A sculpture of the dead Jesus on an electric chair, rather than a cross, has caused a sensation across France this past week.

Pièta, by the English artist Paul Fryer, has been on display in the cathedral of Gap, in south-eastern France, over the Easter season. Yet the presence of the sculpture in the cathedral has divided French opinion.

Some believe that it’s a needed wake-up call to the grim reality of Christ’s death, which people have become desensitised to. Others think it’s shocking that the artwork is even in the cathedral at all.

But the Bishop of Gap, who borrowed the sculpture from a French billionaire, is having none of the criticism.”I wanted the provoked shock to make us once again conscious of the scandal of someone being nailed to a cross”, he said. ”Usually, one does not feel any real emotions in front of something really scandalous: the Crucifixion. If Jesus had been sentenced today, he would have to reckon with the electric chair or other barbaric methods of execution.”

I think the Bishop has a point. Much of the wailing about Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was about the gruesome violence shown during the crucifixion scenes. We’ve become too used to sanitised images of Jesus on the cross where it looks like he’s only suffering from a slight headache and there is no blood whatsoever. So it was high time we experienced Fryer’s shock to the system.

Hat tip: Martin Newman at The Mirror, who wrote a great blog entry on the subject.