Touchdown Jesus

Seems like a good week to officially kick off this blog. We'll be sharing disparate visions of Jesus to examine the idea that every cause, conservative and liberal, mainline and evangelical, Protestant and Catholic, even religious and irreligious, has a Christ after its own image. Some are innocuous. Some are disturbing. Some mean well. Some don't.

Touchdown Jesus is in the news, so we'll start with Him. The six-story rendering of Jesus with arms stretched heavenward at a Monroe, Ohio evangelical megachurch was struck by lightening and burned to the ground this week.



Iconography: Jesus dwarfs his cross in this representation. The message here seems to be one of resurrection and ascension -- a triumphant, devoted Christ who embodies our need for spiritual union. On the theology of the statue's patrons, this union is not possible without the cross, diminished as its powers are.

Football fans (and Catholics) may be more familiar with another Touchdown Jesus.

Suggested Listening: "The Shock of the Lightening" by Oasis.


Monroe image: CC Morhange.