Sunday, October 04, 2009

Ecumenical reflection of the day

This 'Jesus Billboard' has been making the rounds in blogdom recently (apparently first blogged here).

My thoughtful reflection can be limited to a sentence: This is theological impoverishment to the extreme, and I wonder what on earth those who produced were thinking. Is it not our reflections on the cross that most clearly reveal the level of our theological healthiness?

4 comments:

Jason said...

Jesus looks like he is trying break free from the cross...Wouldn't such a message be quite unbiblical?

scott said...

Actually, it looks like a trailer for the movie "Terminator Salvation" (Terminator IV). It fulfulls Arnold's prophecy, "I'll be back!" (cf. right-wing Christian ideas of salvation, expressed as "Hasta la vista, Liberals!").

Just a thought....

Edward T. Babinski said...

There’s a company called Living Epistles that sells (or used to sell) a T-shirt on the front of which is a muscle-bound Mr. Universe Christ doing push ups with a cross the size of Kansas on his back (labeled “The Sins of the World”) and blood gushing from his crown of thorns. Beneath the picture it says, “Bench Press This!” (Yeah, like whenever I see an image of Jesus hanging from the cross, I can’t help but think, “Nice abs.”) Emblazoned on the back of the T-shirt is a picture of Jesus’s blood drenched hands pierced with railroad spikes, and the caption reads, “His Pain, Your Gain.” Another T-shirt reads, “His Blood’s For You.”

Zimri said...

Jason's right insofar as Jesus is indeed deserting the cross. The gospels all agree that his body didn't do that.

But the whole thing is supposed to be symbolic. As a symbol, we're getting a Jesus whose spirit leaves its prison and never suffers death.

That means that Jesus's victory over death is the Crucifixion and not the Resurrection.

The poster is docetic.