I grew up Christian, Presbyterian to be exact.I'm African.For some reason seeing pictures of white Jesus just annoys me. I don't know if it's because I grew up in a Presbyterian African Church where we don't use icons. As a kid to me Jesus was a spiritual, abstract entity with no image. So when I see a long haired white man being presented to me as my Lord and Savior it triggers and annoys me. I actually get angry.I'm not racist and I don't think I have anything against white people. But white Jesus causes anger and alienation to me. When I'm with other Christians, I cannot pray or discuss religion if there is white Jesus. I just can't.I was in my aunty, who is Catholic, house and she wanted to pray for me before I left. But there were pictures of white Jesus in her home that annoyed me. I couldn't focus on the prayer with these pictures of homosexual looking white men looking at me.When I close my eyes and pray I don't imagine white Jesus. I imagine infinity or infinity in nothingness or something. Like I see a void but the void is this ever present, ever powerful thing that seems to abound everywhere. I can't even describe it and trying to describe it makes me feel I am disrespecting God by reducing him to my human abstractions. But these abstractions are to me more respectful than human representations. If I do use imagery I imagine a cross or something. But never white Jesus, or black Jesus, or any human being actually. Plus in my culture we associate long hair with women so when I see this white Jesus I get angry they are representing my Lord as a fishy, feminine man.I don't understand why some Christians think using icons is okay. It genuinely makes me angry when I see icons, especially human representations. I just wonder, when these people close their eyes and pray, do they just imagine this long haired fishy white man? Is that genuinely the image you have in your head when you pray?
I am open to hearing opinions from the other side. I just want to understand how any Christian can find it okay to represent God with icons, or worse idealized superficial human representations based on vanity and arrogance.What's wrong with iconoclasts like me, to you people?
Sage
>>17416431I don't really have a problem with white people. My problem is with representations of Jesus as an idealized human being of whatever phenotype. I don't like Ethiopian Orthodox representations of Jesus either. But I dislike the classic European one even more because it looks like a gay long haired white man wearing makeup
>>17415913Yes. To every single westener, that image is god, whether they believe in him or not. TV has cemented in everyone's mind that that image is god. But God is not a man and he has never died. The Holy God who's breath is life has never been killed.
>>17417754Jesus never died either.Abraham died, Isaac died, Jacob died, Jesus died. Abraham did not die, Isaac did not die, Jacob did not die, Jesus did not die.>>17415913Given the fact that Jesus was a leper paralytic pre-transfiguration, you should be offended at the incorrect representation not at the skin colour.
>>17415913>I'm not racist and I don't think I have anything against white people.Eh,I think everyone is a little bit racist in some way... Subconsciously or other, but decent people realize our tendency to Sin and gaurd against it.Iconoclast - Old testament FORBIDS all images, right?However, Jesus fulfilled the law on the cross, & said "it is done".So, we are under Grace, not the law, except "Love one another, even as I have Loved you"!Though, He also said "If you love me, do my fathers will!"So - I think that covers it:As Paul said "Everything is permissable, but not all is beneficial!"We can have them....but if you WANT to please God you won't want to.EXCEPT: I believe The Shroud of Turin is a picture of Jesus, made by God.Every thing God does is Good, so there is Nothing wrong with a picture of the shroud (Jesus)!No he doesn't look white (or black).I hope this helps you, Brother. :-)
>>17417793>Every thing God does is Good, so there is Nothing wrong with a picture of the shroud (Jesus)!Basically I think Jesus spent much more time teaching his disciples how to accept people rather that how to correct them.Not: don't do -Instead: Do this & don't forget that.& Paul - Don't cause others to sin, because of their lack of faith (or understanding). Build up others. Suffer for others.
>>17417761>These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive>Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead>I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore???
>>17417874The flesh is not the spirit, Jesus was still in heaven when on earth.>Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.>nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
>>17415913Christ isn't just an abstract concept. He became incarnate and could be seen and touched. Was he Northwestern European? No. But we can represent Him as a man, and the details of His appearance are just a matter of tradition.
>>17417909>He became incarnate and could be seen and touchedNever happened
>>17415913I'm Protestant and I also disagree with the Catholic belief in praying to images, but simply depicting Jesus I have no problem with because Jesus assumed human form and was physically with the disciples in a human body. If we saw the real Jesus, would we complain that he looks Mediterranean instead of an infinite void? The fact that different ethnicities depict him different just reflects local artistic tastes. Ethiopians depict him looking Ethiopian, Tatars depicted him looking like a Tatar.
>>17417916If you don't believe in the incarnation, then you aren't Christian and iconoclasm is an irrelevant topic.
>>17417930>Jesus assumed human form and was physically with the disciples in a human body.Never happened
>>17417931I'm not OP.
>>17417938Applies to anyone. Why are you shitting up a thread about the nuances of Christian doctrine when you aren't a Christian? It's like posting in a knitting thread about the best kind of yarn and being like "knitting sucks, machines can make clothes now you retards"
>>17415913Crypto-Muslim
>>17417793>I think everyone is a little bit racist in some way... Subconsciously or other, but decent people realize our tendency to Sin and gaurd against it.This OP's reaction is normal. It's normal for us as human beings to feel alienated by what is alien, to be "racist". It's also normal for us to think we are better, our family is better, our culture is better, or our race is better. But we can recognize this sin of arrogance and vanity and bow down before the Lord. And though images are not beneficial they are not bad per se.
I don't understand, OP. To me, even this Chinese depiction of Jesus is... Jesus.
