For more see: Through Nomadic Eyes
Stations of the Cross in Lodwar Cathederal, Kenya
For more see: Jesus Mafa
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Icons from Africa
The following Jesus images are from various African nations including Senegal and Kenya. Does it seem strange to you to see Jesus portrayed as an African? Before judging, think: are Anglo images any more historical? What matters more, the features of the figure or the significance of the scenes?
For more see: Through Nomadic Eyes
Stations of the Cross in Lodwar Cathederal, Kenya
For more see: Jesus Mafa
For more see: Through Nomadic Eyes
Stations of the Cross in Lodwar Cathederal, Kenya
For more see: Jesus Mafa
4 comments:
For some reason it has always bothered me to see Jesus portrayed as African. No, he wasn't Caucasian either. He was Jewish. Personally, I do think it matters because the fact that he was Jewish is central to the fulfilling the messianic prophecy. But that's just my humble opinion.
The thing to note is that it just so happened that it was via Abraham that messiah came. If the chosen line had been the Sioux Indians or the Maoris then the incarnation would have occurred in those cultural settings.
It is the trans-cultural nature of the gospel, which is then translated into local culture that leads people to envisage Jesus as "one of us". Moreover, we should recall that a black African was among the earliest converts featured in Acts 8. Christianity has been in African for two millennia, long before David Livingstone and C. T. Studd were missionaries!
Jennifer.
I see a necessary tension between the universality and uniqueness of Jesus in Christian sacred art.
On the one hand, yes the Jewishness of Jesus is crucial to who he was and is, and remembering that is a necessary corrective against mythologising tendancies. It is idolatry remake God in our image.
Yet, as Philip points out, the gospel needs to be translated into each culture - both verbally and visually. We could insist on forensic accuracy and only allow Palastinian looking portraits. But such an insistance would logically require us to ditch the entire history of western religious art. And even then, how accurate would a generic Palastinian portrait be? The logical conclusion is an insistance on absolute iconoclasm. But to do so would mean abandoning a powerful communication medium. Bye-bye Christian childrens books, Passion movies and Cistine Chappel.
Part of my point is - why doesn't it equally disturb us to see him portrayed as a Caucasian? Is this disturbance motivated by theological iconoclasm or culture shock?
I think a balanced view is to accept icons as a means of communication but to continually deconstruct them.
As I said previously, it does disturb me to see him portrayed as Caucasian. Actually, I have never liked paintings of Jesus in any shade simply because we don't know what he looked like. But I would never, ever try to tell anyone they were doing wrong to have a painting portraying Jesus as black, red, yellow, or green for that matter.
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