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Interesting gallery of images of Jesus over at ReJesus, which raise some interesting and challenging questions about the ways in which we tend to portray Jesus in our own image. In one sense this is quite appropriate, as we talk of Christ incarnate. In another it is not unknown for people to rail against particular images of Jesus because they depict something alien or foreign to them.
Incoporating both these aspects into our christian journey is necessary for balance: the Christ incarnate, and the Christ who is beyond our frameworks. But this challenges our preconceptions, our understandings of both Christ and the ways in which theology is expressed. What does it mean to see a black Jesus when we often speak of sin as being black? What does this mean, then, for people whose skin is black when we make such statements? The image of Jesus as a Hindu Guru is both confronting and yet appropriate. God is not a westerner, yet it is amazing how often we assume that he is.
A friend notes how he was confronted by honour boards in German Churches, erected to those who served "to the glory of God" in WW1 and WW2. I imagine German folk being equally disturbed at similar boards in many Western churches.
God is both known and unknown, familiar and strange.
Posted by gary at June 6, 2005 12:14 PM
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