WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jesus is rising, again, at the US Merchant Marine Academy.
US President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, is returning a massive painting of Jesus to its former place of prominence at the academy. The artwork was removed two years ago following a request from Jewish midshipmen and others.
The restoration drew attention on Wednesday in Congress, where Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, grilled Duffy over why he authorized the return of the 10-foot-by-19-foot painting, “Christ on the Water,” also known as “Jesus and Lifeboat,” to a large administrative room at the academy on Long Island, New York.
The room is used for multiple purposes, including mandatory disciplinary hearings. The academy is under the purview of the Department of Transportation.
“What kind of message do you think that sends the cadets who may not be Christian, may not be religious, or might be part of a Christian sect that objects to the kind of portrait that you’ve placed in that position of prominence?” Huffman asked Duffy at a hearing of Congress’ Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Duffy said he rescued the painting, which depicts Jesus hovering over a lifeboat full of stranded sailors, from the basement of the building, which he claimed was prone to flooding. The painting was undergoing restoration pending its return, Duffy said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, January 30, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Huffman noted that the basement room where the painting had been moved was the chapel, part of the resolution to a 2023 complaint filed by 18 academy midshipmen, including five Jews. There are approximately 950 cadets at the academy.
Duffy said the painting should not offend Jews or other non-Christians.
“We all accept everyone’s religion,” he said. He noted that the painting had, prior to the 2023 complaint and the subsequent compromise, hung in the large administrative room, named for Elliot M. See, for decades.
When the painting was first installed in 1947, the See room served as the academy’s chapel. The painting remained in the room after the campus chapel moved elsewhere in 1961.
The midshipmen who filed the complaint in 2023 said that the prominence of Jesus in the room used for disciplinary hearings exacerbated what was already a fraught experience of defending oneself against allegations of breaching the honor code.
In this Sept. 13, 2016, file photo, a sign at the entrance to the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., welcomes visitors. (AP Photo/Frank Eltman, File)
Duffy, a devout Roman Catholic and formerly a star of multiple reality TV series, addressed the academy in April, and elicited cheers when he asked, “Could we bring Jesus up from the basement?” He announced the painting’s planned return in May, amid a series of moves within the Trump administration to elevate Christianity in Washington.
“We are moving Jesus out of the basement,” he said in a release then.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the advocacy group that brokered the 2023 compromise, said it would sue to once again remove the painting from the See room.
“MRFF is already hard at work in an effort to file a federal lawsuit, forcing the removal of that painting once again to a location at the Academy, which is constitutionally permissible as to time, place and manner,” the foundation’s president, Mikey Weinstein, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Addressing Duffy, Weinstein said, “We look SO forward to seeing you in court.”
Weinstein obtained the proposed text for a plaque to be placed beneath the painting once it is restored. The text, which Weinstein shared with JTA, appears to nod in its final sentence to non-Christian sensibilities.
“This painting has taken on historical significance and become a part of the Academy’s community, imparting varying meanings for different members of the Academy’s community,” it says.
Weinstein mocked the vagueness of the plaque’s phrasing. “We especially look forward to taking your deposition,” he said, addressing Duffy, “and directly examining you on the witness stand during the trial where you can expand and extrapolate on the ‘varying meanings’ of a gigantic painting, showing Jesus Christ to the exclusion of any other God or non-God deity figure in support of sailors in distress at sea.”
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