Unbeknownst to many white Christian Nationalists, the Council of Jerusalem (if they have even heard of it, since it is in the parts of the Bible that are not useful as proof texts for their lies), affirmed and did not condemn art like this:
That’s because the Incarnation of the Son of God is the primal example of enculturation in the Christian tradition, because that which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. We could not come to God, so he came to us by humbling himself to become human. The apostles and evangelists of the Church continues that tradition by coming to the peoples of the world in their own customs and dress and philosophical categories and, yes, art.
If non-Western European depictions of the gospel upset your sense of power to claim sole copyright on the gospel, you are, not to put too fine a point on it, a heretic condemned (by implication) ever since the Council of Jerusalem liberated the gospel from being the prisoner of any single human culture.
Read all about it in Acts 15. It’s not just about the Judaizers of the day who sought to make Christianity the sole property of Jewish converts. They just happened to be the most prominent subculture in the Church at the time. It’s about every subculture in the Church that tries to make the Church their private property. Today, in the US, it’s about the heresy of White Christian Nationalism. It is they, not the painting above, that are roundly condemned by that council, and for the same reason. They have tried to whittle the gospel down to a white Republican cult of fertility, mammon, and nihilist power.
The Church is Catholic, meaning Universal. (And, by the way, the gospel is an import to Western Europe–and America.)
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Back in my Protestant days, I actually taught a Wednesday night Bible class for teens. We were reading in Genesis, and one of the kids asked a great question, “So if Adam and Eve were the only two humans, where did black people come from?”
I responded, “What makes you think Adam and Eve were white? They were in the Middle East, where most peoples are quite dark. The Bible doesn’t obsess over skin color like many people today do. Maybe the question ought to be: ‘Where did white people come from?’ ”
The kid was genuinely shocked and a little scandalized, because he had grown up with all the usual Sunday School art of blonde apostles and blue-eyed Jesus.
But this does also illustrate a fundamental misunderstaning of art that many evangelicals and fundamentalists have: Art is not always literal. Or as Chesterton once wrote: “The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.”
So I don’t get offended when I see black Madonnas or portrayals of Asian Jesus any more than I get offended by blue-eyed Jesus. As long as you understand that art is NOT literal, such art is in fact very human and very healthy. It is saying: “God is our God. Jesus loved us and died for us.” That is healthy. But when it is used to divide, by saying: “God looks like this. Jesus looks like us. Maybe we’ll let you join, but never forget who your betters are.” That is profoundly ugly.
Couple of questions: Is it accurate to say the Council of Jerusalem ¨affirmed and did not condemn art..?¨ Also, are Christians who voted for Trump White Christian Nationalists by definition?
1. No.
2. Yes.