The latest version of Jesus is pleasant, jovial, friendly
and weed-smoking. And there’s a number
of good Christians that are up in arms about it.
Senior pastor Kerry Buckly says, "It was horrible,
disgusting and completely offensive. Down to a person, everyone in the youth
group was offended. It just shows where we are a nation. … We have no respect for
God.” And that’s just after watching the
trailer.
Certainly the first episode had a number of questionable
activities. Jesus is living a party
life, living in a van, partaking in weed and he hosts parties where he’s not
welcome. He’s a moocher, he participates
in illegal activity, and is arrested.
The first episode also diminishes Jesus’ death by having a character
say, “Yeah, that was 2014 years ago, that's old.”
But if this portrayal of Jesus is problematic with the
modern church, then I suspect that they wouldn’t much care for the original
Jesus.
Because that Jesus travelled from town to town, going to one
party after another. He described the
kingdom of heaven a number of times as a “feast” (which is just another name
for party). In Luke 14, Jesus uses a
party as an illustration of the kingdom of God at least three times. And he says this while at a party.
The original Jesus was homeless, of course, having “nowhere
to lay his head.” He was poor, and a
mooch, because he held his parties in other people’s homes. One example is Zacchaeus in Luke 19, where
Jesus just tells him that he’s having a party at his home. Often Jesus held parties in places where he
wasn’t welcome, such as Simon the Pharisee, where Jesus insulted his host
because he wasn’t fawning enough (Luke 9).
What about weed?
Jesus certainly didn’t smoke weed, did he? Some more religious cannabis users
want to show Jesus smoking janga, but since weed didn’t grow in the Middle East
in the ancient world, that didn’t happen.
However, Jesus was about drinking wine.
A lot of it. The good stuff,
which is the more fermented kind. He was
known as a “drunkard”. My more
conservative friends say that Jesus never got drunk, but there certainly isn’t
any evidence for that. He certainly hung
around with people who were drunk. And
really, what is the difference between alcohol and weed except that alcohol is
more likely to make you violent?
Sure, Jesus is a moocher in the episode, but he gives as
much as he takes, sometimes more. He is
seen as a joyful, generous, miracle-working man, trying to encourage everyone
to be kind, compassionate and at peace with each other. The statement about his death is called into
question by the end of the episode because in the end Jesus helps everyone
So what really is the problem with Black Jesus? It’s the same problem religious leaders had
with the original Jesus—he is on the wrong cultural side of the tracks. Religious folks are naturally conservative,
always trying to reach back to a better time in which people were more polite,
less irresponsible, more moral and generally safer. It doesn’t matter that this time never
existed. But in general, religious folks
like order. They want to squelch any attempt
at chaos or irresponsibility.
But Jesus was irresponsible. He quit his job, left his family (even though
he was responsible for his widowed mother), travelled from home to home with a
number of disreputable men and women(!). Jesus had no regular income and encouraged his
disciples to live off other people’s charity.
And Jesus was chaotic. Sure, he talked about God’s will, but
he was always tearing at the institutions of his day, whether the priesthood,
the temple or even the law. He
challenged the political and economic institutions of his day and encouraged a
sort of anarchy.
Let’s face it, the original Jesus, just like Black Jesus is
an affront to middle class, reputable morality.
Religious people just can’t handle that.
So they will talk about how “blasphemous” Black Jesus is. When really what they find blasphemous is the
original Jesus, just like the religious institutions did 2000 years ago.
As for me (and the people in my congregation), I’d much rather hang out with Black Jesus than
the Jesus that they have in their churches. Constantly dying, rule-making, stern and institutional. Mind you, I would find Black Jesus to be a
bit more like the original Jesus if he’d talk about sacrifice and humility as
well as joy and love. But I’m willing to
give the show a chance. It’s a pretty
good start.
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