Happy birthday, Black Jesus!

Some people make too big a deal about what color Jesus is.

“His head and gis hair were white like wool, like snow; gis eyes like fire’s flames; gis feet like white bronze, like metal burning in a furnace; gis voice like the sound of many waters; having seven stars in gis right hand; from gis mouth came a sharp double-edged saber; gis face shone like the sun in its power.”

That is the only description of Jesus’s appearance in scripture, from my translation of Revelation 1.14-16. The only other thing we have to go on is a description from apocryphal gospels, some hearsay from various saints, and visions people have had of him—and usually in these visions they spend so much time focusing on his eyes that they really can’t describe him otherwise. When you talk about physical description, people usually point you to Isaiah 53.2 (again, my translation)—

And he rises up before his face, like a sprout,

and like a root in dry earth.

He has no beauty, and no honor,

and we don’t see his appearance

and delight in it.

—which isn’t a description of Jesus’s physical characteristics so much as it’s a description of what the Messiah will be. Isaiah never actually saw Jesus either, and yet we have some idiots preaching from this that Jesus was an ugly man. I dunno; maybe he is; but this verse is no evidence.

I would simply presume that he looks middle eastern. The historian in me figures he grew up in Israel, had Israeli parents (though it seems he got all his genes from his mom) and spent a lot of time outdoors, which would make him at least tan, if not dark tan. A far cry from all these pictures of White Jesus that we see all over the United States and, strangely enough, the world.

In 1999 I was editor of Countryside Post in Grass Valley, and decided for our Christmas edition we’d have a picture of Christ on the cover, appropriately enough. I didn’t pull it off the internet; I got it from our clip art. (It’s one of those 20-CD packages that has thousands of images, and you find that most of them are poorly drawn and totally unnecessary, but you don’t usually know that when you buy them.) The clip art was of Mary holding an infant Jesus, and it had a stained-glass quality that I liked, but the problem was that they were white and Jesus was blond. But that was easily fixed by opening the file in Illustrator and tweaking the inaccurate skin color.

I should have used a Pantone shade, but instead I eyeballed it, and sent it to the press, and didn’t see it until the issues were printed and ready to send to the Postal Service for delivery. (We distributed it by mail.) Mary and Jesus were a nice, deep brown. I’d gone from one historical inaccuracy to another.

We got complaints. Some were wondering what kind of political statement I was trying to make. So I wrote this in the next issue:

But it isn’t historical accuracy that generated the complaints. Sure, that’s what people claim the problem is… and yet they’ve never once had a problem with the portrayals of a white Christ. … When I point out that Christ wasn’t white either, people shrug this fact off: “Well, of course he wasn’t white. But he certainly wasn’t black!” Is a black Christ less able to save than a white one? Must we have God conform to our own image rather than have us conform to His? Is it that we whites prefer that Christ look like us, or is it that we whites have not adequately dealt with our attitudes about blacks? For if we didn’t, this would be a non-issue.

If we truly believed, and didn’t just claim, that it’s not the color of one’s skin but the content of one’s character, our first thought when seeing this picture of Christ should be, “How appropriate for this time of year, when we remember the birth of our Lord,” and not, “He’s black.”

I’ll tell you though, the Black Jesus stuff on the internet is fascinating… and for the most part political. While the art is very good (and just as historically inaccurate as the pictures of White Jesus) I really can’t say I approve of the motive behind it. It’s exactly like the white supremacists who insist that you buy an image of White Jesus, because his being white somehow ennobles the white race. It’s a twisted form of the truth—that his becoming human ennobles humanity—designed to encourage some of the more evil impulses in our society.

My savior is from a different race than me. He is a Jew; I am a Gentile. He is one of God’s chosen people; I am one of the dogs that get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table. (Mk 7.28) Claiming him for my race is a delusional form of pride, and he doesn’t even like legitimate pride. He chose to become a person from a despised race so that we could learn to deal with our prejudice, not so we could change his race and use it as an excuse for more prejudice.

I appreciate the Black Jesus art because it’s another reminder that he’s not like me… and that doesn’t make any difference in the way that he loves me and I love him.

Happy Christmas.

Amusing comic strip: Reason for the season.

You Damn Kid! by Owen Dunne.

Watching the 𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 finale.

I used to watch The Apprentice when it first came on. It was good TV. Still is, for the most part. Amazingly enough, it's managed to create Donald Trump fans. I don't think anyone would have imagined such a thing twenty years ago… but then again, nobody's guesses about the future ever turns out the way they expect.

This season, I didn't make time for it. When I did watch TV at 9 p.m. Thursdays, I watched CSI. There are very few shows I make time for; I could count them on one hand, and two of the fingers are shaky. So when I saw the promotions for this season's finale, I decided I could at least watch that. Plus, I didn't have much else going on.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's best to ignore TV series when they're on television, then wait for the seasons to come out on DVD and get them from Blockbuster. You get to skip commercials, pause to go to the bathroom or make a sandwich, and you don't have to wait a week for the cliffhanger to be resolved. In the case of The Apprentice, you can get a feel for the entire season by watching the inevitable "catch-up" episode in which Donald explains all the important points of the season. I saw that over Thanksgiving; and I saw the finale. That was really all I needed to see.

The finale this season was much better than the finale last season, which went on much too long, and hired Regis Philbin for no good reason. The final candidates were very qualified. The show focused on that, which was much better than drawing out Donald's final decision, which anyone could have seen coming.

Donald actually wanted to hire both of them… and he would have, too, if the winner, Randall what's-his-last-name, hadn't suffered from a giant lack of magnanimity at the end. "There should be only one Apprentice," he said. As a result, his opponent Roberta don't-know-her-last-name-either, now has to go looking for employment, which sucks. Dude, you won. Shafting your opponent out of a great job doesn't mean you won any less. If it had been me, I'd have fired the guy right there and switched it over to Roberta. That was just petty of him. There are enough petty people in business. Hopefully Donald hires her on the side anyway, now that the cameras are off.

Enough ranting about TV. More important things are out there.

Iraqi elections.

I appreciate the fact that more and more people are voting in the Iraqi elections. I look on it as a good sign.

Terrorism, for the most part, happens because people feel they don't have any say in the way things are. If your government won't let you have any say in it—if you're deprived of your freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly—then violence appears to be the only way you can make a statement. The reason free countries have so much less terrorism is because, by and large, our citizens believe they do have a say.

There are some exceptions, naturally. There are those people who really have been deprived of a say in the way things run—the Indians, the African Americans, the inner-city poor—and there are the people who only think they've been deprived, like the militia members, the hippies, and the Klan. The one thing these groups have in common is that when they become desperate, they get violent. But the one thing that diffuses the violence is when someone finally takes them seriously and talks to them—which is, after all, what they really wanted in the first place.

So in the case of Iraq, I'm quite sure that the more people vote, and the more they recognize that their votes actually stand for something, the less violence and insurgency there will be in that country, and the less need they will have for our troops. Thank God.

Lying to children.

It’s the most lyingest time of the year.

A whole lot of lying to children goes on this time of year. You know what I’m talking about: The whole Santa Claus thing.

I have no issue with Santa per se. I like the Santa stories; The Santa Clause was particularly hilarious, although the sequel was stupid. Santa makes a great decoration. But convincing children that he actually comes to their house on Xmas Eve and leaves presents behind…

Every year, dumbass newspaper publishers around the country reprint Frank Church’s “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” letter from 1897, in which Church heartwarmingly lies to an eight-year-old reader of the New York Sun. Every year, people watch Miracle on 34th Street and see how a judge manages to twist the law in order to justify calling some loveable nut “Santa Claus.” Even the U.S. Postal Service lists guidelines about sending things to Santa. Want some hard proof that our government lies to the citizens? Here y’are. Adults across America get involved in this giant conspiracy to deceive children.

I see absolutely no justification in misleading anyone, especially children. I know it’s meant to be innocent fun, but there’s nothing innocent at all about deliberately deceiving anyone. Especially children. They’ll believe anything. Lying to them about Santa takes advantage of their innocence, all for the sake of some adult fun that really has nothing at all to do with actual childhood wonder. Real wonder is when a kid discovers amazing things like falling stars and butterfly cocoons and newborn kittens and how Kool-aid powder makes water balloons more interesting. Santa is all about artificial wonder.

Amusing comic strip: God needs better press.

Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida.

Oldie but goodie.

My editor wouldn’t let me run it at the time. It was too truthful.

Some of the files in my computer are 15 years old; articles and columns I wrote years ago that I kept and never got around to deleting. I came across this one recently because I was looking for something else. It was something I wrote for The Dixon Newspaper (yes, that was the actual name of the newspaper; it’s now called The Independent Voice) in January 1995.

At the beginning of every year, I wrote a column introducing me to people who were new to the paper. Debra, my editor, was already sick of the idea; this one she absolutely hated and refused to let me run it. You might figure out why once you read it. I titled it “Worthless columns.”

Column topics are easy to come up with if you just pay attention to what’s going on around you. And if you’re me (which I am) what you have around you is five or six people saying, “You know what you should write about…?”

That and other things made me write this, a now-yearly feature in which I’ll explain just what I hope to accomplish with this column. So here we go.

Spoiler alert!

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a happy ending.

Was there ever any doubt? Violent battle scenes aside, it is after all a kids’ movie.

In the articles I’ve read about that particular movie—and many a movie, for that matter—reviewers always feel it’s necessary to contain spoiler alerts. ’Nother words, they’re going to give away a major plot point or the ending, and thus “spoil” the movie for the readers. So you, the reader, have to decide if you want to read on, or be surprised.

Since I hate surprises, I go right ahead and read the bloody spoilers. And—wonder of wonders—the movie isn’t spoiled. This is because most movies are mindlessly predictable; with the exception of the occasional M. Night Shyamalan movie (not counting The Village) I can kinda guess halfway through the movie how it’s gonna end. For the most part it’s gonna be a happy ending; very seldom is it otherwise.

I know one of you is gonna bring up Titanic. Need I remind you it did have a happy ending? At the end of the movie, Rose chucked the diamond into the water and died, and got to spend eternity in hell with Jack on an exact replica of the Titanic’s stairwell. A happy ending… I suppose.

I’ve found it especially dumb that the reviews of The Lion, et al has spoiler alerts. The book was required reading for me in grade school; it was required for many a Christian household who approved of Lewis when they wouldn’t approve of Rowling; and the crowd I saw it with Thursday night obviously was familiar with every scene. We knew who was gonna die and who wasn’t; and most of us knew that everyone will come back when the producers make The Last Battle. (Or maybe you don’t. Oops. …Aw, screw it.)

Our inconsistent death penalty.

We don’t execute enough, and when we do, we stupidly execute the reformed.

California really doesn’t execute enough prisoners. We have a lot of people in prison who have no interest in rehabilitating themselves, in making restitution for their crimes, or in anything other than themselves. If they’re ever let out of prison, they will return to crime and continue to make life miserable for themselves and others. The appropriate thing to do in their cases is to humanely end their lives and make the death penalty an actual deterrent, instead of the ceremonial waste that it currently is.

The current prisoner up for execution, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, is another example of how useless and wasteful California’s death penalty is. Of all the guys that should be executed, Tookie isn’t one of them.

Yes, he started the Crips; yes, he killed four people that we know of; no, he hasn’t helped prosecutors get other Crips members. But Tookie is doing something productive for society. He’s trying to discourage kids from joining gangs. He’s using what notoriety he has to promote worthwhile causes; I may not agree with all of them, but that’s beside the point. I also don’t think he should be released from prison either. That’s also beside the point. The death penalty should be reserved for people whose very existence has been proven harmful to society. Tookie doesn’t fit that description anymore.

No church service on Christmas?

This Xmas falls on a Sunday. As a result, a few megachurches (and some minichurches, like Sojourners) have decided to not hold Sunday services. They’ll have Xmas Eve services on Saturday night, but nothing Sunday morning.

This has caused a little controversy among some Christians who see Sunday worship as sacrosanct. Let me quote you a little something from Ben Witherington’s blog:

Our culture does not need any encouragement to be more self-centered and narcissistic or to stay at home on Sunday. It is already that way. Christmas above all else should be a day when we come together as the body of Christ to worship and adore the Lord Jesus. Christmas should be the day above all days where we don’t stay home and open all those things we bought for ourselves INSTEAD of going to church. Christmas should be the day when we forget about ourselves for a few hours and go and honor the birthday of the great King, our Savior.

And on he rants. Note he refers to the presence as “all those things we bought for ourselves” rather than those things we bought for others. I don’t buy Xmas presents for myself. Xmas, to me, is not a self-centered narcissistic holiday. It certainly can be, especially if your parents have conditioned you to be self-centered by putting more emphasis on what you want for Xmas, Santa getting it for you, and never demonstrating proper Christian attitudes about giving. Xmas is about giving; it’s about God’s gift to humanity in Jesus; and the way we celebrate it best is in giving to one another. The greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor; and sad to say, most church services have little to do with loving one another. Especially in megachurches.

However, this wasn’t really the reason why Sojourners decided to not have a Xmas Day service. It was actually because we asked ourselves the question: ”Is anyone actually gonna be there?” All the Bethany students in the church will be visiting family and friends. The local families would have to hurriedly rush through unwrapping presents (or postpone it) to get ready for the service. So rescheduling the worship to Xmas Eve (worshipping on the Sabbath, for once) allows people to both worship God in the church and worship God by giving to one another.

The part that I find the most antithetical to everything Jesus tried to teach us: In order to conform to our tradition of worshiping on Sunday morning, we ignore the very people that God loves most. Sunday morning worship was made for humans, not humans for Sunday morning worship. The megachurches have got it right, for once.

Happy Xmas.

Xmas doesn’t take the Christ out of Christmas, but it does reveal the ignorance in the complainer.

I thought I had ranted on this before, but I couldn’t find the rant. So here I go.

A lot of idiots complain about the use of the contraction “Xmas” because it “takes the Christ out of Christmas.” I used to be one such idiot until I learned the history of it; so let me share it with you. The “X” in Xmas is not meant to be the Latin letter X, but the Greek letter hi, which is the first letter of Χριστος, or Christ. It is a contraction, not a removal, of Christ.

When bibles were copied by hand, monks felt it was convenient to use contractions for Christ, for God, for Jesus, and various other words (usually names) that were going to be written over and over and over. So Χριστος was shortened to X with a line over it, Ιησους was shortened to I with a line over it, et cetera. Eventually someone realized that the best way to contract the word Christmas (which is after all a long word) was with Xmas.

Now the real idiots who want to take Christ out of Xmas are the people who are trying to get all the Xmas stuff renamed “Holiday” stuff. Fr’instance, in Boston they’re calling their downtown Xmas tree a “holiday tree.” Exactly which other holidays decorate a tree this time of year? The whole “holiday tree” title is insulting to Christians (it’s our holiday, after all); it’s insulting to Jews, who don’t have holiday trees; it’s insulting to Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and any religion that doesn’t have a regular December holiday; it’s a title that’s just generally offensive to everyone except people that have no religion, and what business do they have in dictating to the Christians what we’re to call our trees?

But let’s not be stupid about the use of Xmas. Feel free to wish one another a happy Xmas or a merry Xmas, and for fun, go to your local department store and start loudly complaining about the lack of menorahs and dreidels in the “Holiday Decorations.”

The lion, the witch, the wardrobe, and the fans.

C.S. Lewis has a lot of fanboys among Christians.

A bunch of guys in my hall have decided to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when it gets released Friday; they’re going to try to make the midnight showing, finals week or no finals week. I may go along with them. It looks like it might be a good movie.

Christianity Today, particularly their online component, has been gushing about it ever since the movie was proposed. They’re big C.S. Lewis fans there. So am I; but I tend to think of myself as more of a fan than an adherent. In other words, most fans of Lewis see him as the last word on literature, theology, and mythology; anything he did is great, and everything he wrote was brilliant. They see him as inspired by God, even to the same degree that St. Paul was inspired by God. They’re going to be very disappointed with the movie, then. In order to make a movie of any book, changes are inevitable, and they’re gonna nitpick these alterations to death and suck all the fun out of the movie. They’re already doing it, in fact. Some of them have posted an old letter of Lewis’s in which he didn’t care for the idea of a TV production of his Narnia books. Understandable, considering the technology in 1959; but the purpose of publicizing this letter is not to do anything other than attack the existing movie. (Trailers of it are here.)

Amusing photo of the day.

Silent night.

It is not a silent night today; somehow people are squeezing out enough spare time to participate in Cheetah Chase in the rain. If people think something is important enough, no matter how frivolous it actually is, they will not let time, weather, or anything else get in their way. But of course they're all too busy to participate in evangelism, outreach, fellowship, or anything else that Jesus has called them to do… and lucky for them (and their eternal souls) he doesn’t fire anyone.

But D was singing, then humming, “Silent Night,” so I had to say, “How on earth was it a silent night?… A billion angels singing ‘Glory to God in the highest’? Anyone who reads the bible can see that it was anything but silent.”

Most of the problems, I’ve since discovered, have to do with “Silent Night” being a lousy translation of “Stille Nacht.” I found a better one:

Silent Night! Holy Night!

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon godly tender pair.

Holy infant with curly hair,

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent Night! Holy Night!

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face,

With the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at thy birth

Jesus, Lord at thy birth.

Silent Night! Holy Night!

Brought the world gracious light,

Down from heaven’s golden height

Comes to us the glorious sight:

Jesus, as one of mankind,

Jesus, as one of mankind.

Silent Night! Holy Night!

By his love, by his might

God our Father us has graced,

As a brother gently embraced

Jesus, all nations on earth,

Jesus, all nations on earth.

Silent Night! Holy Night!

Long ago, minding our plight

God the world from misery freed,

In the dark age of our fathers decreed:

All the world redeemed,

All the world redeemed.

Silent Night! Holy Night!

Shepherds first saw the sight

Of angels singing alleluia

Calling clearly near and far:

Christ, the Savior is born,

Christ the Savior is born.

It still wasn't silent. I think a better translation of “stille” is “satisfactory,” but then again I don’t know German and I’m depending on translation software. Oh well. More carol nitpicking later.