The Good Book The past few years have seen an exponential growth in government censorship and book banning in certain regions of the US. The same states that are leading the nation in book banning are simultaneously adding the Christian Bible to the public school curriculum. Texas, for example, now leads the country in book bans, even as it has required the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms and has added Bible passages to required reading lists in literature and history classes. By illustrating the adult themes found throughout the Bible, the paintings in this exhibition expose the blatant hypocrisy of those who claim to be protecting children from adult themes in literature, while also mandating that they read from a book that contains fratricide, war, genocide, slavery, plural marriage, sex, sexual slavery and coercion, sex trafficking, prostitution, rape, gang rape (heterosexual and homosexual), the worship of pagan gods, corpse mutilations and dismemberment, infanticide, cannibalism of a child, human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and of course, torture and deicide. Beyond exposing hypocrisy, this exhibition poses the question: What constitutes a “good” book? What constitutes “virtue” in literature and the arts, especially in light of the fact that the Bible (often called “The Good Book”) is filled with horrors and evil people? What is the purpose of literature and art in culture? Is virtue as simple as a lack of vice? How do we decide what is and is not acceptable? And what is lost when we are too squeamish to allow certain themes into our artistic discourse?