This altar is in a Lima, Peru church. I don’t recall which one. It may have been a side altar in the cathedral.

(Click on the picture to see a clearer image)

I’ve been reading N. T. Wright’s How God Became King which argues that the Church (all the Christian denominations) has failed –to a certain extent– to emphasize what the four Gospels make perfectly clear, that the Kingdom is not something in the future but something already established. The Church has emphasized the concepts proclaimed in the great historical Creeds, the incarnation and atonement, but not the appearance of the Kingdom as addressed in the Gospels and as understood by the earliest Christians; the bookends of the Gospels have been preached but not the center of the Gospels.

I immediately think of the over-the-top traditional liturgical art of Spanish influenced churches. Realistic images in realistic narrative arrangements framed by abundance and lavish throne-room like environments. The contrast is particularly striking in altars where passion scenes and the crucifixion are presented: Utter failure presented as ultimate success. Evil has spent itself and the King rules!

The locals who use these churches and see these fantastic altars must have a heightened sense that the Kingdom has arrived and is present, that God is King over all no matter what other power rules.