Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Is brown Jesus better than chocolate Jesus?

Dateline: San Antonio, Texas - Never mind that a brand new chocolate Jesus might actually see the light of day in a Manhattan gallery before Halloween (the old one was never unveiled at a planned exhibit back in April due to protests and was subsequently the gruesome victim of rat nibblings while being held in a dark Brooklyn storage room - the horror!). In any case, here comes Hispanic Jesus! Yay?

Yesterday hundreds of devoted church-goers in San Antonio, Texas, turned out for the unveiling of the city's "first Hispanic Jesus!" Praise the Lord!

Television reporter David Cruz described an "unmistakeable (sic) Hispanic appearance" (judge for yourself above) and I imagine for Latino kids growing up praising a Jesus that looks a bit like them - even if he's nailed to a cross - might be a good thing? I mean, I guess it's better than those 3-D images of Jesus with long blond hair and blue eyes whose stare follows you across the living room at many a Latin American living room (but probably not even close to representing the Middle Eastern man most probably portrayed in the Bible).

The difference? Well, brown Jesus has a loin cloth and was created by a believer. Chocolate Jesus doesn't have a loin cloth and was not necessarily created for a place of worship. Which is better? Only Jesus knows. What do you think?

Related:
Previously on Blabbeando:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I used to sub in the black inner city Catholic Schools because I was one of the few subs that wasn't afraid of riding into the bombed out areas to teach. I was surprised to find that in predominately african american catholic schools and churches they had a black Jesus on the crucifix that hung on the alter. Come to think of it, they celebrated Christmas and Kwanzaa too.