A mural outside the Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland, Colo., includes an allusion to a previous controversy, which involved nudes in a statue.

LOVELAND, Colo. — For once, the quaint museum on Lincoln Avenue was all quiet. A sign inside was the only indication of the recent trouble.

“This piece was destroyed by an act of violence and is no longer on exhibit,” the sign read.

For weeks now, this bucolic northern Colorado city of just over 60,000, which has a vibrant arts community, has been bitterly divided over the controversial artwork that once sat in the empty display of the Loveland Museum Gallery where the sign now rests.

Some here interpreted the small image, which was part of a lithographic print exhibition by the San Francisco artist Enrique Chagoya, as showing Jesus Christ engaged in a sex act with another man, and demanded its removal.

Others argued that Mr. Chagoya, an art professor at Stanford, had the right to create what he pleased.

Last Wednesday, amid heated public debate over the exhibit and daily protests in front of the museum, a 56-year-old Montana truck driver named Kathleen Folden walked into the gallery.

Wearing a T-shirt that read “My Savior Is Tougher Than Nails,” Ms. Folden strode up to the exhibit, took out a crowbar and proceeded to smash the plexiglass casing. To the horror of visitors, she then ripped up the print, just as police officers arrived.

“People were asking her, ‘Why’d you do this?’ ” recalled Mark Michaels, a Colorado art dealer, who witnessed the event and grabbed Ms. Folden. “She said, ‘Because it desecrates my Lord.’ ”

Though the destruction has been roundly condemned by both opponents and supporters of the exhibit, it has unmasked the divisions between a growing arts community and a conservative town that has taken issue before with provocative images.

The print itself, part of a series by Mr. Chagoya called “The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals,” shows the head of Jesus Christ, eyes rolled back, atop a mostly clothed woman’s body. A man’s head, tongue out, is near the woman’s legs. The Spanish word “orgasmo” is displayed in the background.

Mr. Chagoya said he intended the image to be viewed as a commentary on corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, not a sex act involving Christ, adding that he was shocked at the reaction, especially because the art had been displayed elsewhere without incident.

“I fear for the safety of the museum and the people associated with it,” Mr. Chagoya said, adding that he had been getting hate mail for the past week. “I think religion should be about peace and loving, especially Christianity.”

Initially, the image, which was part of a considerably larger exhibition involving nine other artists, provoked little reaction. But then a Loveland city councilor, Daryle W. Klassen, began getting complaints about the print, many of them calling for its removal, particularly because it was displayed in a museum supported by taxpayers.

“I wanted it removed because I knew it had great potential to be highly offensive to a large segment of the community,” Mr. Klassen said.

The museum, in conjunction with the city’s Cultural Services Board, decided to post a small sign near the image, warning visitors that the art could evoke strong reactions. But that did little to appease those who wanted it removed.

Last week, a local deacon began to help organize protests outside the museum, and last Tuesday people packed a City Council meeting to speak out on the exhibit. Mr. Klassen estimated that most in attendance were opposed to the image.

The Rev. Ed Armijo, a deacon at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Loveland, said: “It is deeply offensive to see our Lord depicted that way. It is our position that this is not art. It’s pornography.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Armijo said he was “devastated” by Ms. Folden’s actions.

“She doesn’t live in our city,” he said.

Ms. Folden, who faces a criminal mischief charge, a fourth-degree felony in Colorado, was released from jail on Thursday after someone anonymously posted her $350 cash bond. She told the police that she had driven from Montana with the sole purpose of destroying the piece.

Susan Ison, Loveland’s cultural services director, said she felt “sick” over the print’s destruction and also over the protests.

Still, given the hundreds of hate messages she said the museum had received over the image, it decided not to display another version of the print.

“This makes me sad for many, many reasons,” Ms. Ison said.

Others in Loveland have reacted to the uproar with disbelief at just how far the discourse has gotten. The museum’s Facebook page has been overrun with heated messages coming from both sides.

“My hippie artist friends are outraged and didn’t want it to be censored,” said Sheldon James, a local artist. “My more traditional artist friends say the city should have been a little more careful in how it was displayed.”