Posted on 04/03/2006 2:21:39 PM PDT by The Ghost of JG
Get prepared. This film of the Passion isn't your typical Hollywood production, and it's producers say playing the race card is needed.
It's not Mel Gibson's The Passion, but folks involved in this big-screen's production are no less passionate in bringing this adaption of Christ's last 48 hours to your local cinema house in a film that openly plays the race card - with the Messiah cast as a black man.
This racial perspective to the conventional biblical story, the producers say, "is sure to challenge Conservative Christian beliefs."
(Excerpt) Read more at speroforum.com ...
Why? The Virgin Mary was chosen by God for being pure and the Catholic church worships her for it.
Amen. All created in His image, all descendents of the same man and woman - all equal, of one blood, one Saviour.
Sorry, The Catholic Church worships GOD and his Son Jesus. It "honors and revers" Jesus Mother.
Since I have yet to meet a liberal who can challenge anyone intellectually, I'm going to take a wild guess that this will star Denzel Washington, and the last 20 minutes of the film will have him reciting his "I'm the little man fighting back" speech, then the people will release him from the cross unharmed and the bad Romans will be thrown in the cellar. Jews will be played by muppets.
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa is so named for the color of her robes.
Whose failure they can then blame on "racist white Christians". The very fact that they're bringing up the issue essentially proves that they're more interested in creating strife than they are in telling the story.
The actor chosen for Passion of the Christ didn't look much like Jesus either, but it didn't matter because the point of the film was the story and not the actor. A sufficiently talented black actor could have just as easily played the part and it would have been just as great. But if Mel Gibson's priority had been choosing such an actor over his passion in telling the story, the film could not have been even remotely as good.
And thus, without any consideration of racism at all it can be assured that this film too will not be even remotely as good.
Do they not pray a rosery to her as well? Is there an Our Father version of these beads to Jesus or God? No. Instead of asking Jesus to forgive their sins (going through a Priest in a confessional) they pray "holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners"... Yet sin is forgiven through Christ and only Christ.
The concept of intercession.
The Catholic (and Orthodox) tradition is such that one can assume that certain people reside in heaven, and can be addressed directly in prayer - saints, and Mary for instance; and that it is helpful to invoke their aid.
There is a big difference of opinion on this subject with every Protestant church, including the Anglicans/Episcopalians.
Your argument is called a "Slippery Slope".
Change his color, then hey maybe it wasn't a virgin birth. I don't care! Hey maybe he got married. I don't care! Oh and he wasn't really a Jew. Hey, I don't care! And he hung out with 12 men so he was gay! Well we need to love them as God's children so I don't care! Oh and he wasn't the real son of God! "Hey he taught important things I don't care."
What makes the first item on your list from all of the rest of them is that the color of his skin has no bearing on who He was, what He did, or what the Bible says about Him. All of your other "examples", including making him female, do. That's a very easy line to draw.
You nonchalant attitude towards the true Christ is what eventually demeans him.
Any more than your rigid attitude toward Him? Do you know for certain what Jesus looked like?
He can't be all races to all people just because they feel through their skin tone or race they are nothing without their version of him. They are not listening to the word, thats why they change him so they can accept him in their world, not caring about being accepted in his through his word!
As I said way back at the beginning, I think needing a black Jesus kinda misses the point. But God doesn't have a race and the race of His Son was an incidental accident of the ethnicity into which he was born, not an integral element of who He was. If depicting Jesus as a black man helps a black person better feel that Jesus is his Savior, too, then I don't have a problem with that. I would have a problem with a black person depicting Jesus as black for the purpose of claiming He was the Savior of black people and not white people, but that's a whole other issue (and, yes, there are nuts who believe that sort of thing out there).
Are you just as offended by all of the European art, throughout history, that depicted Jesus as a European? Most of the popular Jesus pictures with blonde hair that I see are probably about as racially accurate as a black Jesus. Of course we could solve the whole problem by not making graven images, but that's a whole other argument...
Then depicting Jesus as a woman to help a female better feel that Jesus is his Savior, too, thats OK too? I don't understand that reasoning. His words alone are reason enough to understand him. If his race or gender or even his religion has to be changed to get someone to believe, then that person isn't listening to the wordand incapable of understanding due to blindness through his own bigotry. This is PC gone amuck!
As I've repeatedly said, race is not the same as sex. That's why we still have male and female restrooms but no longer have black and white restrooms. The Bible makes Jesus' sex very clear. The Bible is quite vague on how He looks. And I again ask, are you as offended by the paintings by Europeans that depict Him as a blonde nordic type? How about the various European actors who have depicted Him in movies?
I don't understand that reasoning. His words alone are reason enough to understand him. If his race or gender or even his religion has to be changed to get someone to believe, then that person isn't listening to the wordand incapable of understanding due to blindness through his own bigotry. This is PC gone amuck!
And as I've also repeated, I do agree that it misses the point. But if white artists and film makers can depict Jesus as a blonde haired Northern European, then I don't see the problem with depicting Him with African features. If His message really transcends His race and His race really doesn't matter, then it shouldn't matter either way. If an artist is depicting Jesus as black for racists reasons (to imply that Jesus was the Savior of blacks, not whites), I think that's wrong. If an artist depicts Jesus as black to emphasize that Jesus is the Savior of black people, too, to get past issues that some in the black community have in that regard (Aren't you the least bit concerned by the expansion of the Nation of Islam among black men?), I'm fine with that.
To give you an imperfect analogy, if you look at statues of Buddha in East Asia, he looks Chinese or Japanese, even though Buddha was most likely Indian. It just doesn't matter. Frankly, I'm more irked by Medieval artists that painted Biblical and historical scenes with the people dressed in Medieval clothing.
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