Christ and the Cultures

Extract

In our programme of missionary training at the Selly Oak Colleges it is our custom to introduce the students at an early stage to something of the wide variety of ways in which Christ is pictured in different cultures. On a wall covered with vivid posters one can see together the Orthodox Pantocrator serenely ruling all the worlds, the Latin American freedom fighter with rifle over his shoulder, the black Christ, the tortured and defeated Victim of the medieval crucifix, and the blue-eyed golden haired boy from the neighbourhood of Dallas, Texas. Beyond these visual reproductions one thinks of the pen-portraits sketched in the innumerable lives of Jesus in the era of liberal protestantism, each reflecting the writer's ideal self-image, all sharing one feature in common—that the Christ portrayed might be a likely candidate for redundancy but an improbable one for crucifixion.