Posted on 10/25/2006 6:22:33 PM PDT by Nachum
LOS ANGELES - It's a familiar image for millions of Christians: Jesus Christ, with a crown of thorns, hanging from the cross. What color is he? In a controversial new film opening Friday, he is black.
"Color of the Cross" tells a traditional story, focusing on the last 48 hours of his life as told in the Gospels. In this version, though, race contributes to his persecution.
It is the first representation in the history of American cinema of Jesus as a black man.
"It's very important because (the film) is going to provide an image of Jesus for African-Americans that is no longer under the control of whites," says Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, an associate professor of religious studies at New York's Hamilton College and author of "Cinematic Savior: Hollywood's Making of the American Christ."
What Jesus looked like has long been debated by theologians around the world. Different cultures have imagined him in different ways, says Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University. In Japan, Jesus looks Japanese. In Africa, he is black. But in America he is almost always white, like the fair-haired savior painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in "The Last Supper" in 1495.
While some black churches have images of a black Jesus behind the altar and others have claimed Christ was black, Prothero says "none of those arguments or images have filtered much into the mainstream."
Filmmaker Jean Claude LaMarre set out to change that with "Color of the Cross." LaMarre, who plays Jesus, wrote, directed and financed the film. It will open in 30 theaters in predominantly black neighborhoods.
"Black people in this country are the only race of people who worship a god outside their own image," says LaMarre, 38, adding that showing Christ as a black man is "the most poignant way to deal with the issue of race in this country because it goes to the heart of how we look at the world."
It also provides a positive image of blacks, something that's been scant in the U.S., says the Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, longtime leader of L.A.'s First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a producer of the film.
"It could be revolutionary because, for four centuries in our nation, blacks have been at the lowest end of the stratum," he says. "I think it will traumatize the United States more than it will foreign nations who, to some extent, don't have a centuries-old concept of equating black with negativity."
Humphries-Brooks agrees. Other countries are likely to view the film "in a more detached manner," he says, "because of the way (they) see our race-relations problem."
Why does race matter in the story of Christ?
"Jesus isn't in the hands of historians," Prothero says. "What we have now is our own debate and, in that debate, race has to be a factor because race is a big predicament in American life."
Film is a powerful place to have the discussion, says Humphries-Brooks, who calls the medium "one of the last places that is quasi-public for the formation of values in America."
"Artistic and aesthetic views are as important in developing religious values as the words we speak. Everybody goes to the movies. Not everybody goes to the same church."
Filmmaker LaMarre thinks the film can only have a positive effect.
"The message is that color, a colored Jesus Christ, doesn't matter," he says. "That's why the movie is important. When you have one prevailing image out there, it suggests color does matter."
Now that's funny.
That's a picture of Jesus in his glorified resurrected state. It says nothing to his earthly existence.
Whatever his appearance, he was not an attractive man.
Isa 53:1-3
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
He had a face when he walked the earth. A face, a human body, was needed then. It is not needed now.
He now wears the face each human soul needs to see-IF they need to see a certain face to accept Him.
Perhaps that is why there is no physical description of Him written by those who knew him. Isn't that amazing? The most important human to ever live was not described by those who knew who He was!
Perhaps, in talking with each other after his Ascension, they realized they had all seen Him differently ?
If I saw a face like Jim Caviezel and you saw what you expected the Messiah to look like would we be aware that we were not seeing the same image? And-if what you saw contradicted what I saw, how could we agree on how to describe Him?
We could not. Perhaps those who walked with Him could not, so they gave no description.
And the ambiguity continues thousands of years later. We will never know the One Face unless the Shroud is real. And even then- that face may not have been the only one He projected.
I suppose when the gays portay Jesus as a white faggot you won't have a problem with that.
I say Jesus is my Savior and his color matters as much to me as his belt size........not at all!
Exactly.
I don't believe there is any physical description of Jesus, at least regarding the color of His hair and skin, while on earth in the scripture.
All the pictures I've seen show him as a slightly sickly, slim white man with long hair, parted down the middle, and a beard.
Except for that famous "Lauging Jesus" pencil sketch from the seventies, in all the Christian book stores.
So were the Romans, evidently.
They already have.
Really? Do you have specifics? How did I know that saying the most outlandish thing in my head would have a ring of truth to it.
It's been done. You miss a memo? And I wasn't the least bit interested in buying a ticket, but I wasn't about to suicide-bomb the theater, either.
The suicide thing is a muslim thing. But anyone portraying a gay Christ would probably get the full support of 'ole Beezlebub. That I'm sure.
Sorry. Anthropologically speaking, the races are Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, and maybe Australoid.
By all accounts, Jesus was likely Caucasoid or Caucasian.
Sorry. Anthropologically speaking, there is no such thing as race. Scientists deal with populations.
Jesus is God and nowhere in the Bible is homosexuality condoned and everywhere it is mentioned it is condemned...so a gay Jesus is no Jesus at all.
And ironically He attracted a huge enough following that the religious leaders of His time considered Him a real threat.
Oh just give me one big, honkin' break......
Are blacks really this insecure? How pathetic.........
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.