will no longer be visible at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in New York after an advocacy group complained about the artwork.
In a Jan. 10 letter addressed to USSMA Superintendent Vice Admiral Joanna Nunan, Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, issued a “demand” that Nunan “expeditiously remove a massive, sectarian painting illustrating the supremacy of Jesus Christ” from the Elliot M. See Room inside Wiley Hall, which serves as an administrative building at USMMA.
According to Weinstein, MRFF is representing 18 midshipmen, faculty, staff and graduates in their appeal to the Kings Point academy. The USSMA is not under the Defense Department but rather the Department of Transportation under Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was also copied on Weinstein’s initial email.
The 10-foot by 19-foot painting titled “Christ on the Water” depicts an image of Jesus and merchant seamen adrift in a lifeboat “presumably after being torpedoed in the Indian Ocean during World War II,” according to a USMMA spokesperson.
Also known as “Jesus and Lifeboat,” the piece was painted in 1944 by U.S. Maritime Service Lt. Hunter Wood to hang in the chapel built at the USMMA Basic School in San Mateo, California.
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