He does look good on a thong.
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."
I could not care less how they portray Him physically. We don't know what He looked like. I doubt very much it would be historically accurate that He was black, as He was a first century Jew. But, really, if people carry Him in their heart, I don't care how they *see* Him.
susie
He does look good on a thong.
LOL!
You've got a good heart, Susie. Be well.
Amen!
Its good enough for all of us! If we just let it be.
The idea of 'reimaging' Christ is part of the severe wrong turn Western religious art took in the 13th century. This is not Orthodox chauvanism on my part, Pope Benedict in writings as a cardinal made the same point.
The plasticity of the image of Christ in the West is a subtle form of the same heresy the iconoclasts fell into--a denial of the reality of the Incarnation--or worse, a slide backward to a paganism that is happy with avatars of the divine, so long as they are generic, and multiple: a German Christ, a black Christ, a Mexican Christ, a female Christ, . . . Christ, the Divine Logos, incarnate of the Virgin Mary in the fullness of time, is replaced by household gods called 'Christ'.
"His arms were the size of tree trunks, and He had a shock of hair as red as the fires of Hell"
Oh, wait....that was Homer Simpson. Sorry.
.....wow...that was intelligent.....my fiancee lives in Montana.....she would not agree with you.....I guess you are saying Ronald Reagan was all that too....damn, too bad you feel that way.....
Or better - Martin Luthor King or Mohammed Ali played by PeeWee Hermnan.....
1. Yes.
2. No.
The first would be an accommodation to blacks. The second would be a violation of the Buddha's teachings.
Personally, I prefer depictions of Jesus that are as accurate as we can make them. The two best sources we have appear to be early icons, which may be based on earlier ones, and the Shroud of Turin. But nobody knows for sure.
He was a Jewish male, but there could be fairly considerable variation there.
Well, my heart is like everyone else's but Jesus is slowly changing it! ;)
Thanks, and you be well yourself!
susie
BTT
Since you've got everything out there in California, maybe you could pick up a sense of humor.
Jesus said...
"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew hands, eyes, organs, senses, dimensions??"
"If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh!?!? Aaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!"
Well said my FRiend, and God Bless you!
The depictions of Christ in the Holy Icons are all patterned on the likenesses of Our Lord from the early Palestinian school and the Icon-Not-Made-By-Hands, with which they agree. The latter is a miraculous likeness Christ Himself produced and sent to King Abgar of Edessa to cure him of leprosy (King Abgar had expressed his faith that merely seeing Our Lord would cure him). It was carried off from Constantinople at the time of the Latin sack of the city, and was in Paris until it and the crown of thorns, also looted from Constantinople, were destroyed in the name of 'reason' by the French Revolutionaries.
It only talks about his feet, what about the rest of him? Brass? Probably not goldlish which is what brass is. Revelations was not meant to be literal, otherwise you'd have to explain someone producing double edged swords from their mouth. I don't think Jesus was a sword swallower.
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.