IN THEORY:Jesus’ appearance doesn’t matter

There’s a growing movement among religious leaders and artists to portray Jesus’ image as less Eurocentric, with physical features more inclusive and acceptable to people from other parts of the world, than the white, blue-eyed person engrained in civilization in early Christian history.

What are your thoughts?

Early in my time at this church, say sometime around three years ago, one of my parishioners gave me a copy of a magazine.

The cover story was on the topic of what Jesus looked like. The archeologists and other diggers had looked at skulls from first-century Palestinian graves and came up with a composite of what Jesus could have looked like.

The face was a bit shocking to those of us used to an Anglo-looking or even Aryan-looking Jesus; the face looked quite swarthy and quite “Middle Eastern” — whatever that word means.

I appreciated the archeologists’ efforts, because the face brought home to me once again that Jewish Jesus in Palestine had to look like all the other Jewish men of Palestine at that time. In fact, his looks were probably not extraordinary in any way; remember how Judas had to identify Jesus with a kiss before he was arrested and eventually crucified? So he looked like a Palestinian Jew, because he was. Anyway, I don’t have a problem with people of color picturing Jesus as a person of color.

This past Christmas season, our choir sang a number that said something like, “Some people see him with skin of golden brown; other people see him with Asian features fair.”

Really, does it matter? God’s love is for everybody, and the Gospel message is the same: “for God so loved the world,” not only the whites, not only the browns, not only the blacks, not only the other people of color.

So if a Christ of color brings home that message of Hesed (Hebrew for the “steadfast love” of God), why not depict him thus?

THE REV. C. L. “SKIP” LINDEMAN

Congregational Church of the Lighted Window

United Church of Christ

La Cañada Flintridge

Images of Jesus in Armenian churches are already skewed from the Westernized brands.

And I am sure that in every region where the Gospel was preached, the natives of that land took Jesus as their own — creating the image of God in the likeness of themselves.

All that we understand about Christianity has been shaped by 2,000 years of history that surrounds the story of Jesus the Christ and the expansion of his church.

It is for this reason that I am comfortable with the Armenian Orthodox perspective as my own, because it works outside of historical confines. For, in fact, we believe Jesus Christ to be God incarnate, that is, the personification of love. It is in the expressions of love and care for one another that we see the image of God painted and displayed.

Each of God’s creation is endowed with the unique ability to perceive his Creator. The icons and pictures of Jesus that decorate churches and religious shrines are merely pointers. These pictures point to the human experience and the expression of our want to attain and achieve the infinite. They should be painted in a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes and with equally as wide a variety of features.

FATHER VAZKEN MOVSESIAN

Armenian Church

In His Shoes Ministries

From age to age, throughout mankind’s history, God has sent messengers to teach people about His true nature, to reveal and reinforce timeless spiritual truths and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization by uniting ever wider groups of the human family. They have manifested God’s image, not a physical one, but His essential attributes of perfect love and wisdom.

They have been born as men, and appeared physically like those of the lands they were chosen to grace. Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Baha’u’llah are some of these Manifestations of God. Baha’u’llah, the messenger for this day, completed God’s message of unity by teaching that mankind is one, and that, lest there be any doubt, people of all races are equal in the sight of God.

In the more recent times of Muhammad and Baha’u’llah, there have been guidelines set in place against depicting images of these Divine Teachers so that people may concentrate on the word of God, which flows through them, and not on their human form.

Traditionally, Christianity does not prohibit display of Christ’s image, but rather uses it freely to encourage a feeling of closeness to Him. It is understandable that groups of people who have historically felt marginalized by white societies may long for an image of Christ that is more like their own, and may resent yet another step in alienating them by depictions of a Christ who appears to be Caucasian. However, it is the message of Christ, and of all the manifestations of God, a message of love and forgiveness, that should guide faith, not solely the fact that we have been granted a glimpse of God, perfectly reflected in His Holy human representatives.

Jesus was born of the people of ancient Judea. Buddha appeared in the far Orient. Baha’u’llah was of Persian lineage. They were all of different ethnicities, but, far overshadowing their humanity, they were divine, and they brought to us God’s love and His Word.

BARBARA CRAMER

Secretary

Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í Faith

Glendale

Religious icons throughout history have had the one purpose: to inspire spirituality and provide means to a connection with God. Whether music, scripture, poetry, philosophic essay, statue, furniture, candle, incense, drum or bell, all serve to motivate us to turn our hearts and minds from the physical and connect to the spiritual.

The fact that religious figures are represented as multi-ethnic does provide this connection for all races. I like what the Christian storeowner Larry Wolfe, from Cleveland, said about the color of Jesus: “Let’s face it, he wasn’t white-white. He wasn’t black-black. He was Middle Eastern.”

What is important is that these religious icons inspire each of us and help us continue to follow a faith tradition. For a Scientologist, this inspiration means inspired to action. My faith practice and tradition call for each Scientologist to seek not only personal salvation, but to serve others and improve conditions around us in our neighborhoods, our workplace and community.

I am motivated daily to help others and depend on the inspiration from teachings and lectures by L. Ron Hubbard to guide my service. I am blessed to have this opportunity and calling as a volunteer minister. For me, the question about the color of skin or the slant of the eyes is dwarfed by the direct daily needs of our present society.

Hubbard stated, “The volunteer minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather he is trained to handle these things and help others to achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”

CATHERINE EMRANI

Volunteer Minister

Glendale Church of Scientology

Good! It is about time. Jesus Christ was obviously not the blue-eyed white man depicted in countless illustrations and pieces of art. He was Semitic. He was probably quite swarthy. Dark in complexion.

Since there are no actual photographs or drawings of Jesus Christ, what is wrong, however, with each person depicting Jesus as he or she wishes to see him?

In my faith, we see him as an elder brother, a kindly, friendly, helpful person. We also see him as the way-shower for future generations that followed him, including ours. His teachings are what is important. Not how he looked.

Christianity for too long has focused on his death. It is the life of Jesus Christ, and the teachings of Jesus Christ, that bring us peace and love. Look to the teachings. Nothing else is of value.

THE REV. THOMAS E. WITHERSPOON

Unity Church of the Valley

La Crescenta

The Jesus of history derives from a family tree that hails back to Ur (in ancient Iraq), where Abraham called home before God interrupted his life and told him that he would father a nation. That nation would eventually be Israel, where the whole of Christ’s life was centered. There are ancient depictions of these people, and the Bible offers some insight as to their appearance.

Nevertheless, if we don’t lose sight of this historic reality, I haven’t a problem with using creative license to cast Jesus in images reflective of the world’s diverse peoples. After all, He’s the savior of mankind, not of one group only. However, there have been cults formed around such alternate racial images, declaring Jesus to be just for them, or that He has now returned in the person of their particular sect’s leader.

Warner Sallman’s painting, “The Head of Christ,” has become a literal standard, and it’s wonderful, but some can no longer imagine Jesus other than that image, an attitude that subtly smacks of idolatry.

A magazine once used computer imaging to meld all the races into one, and published a composite face on their cover. It was pleasant and acceptable to every race to which it was shown. Maybe we should more strive for this medium, considering the fact that all of our ancestries mutually culminate in earth’s original family of Adam. The sin of our ancient parents hurled the human race into constant struggle terminating in death, so the Bible says that Jesus came as “the last Adam,” (1 Corinthians 15:45) “without sin,” (Hebrews 4:15) to atone “for the sins of the whole world” ( 1 John 2:2). The Jesus of faith is without racial distinctions, and “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Whoever” is pretty all-inclusive.

THE REV. BRYAN GRIEM

Senior Pastor

MontroseCommunityChurch.org