Art & Creativity Quote by John Clayton

Clayton’s line reads like a mild observation, but it’s really a power move: it yanks Jesus out of the church’s sole custody and drops him into the public square, where anyone with a stake in modern culture feels entitled to interpret him. The syntax does the work. “Not only” sets up an expansion of jurisdiction; Christianity is framed as the expected owner of the subject, then the sentence widens the circle to ideological rivals and outsiders. The roll call - “Communists, Jews, atheists and agnostics” - isn’t random. It’s a strategically varied coalition that spans political ideology, religious tradition, and disbelief, implying that Jesus functions less as a confessional figure than as a reusable cultural instrument.

The subtext is competitive: if everyone is “painting a portrait,” then Jesus is a contested image, not a settled doctrine. Clayton hints at a marketplace of narratives where Jesus can be recast as revolutionary, moral philosopher, myth, prophet, or psychological archetype. “Taking up their pens” also matters; it suggests a literate, modern form of struggle. The battle isn’t over relics or rituals but over authorship, framing, and legitimacy.

Contextually, the quote fits a 20th-century pattern: Jesus as a figure who keeps getting drafted into political and intellectual projects - from socialist readings of the Sermon on the Mount to Jewish historical scholarship to secular demythologizing. Clayton’s intent feels less like ecumenical celebration than a warning: once a symbol becomes widely useful, it also becomes widely vulnerable to reinterpretation.