Blue-Eyed Fair Haired Nordic Jesus; Pros and Cons



http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/jesus-496x620.jpg

Probably the best known and most reproduced image of Jesus is the blue-eyed, fair-haired, Aryan Jesus of Sallman Head, titled the, 'Head of Christ'.  Of course, it looks nothing like the way Jesus, a Jewish man living in the First Century Middle East, would have appeared.  It is an appropriation of Jesus in the service of white cultural values.  This has both positive and negative aspects.



http://www.universe-people.com/english/img_0000/obr400.jpg

Let me say a little more about this specific image of Jesus to begin.  This is of course not the only painting of Jesus that forgoes the darker skin and Semitic features one should expect from our reading of the Gospels.  There are plenty of blue-eyed, light-skinned, pretty Jesus paintings out there.  This one, however, has become an almost universal icon.  It has been reproduced over half a billion times worldwide.  It can be found in both Protestant and Catholic churches, can be found in use among Mormons, Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans, and is widespread across the world in areas including Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.  There is a copy of this painting both in the basement of the Church I currently attend, and in the Sanctuary of the previous Church I went to.  My grandparents had a print of this painting that hung in their bedroom over their bed.  The painting is said to have "become the basis for [the] visualization of Jesus" for "hundreds of millions" of people (Lippy, Charles H. (1 January 1994). Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_Christ
http://www.warnersallman.com/collection/images/head-of-christ/

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mJlHVw9-0OpTVW4ONJUS7Ew.jpg

https://thejesusquestion.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sallman_reproductions.jpg

The, "Head of Christ", was painted by the American artist Sallman Head in 1940.  Sallman was a freelance illustrator who produced religious imagery for a variety of publications.  The Baptist Bookstore picked up the image and distributed lithographs of various sizes in their stores across the Southern United States.  The image was then used on a variety of products; clocks, lamps, buttons, mottoes or Scripture texts, Bibles, and puzzles.  During the Second World War, the Salvation Army and the YMCA, both members of the USO, handed out pocket-sized versions of the picture to American soldiers leaving for Europe and Asia.  After the war, groups in Oklahoma and Indiana conducted broad campaigns to distribute the picture across private and public spheres.  Copies of the painting were placed in public libraries, schools, police departments, community centres, and even in courtrooms.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2006/issue91/11.11.html

Of course, Jesus would not have looked anything like this.  A recent documentary which had scientists perform a "forensic reconstruction" of Jesus shows a very different face.  The reconstruction was created with a 2,000-year-old Jewish skull, ancient documents, and advanced software and forensic techniques to show a first-century Jewish man who would have lived in the harsh conditions of the time.

"Jesus certainly looked far more like that person than me and other males who live in the West," says James Charlesworth, professor of New Testament languages at Princeton Theological Seminary, one of the experts consulted in the documentary.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a234/1282186/
http://news.discovery.com/history/art-history/what-did-jesus-look-like-131216.htm

So, why has a portrait of Jesus, that we know would look nothing like him, become so popular?   I would suggest that it is for the same reason that Jesus, as a concept of God, is so popular; it makes God relateable.  God is a personification of what we believe is truly legitimate, noble, powerful and worthy,  Anthropomorphizing God allows us to represent these abstract qualities in a human like form that we can relate to and make our own.  The image of Jesus takes that another step.  Visualizing Jesus as looking like someone who is part of our own cultural and ancestral heritage group takes it even one step further.  The Caucasian cultural group was dominant through most of the western world when this image was popularised.  As such, visualizing him as white also conferred legitimacy and authority.

The need to visualize God in an accessible, close to home, way is well expressed in the recent song, "One of Us", written by Eric Bazillian and popularized by Joan Osborne as the theme song for the American television series, "Joan of Arcadia",.

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make His way home?

This desire to portray Jesus as part of one's own cultural/racial group is not limited to white dominant culture.  Communities of colour and different ethnic heritages also portray Jesus with an appearance similar to their own.  There are many portraits of a black Jesus.  But they are much less prevalent in our society and can even be discouraged as sacrilegious by the dominant christian culture.  I can remember an episode of the Television show, "Good Times", where the eldest son, "JJ", an aspiring ghetto artist, wants to submit a painting of a black Jesus in a local art contest.  His family, who hold a copy of Sallman's white Jesus hanging on their apartment wall in reverence, find this to be scandalous.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d7/27/52/d72752c2e16f771ac86fd0f60b374d71.jpg

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53da8a0fe4b0d5d5360f89d8/t/53f5056ce4b0a1e4bd39bcde/1408566666489/

Similarly, there is current comedy on the Adult Swim segment of the Cartoon Network called, "Black Jesus", that has stirred up a lot of controversy.  However, only part of the objections being voiced involve Jesus being portrayed as being black with a good part involving irreverences.

http://www.kenchitwood.com/blog/2014/8/20/jesus-in-strange-places-black-jesus-understanding-religion-race-on-the-margins

There are also Oriental representations of Jesus.  Again, these are not nearly as prevalent as Caucasian ones, even in Asian countries.

http://www.8asians.com/2011/08/10/was-jesus-asian/

If you’re interested in seeing more Asian Jesus/Christian art, click here.

So, the 'pro' for having representations of Jesus that mirror your race and culture is that it helps one visualize God as familiar and, "one of us", relateable and personal.  What are the 'cons'?  One drawback is that it makes it more difficult for us to visualize those outside of our racial and cultural groups as belonging to our Christian Family.  Jesus was all about a love that included, "the other", particularly those at the margin of the dominant culture. This can be seen in Jesus' words in his parable of the sheep and the goats in the twenty fifth chapter of Mathew.

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matt 25:40)

http://www.chicagonow.com/religious-journey-
through-chicago/files/2014/12/image.png

It is difficult to see someone as one of Jesus' brothers and sisters if they do not belong to the race your image of Jesus portrays.  It is difficult to see Jesus in someone of a different race if your image of him is predominately 'white'.

Another 'con' is the exclusionary message it gives to members of our faith communities of different ethnic heritages.  Most of us are part of faith communities that, if not multicultural, include people of differing racial heritages.  Venerating an image of a 'white' Jesus tells them that what we consider is valid and legitimate is "whiteness" and that we are a Caucasian cultural group first.  God, what is good, honorable, and worthy, is 'white'.

I would have to say that, in my opinion, these 'cons' outweigh the 'pro'.  In a time where overt discrimination against racial minorities seems to be on the increase, particularly against those of Middle Eastern descent, I think we could use a strong image of Jesus as a Middle Eastern man of Semitic features and appearance.  We need to be reminded that Jesus is the alien and the refugee that we are called on to love and include.  We need to see Jesus in the, "stranger on the bus", especially if that stranger is of a different race than our own.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/images/3287068/BlackChrist_md_web.jpg

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/ancient-icon-black-jesus-6251845.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fe/76/fd/fe76fde29ace5e2831597031dcf11b13.jpg