In the basement of the Unitarian Church where my Sunday School classes were held as a kid, there hung 2 very memorable pieces of art. One was a portrait of MLK , the other, a flimsy poster of Jesus holding a lamb. This is the only Jesus I’ve ever known…the older, teenage Jesus, the one with long straight hair parted down the middle, wearing beige and earthtones. Unitarian Teenage Jesus was a willowy, gentle Shepard, advocating a natural religion of kindness and universal morality, in contrast to the legalistic, hierarchical, sin-obsessed religion of his milieu. Teen/Hippie Jesus taught us about conscience and the democratic process, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, justice, equity and compassion. Teen Jesus was a “No Nukes” Jesus – as the sign in the church parking lot indicated – accepting of gays, humble and kind, calling on us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. Teen Jesus was depicted as technically a man, but a benign and beatific one, with feminine features, soft, flowing Lady Clairol hair and a trim, Gnostic beard. Hippie Jesus’ tableau was a bucolic landscape springing with baby animals, golden light pouring over it, the gentle mood of silence and solemnity bespeaking an ethos of benign piety and peaceful dominion.
Having only known this particular brand of Jesus, I was curious about why some folks worshipped the other version, the baby one, instead of the normal, grown-up Jesus. Did you get to choose which Jesus you wanted to pray to? Or did you pray to different Jesusues of different ages (Toddler Jesus, 23 year old Slacker Carpenter Jesus, etc.)? Had I forgotten that I had already prayed to Baby Jesus and some day, Sunday School Teen Jesus was going to be ripped away and I would be forced to stare at scary, bleeding, Crucified Man Jesus? (it was only much later when I learned what a witches brew of tradition, dubious faith teaching, cult brainwashing, sentimentality, iconographic fetishism and faith based tourism could do).
Teen/Hippie Jesus frowns when he hears folks mixing fundamentalist evangelism, prophetic spiritualism, paranoid politics, evolving conspiracy theories, moralistic crusading, Christian dominion, and a fascistic hard-right mentality, and proclaiming the whole mess to be “Jesus” (GOP Jesus). I know what you’re going to say – that Jesus would want us to fend for ourselves and not be lazy communists, that he is a free market capitalist. It says so in the Bible. Right after the part that talks about him killing his neighbors, kicking the sick, slaughtering flocks of sheep from a helicopter, hating gays, loving guns, and styling his hair short on top, long in back. Teen Jesus sees the populist outrage while our government succumbs to corporate usury as surreal and bad. Very bad. Happy hippie Jesus frowns on GOP Jesus. When someone is sick, GOP Jesus doesn’t want to heal them, he wants them to suffer and die. BUT, if the disease is incurable, GOP Jesus won’t let the person die! Rather, the afflicted must suffer until the disease kills them, and even then He doesn’t want these poor souls up there with Him in Heaven, he wants to force the brain-dead to go on “living” as long as machines can create some semblance of life! Hippie Jesus weeps.
I know it’s arrogant for me to presume my Jesus is better than theirs. After all, everyone knows that Jesus – if not a baby – is a Republican, and I’m in no position to speak on behalf of Republicans. But I just can’t picture handsome, thoughtful Jesus in (on?) his Hoveround, double downing a “fourth meal” of Hot Pockets and Flaturin Hand-to-Mouth, sucking down 5 gallon drums of corn syrup and Mountain Dew, watching NASCAR on the TiVo while cleaning his machine guns and bitching about how we spend too much on sick people, and muttering about how they can pry his weapons from his cold, dead myocardial infarction fingers as he slips in and out of a diabetic coma. I cannot reconcile my beautiful, earthy, vegan Jesus with an artery-clogged, lard-ass slob.
I suppose people are free to see their fictional characters and super heroes in their own way. But I still think Hippie Teen Jesus is better than GOP Jesus and better than the baby one, too. So, if it’s all the same with you, I’m going to let them hang on to their horrible Jesus, and I’ll just hang on to my excellent one.