What do you think?Is one of them any more acurate or innacurate than the others?
What similarities are there?
Is it OK that Africans or Asians would think of Jesus as being African or Asian?
... or Caucasians as Caucasian?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Making Christ in our Image
OK. Take a look at each of these pictures (Click on them for larger, clearer images). What do you think?
Is one of them any more acurate or innacurate than the others?
What do you think?Is one of them any more acurate or innacurate than the others?
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5 comments:
Interesting.
I had a friend a few years ago, who is Chinese, ask me why Jesus came as a white person and not as a Chinese person. She had only lived in Canada for four years and already got the impression that Jesus is white or Caucasian. I explained to her that Jesus is a Jew and why to the best of my knowledge. (I think Tim later explained it better to her and her husband.) They became followers of Jesus soon after we had that conversation!
I think we all have the need to connect with our Saviour. Maybe projecting our race on Him makes it easier for us to understand or maybe it just makes Him more familiar to us.
I think that these pictures are all creepy. Why do holy people always have halos in pictures?
I think that we have taken the "white Jesus" thing so far that if we did portray Jesus with the correct ethnicity no one would recognize him. Not that we have what he looks like right at all, but we've all seen the white Jesus in a white gown with a blue sash. What's with the sash anyway?
When I was in Bible School I had a speaker tell us once that Jesus was actually a really ugly hunchback man who was scarred and deformed. Somehow that picture seems just as wrong as the Caucasian Jesus that we make today.
I've heard that "Ugly Jesus" theory before.
It's based off Isaiah 53:2-3:
"2 ...he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."
Based off this passage I think that a Hunchbacked and deformed Jesus may be pushing it a bit. But I think the blonde haired, blue eyed Shakespearean guy with a bath robe and a beauty queen sash isn't any better!
I think Juanita is right in that projecting our race on Jesus makes him more familiar to us. Perhaps those who have experienced racial prejudice would find some comfort in it. But that doesn't make it true, and I think truth is important.
If we really believe the message of Jesus we will take heart in the fact that He loves all people and that in heaven there will be people of all nations, and I think that should alleviate the desire to make Him in our image. Our desire for closeness to Him should be expressed in relationship rather than appearances.
We find a black or oriental Jesus unfamiliar and perhaps a little heretical. Is that how they find a white Jesus? I guess we better scrap a blonde, blue-eyed Mary and baby and stick to the truth!
what???? Jesus wasn't blond???! Oh man....
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