A New Look Jesus

A friend from church sent me the link to an article in "The Guardian" that featured the above photo of Jesus. I had to take a moment to consider that image, and the story that accompanied it. I've remarked in the past that England — which is home to "The Guardian" — is probably the most secular society of the Western World. So, given that, it might not be odd to see a bit of a revisionist picture of Jesus.

But as I read the article, I thought about what was really being said. Basically, this artist — and a few other groups — have changed the perception of Jesus as a means of connecting with the modern culture. This, of course, can be a dangerous path to take. Changing our preconceived notions of Jesus in order to reach people with the Gospel is fine, just so long as you don't change the Gospel to conform with an ever-changing culture.

A few years ago I saw a movie called "Hamlet 2," which is quiet irreverent and also pretty funny. One of the big moments in that film comes when the students and their misguided teacher offer the big musical number "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" as part of their production of a sequel to William Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Of course the song pushes the boundaries, and is more than a little blasphemous though humorous.

The point of the song — or at least one of the stated points — was that, if Jesus came to the world today, he'd have to create a celebrity-like image in order to attract attention from the masses. On the face of it, you might dismiss the idea. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if there wasn't some validity to that idea.

We live in a very consumer-driven culture, probably the most consumer-driven culture of all time. Consider the Jesus we study from the Bible. He was very unassuming in terms of self-promotion, he let his message and his actions do the talking. And it created a buzz. While we'd like to believe that could still happen today, sometimes I wonder if Jesus would be able to gain more attention than the like of a Paris Hilton type that seems to be famous simply for being famous.

Which brings me back to that picture, and the article that talked about the changing image of Jesus. Again, this is a slippery slope that requires careful consideration, but if the ultimate goal is to get people to connect with Jesus, and with the truth of the Gospel, maybe we do need to look at things that are out-of-the-box. That, after all, is the whole premise of "Faith in Film," connecting people with the truth of the Gospel by connecting to the images and messages that pervade our culture.

Maybe, in their own way, the people responsible for this new take on Jesus are trying to do the same. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.