landon's blog

There is much in the blogosphere lately about the new NBC show that premiers tonight, "The Book of Daniel." I've gotta admit, I'm intrigued and will probably tape it to watch later.

For all the hoopla about the show - the outrage by the American Family Association, the reviews of it's lack of depth and tact - I'm more concerned about what (I'm shocked) has not been talked about.

What do these things have in common?
"The Greatest Story Ever Told"
"Jesus of Nazareth" (Zeffirelli)
"King of Kings" (DeMille)
"Jesus of Montreal"
"The Last Temptation of Christ"
"The Passion of the Christ"

That's right: they all feature your good friend and mine - White Jesus. Isn't it amazing how, just when we start to forget that Jesus wasn't actually white, we get a great cinematic rendering of our fair, lily skinned savior? Some may not see this as a problem, but I do. I see it as a big problem, and everyone's missing it!

Here are the facts: we live in a predominantly Christian (even if only nominal) culture, and racism is still alive and kicking.

(I'm not going to spend my time defending these points, but two quick points of proof: "Happy Holidays" and Who are the poor folks?)

I've written before about the narcissism of the mythic level Christian community, and this, I feel, dovetails with that line of thinking. Given that, roughly, 40-50% of the current US population operates out of this worldview, which is ethno-centric in nature, we cannot afford for the face of Jesus to be anything other than what it really is.

Here's how the cycle goes: From our younger days when our critical thought process is non-existent or not fully formed, we are inundated with images featuring a Jesus that does not look like he actually would have. "This is the Son of God" we are told, "This is God incarnate." So, we guess, God must be white.

It never occurs to us that God is not white when we are growing up, and the dominant image that we get of Jesus is a white guy with flowy hair. As such, if God gets equated with white then "good" also get equated with white. (you see where I'm going?) If white is good, then that means (in the little ego- and ethno-centric mind) that "not white" is "not good." And that's where the fun starts.

Jesus said "as you do to the least of these you do to me." Be honest what would it do to your sense of ethics if your image of Jesus was this instead of this?

It makes it kinda hard to ignore poverty, violence, hunger, and racism when your savior looks like "those people", doesn't it?

So I'll watch the Book of Daniel to see if it's even worth my time, but every time Jesus comes on screen I'll be saying a little prayer that the unholy image of white Jesus doesn't further entrench a racist mindset, no matter how subtle.

During the Cathedral Heritage Foundation's Festival of Faiths (my employer and main programatic responsibility) there was an event at which the film Acting on Faith: Women's New Religious Activism in America was shown. All in all it was a great film. I very much appreciated the fact that the film maker chose to profile three women who were not Christian, and were not of European descent.