Is “Charging Bull” a Threat?

I came across this article today about the artist, Arturo Di Modica, who created the “Charging Bull” statue nearly 30 years ago. You may know a new statue—“Fearless Girl”—was recently placed directly facing the bull. According to the creators, “Fearless Girl” is intended to show the “power of women in leadership” and encourage “greater gender diversity on corporate boards.” But Mr. Di Modica finds the statue upsetting and says it distorts the message of his work.

He claims his statue was intended to represent “freedom in the world, peace, strength, power and love” but with the addition of “Fearless Girl” its message is no longer positive and optimistic, but “has been transformed into a negative force and a threat.”

I’m okay with seeing “Charging Bull” as a threat, and not just because of the need for greater equality for women.

Though I can empathize with Di Modica’s feelings, whatever his intention for the meaning of the statue was, the nature of art and symbols is that they mean different things to different people, and those meanings evolve over time. Its placement in the middle of the financial district means that the freedom, peace, strength, power, and love that Di Modica envisioned are associated with the bullish stock market, financial optimism, and economic growth.

What has become a popular tourist attraction and photo opportunity for visitors to New York City is more like the golden calf built by the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai. What the bull symbolizes has become an idol to many Americans, including Christians.

In this light the “Charging Bull” is a threat.

At the risk of taking this analogy too far, perhaps the church should see themselves as the “Fearless Girl”— not bowing to the idol of economic growth and prosperity but willing to stand up to the national ideals, bearing witness to the need for a change, for another way to freedom, peace, and love. A way not bound to continual progress, and upward mobility, but bound to the way of Christ who emptied himself, suffered, and died to bring us life.