In continuing the conversation started in, Jesus loves me this I know..., by showing the characters in the Bible as something other than real men and women that have predominate features that are characteristic of middle eastern men and women, are we creating an inadvertent form of racism that we are really not intentional about? (Or maybe we are intentional?)I know there are a few out there that are saying, "Come on Tony, this is harmless stuff here, get off your high horse!" But in my hiring of 80 college age people, some who were raised on this stuff, I am finding that it is not developing disciples of Jesus like we were led to believe it would. It is almost deepening the myth instead of the truth.
I wonder if it is contributing to an intellect of short attention spans, "keep me entertained" sermons, vitamin deficiency (can you really eat a christian carrot?), make believe faith, but very clever marketing?
Storytelling is very important. The oral narrative is what evangelized the first century people before they could get down to the local Berean Scrollstore. But integrity was more important than entertainment and in a time of photoshop faith, I think it is important to tell the story in "living color" and context, so that when the way, the truth and the life is explained, people who are wanting authenticity and salvation will believe we are serious about this God who sent this man to save us and enjoy Him forever.
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There's a sculpture that I saw a bunch of years ago at a mega-church (name withheld), depicting the Holy Family presumably on their way to Egypt. I don't remember what Mary and Joseph looked like, but Baby Jesus was silver, creating a mirrored effect. I was told by our guide that the intention was so that observers could see their own reflection in the face of Jesus.
I'm still not sure how I feel about that, but there is a point to be made for the Word Made Flesh becoming like us. Of course it's a whole other point to say, “No, Jesus doesn't look like you. He looks like me.” But as long as we also acknowledge that Jesus probably didn't look like Charlton Heston, is that so bad... apart from the inherent idolatry?
The 'Great White Hope' Jesus has always bothered me.
It's not because pictures of Jesus are any more or less 'true' when he's a little whitey than if he was depicted as a swarthy chap, it's just as likely that the white Jesus painting looks more like the 'real McCoy' than any Middle Eastern rendition, right? I mean, the point is nobody knows what he looked like, he might have been albino or 6'5" or only had 7 fingers (he was a carpenter, wasn't he?). The trouble lies with the assumptions that go along with painting him white, and I think you're right, Tony. Racism and/or egocentrism has a way of raising it's head in the most insidious fashion at times.
I am finding that it is not developing disciples of Jesus like we were led to believe it would.
Clarification question: When did the creators of Veggie Tales ever say that their products would "develop disciples"? And if they did say that, to what extent is their failure to "develop disciples" due to our own misplaced faith in Bob and Larry?
To put it another way, is the problem really that we were "led to believe" that Bob and Larry were sufficient, or did we want to believe it?
I hadn't considered the racism angle in a while nor the danger inherent in Veggie Tales. I was raised on felt board characters and I have been critical of some of the assumptions and reduction that happens when we try to turn Bible stories into Aesop's fables. I guess because Veggie Tales is so darned entertaining, that I looked past the faults.
I'd like to offer a different angle on the white Jesus in art. I wholeheartedly agree with the critiques of creating a racist-motivated images of Jesus. There is also the case that nearly all cultures have created images of Jesus that look like them. One could take that negatively, and I do at times. One could also see that as an example of trying to represent the immediacy of Jesus' incarnational presence in our midst.
There are paintings of Jesus with a Caesar haircut and no facial hair on the catacomb walls in Rome. My wife and I own a nativity set of the holy family with a yurt and Asian facial features from Mongolia. I think our Anglo Jesus' could fit in this tradition. The danger is that when Europeans went around the world, we presented a European Jesus as the "real" Jesus. I'm happy with different cultures representing Jesus in skin and dress that resemble their own as long as we don't assume that we have represented the historical Jesus. I never want to leave the 1st century Palestinian Jew and actually enjoy learning more about him in his context -- it helps me see Jesus in my context better.
Timbo, I have been in church's children's departments and saw that a lot of the curriculum was replaced by the Veggie videos. This wasn't an attack on the creators but on the people who think this will create disciples. (VeggieTales don't dumb down people, people dumb down people to misquote the NRA.) Timbo, I know that you are in seminary and are more intouch with the christian culture than I am and probably have studies coming out of your pores which contradict my statement and that there are more people coming out of seminary than there are camp directors who think this is a good thing. I just have been watching the small amount of people that run across my parking lot who are better because of it. It is very entertaining and creative, but I have to disagree with you and your comment. It should not be view as appropriate media to replace stories told by people to people about the truths from the bible. I am not seminary trained so I am just going on my gut feelings and not that which was taught me.
Tyler and others,
My concern in an evangelical context which this time at the Reimers was, did we change the historical context so that it is more palatable to accept a European Jesus than a darker skinned and features Jesus. That was my point. I am NOT saying that I do not think that we should never depict Jesus as anything other than a palestinian.
I have a nativity at home that I bring out each year made up of Homies that I have been collecting for a long time.
Tony -
As an aside, I was introduced to the Chinese artist He Qi while in seminary - something tells me that you'd like his work. He blends together Chinese folk customs and painting techniques with the western religious art of the Middle and Modern Ages.
www.heqigallery.com
I absolutely agree, by the way, that we need to re-cultivate the art of storytelling. I need to hear, from time to time, how Christ has moved in the lives of others - how their stories connect with (and are a part of) the story. Veggie Tales certainly can't do that in a meaningful way.
There's a balance, to be sure, between casting God in our own image, and the theological declaration that God became one of us - between the particularity of his Palestinian Jewishness, and the universality of his humanity.
Sometimes I think Calvin got it right by (re-enforcing the 2nd commandment) prohibiting images of God altogether.
Uh . . . a nativity of Homies is probably the coolest thing I've heard of in a while. But I don't get out much.
Steven, He Qi is one of my favorite artist and paints the stories in a wonderful way. John Sloas turned me on to him and I love his colors and lines.
It is very entertaining and creative, but I have to disagree with you and your comment.
You are disagreeing with my questions? All I am asking is whether or not we were right to believe whomever it was who promised that Veggie Tales and flannelgraphs would be sufficient to make us into disciples.
At the risk of sounding naive, I don't think ethnicity is much of a factor in shaping the way we think about God. I believe it's a very strong factor in the creating a disproportionate social climate in our day to day (I think it's 3 in 10 African Americans who will have CPS called on them compared to something way less frequent among whites, and 2 in 3 who will drop out of high school), but not when we consider God and the other characters running around in there.
When it comes to authenticity, I think that's the result of the way we portray these people with very restricted ranges of emotion and behaviors. Jesus always seems unmoved or inebriated in Jesus movies, we know Chalrton Heston's placid pleas for his people, etc. We tend not to talk about the social side of scripture at all.
By the time it gets to our ears and the ears of others, it's really very detached from the human experience and probably seems no more authentic and moving than long division. We save the humanity until the part when it begins to apply to ourselves. "I was struggling, but I'm free!" We have to bring out the dynamic of both.
The fact that the villain in these shows are always latin guys was enough to make feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.
I'm gonna make my kids watch documentaries on genocide.
This is an extremely interesting post, Tony, and so are the subsequent array of comments. Art historically speaking, the representation of Christ did not take on a WASP predominance until arguably the Renaissance or Dürer's self-portraiture. Cimabue, Duccio, Simone Martini, Theophanes the Greek, Verrocchio, etc., etc., were all invested in the image of Christ as that of a Middle Easterner, of an image that looks closer to [gasp!] OBL than Willem Defoe.
I’ve often wondered why the very act of Christ coming into space and time did not manifest the breaking of the very second commandment itself. Remember, this is the same God that said “I shall be called the One who Is…..Tell them ‘I Am’ has sent you.” Representation is very tricky business, to the extent that in passages such as these God will not go further than to state His name as His existence.
What is most tricky about representation is that it by definition excludes. It asserts that what something is, is by definition “not” nearly everything else. One should shake when one attempts to encircle that which is unspeakable – that which should render us speechless in the most sublime of ways – the incomprehensibility of God. To my view it is fascinating that God chose to ‘picture’ himself as Christ, to represent Himself as a carpenter and all the other details we see in the NT. Thus it is not that ‘ye shall make no graven images’ but that one should not make an image and simultaneously assert that very image to be God. Such a creative act is only permissible by God Himself. As to why God excluded all the other possible options for coming into the world, to represent God to various other epochs in the myriad of ways that He could have done so, is overwhelming at times.
The idea of dark skin, dark eyes, coarse beards, etc., are all signifiers that we assign value. These values are positioned within the domain of culture. As such, God’s choice to become a man in the first century within the region of what is now Palestine is a cultural question, global and not universal. It is certainly a choice that could have been chosen over any other [or could it not? I suppose we should save that for another time…].
If we assert that God’s omnipotence is not hindered in such a way, it then becomes a very deliberate choice that Christ came to earth as a Jew 2000 years ago, and not as a Jewish man, say, in the year 1960, or as an American addressing American issues in 1990 [or, should I back up here: must the idea of the emergence of America predicate itself on Christ’s actions in the 1st century, rendering this sort of topic as a question-begger?]. In any event, perhaps his skin still would have been dark had he come as a man of Jewish descent in 1960, but it would have been in the context of the onset of globalization, feminism, postmodernism, etc. These movements sought equality to the extent that they were seeking for themselves an increase in power. I am interested in representations of Christ as WASP in that there are underlying assumptions of power and abuse of that power that I think dreadfully miss the mark.
There was a time when "Christian multimedia" did not exist in children's ministries, right?
Tony, thanks for your clarification. I didn't read that you were saying "never depict Jesus as anything other than a palestinian." I am fully in agreement with your concerns. I was just offering a different perspective. I think we agree that there is a very real difference between depicting Jesus as another ethnicity for the sake of representing his continued incarnation and depicting Jesus as another ethnicity because we find his ethnicity troublesome.
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