Racial Iconography

There is an increasingly prevalent opinion among some Christians that images of Jesus Christ ought to look Jewish. After all, he is a Jew. That is what he looks like. Seems reasonable.

He certainly doesn't have blonde hair and blue eyes. It is historically inaccurate to portray him with such features. Some even regard such images of him as racist.

A fewer number, it seems to me, regard as racist images of him with African features (I am more fond of these images myself), but he is not African either.

He is a Middle Eastern Jew of the first century. But is it racist, or otherwise inappropriate, to depict him as though he were a member of another race?

Icons are not images of what people look like. They are not and are not meant to be realistic images - at least not in the sense we tend to think of realism. They portray spiritual and theological realities over physical and historical realities.

an Ethiopian icon of the Baptism of Jesus

This is why, perhaps, iconographers of the Church scarcely hesitated to make images of Jesus, his mother, his apostles, and others appear just as they did. Ethiopian iconographers portrayed him as an Ethiopian. Greek iconographers portrayed him as a Greek. Russian iconographers portrayed him as a Russian. They were communicating a spiritual and theological reality. They were the Body of Christ.

If I am an early Christian Ethiopian and I know that Jesus is my brother and Mary is my mother and I am a member of the Body of Christ, it is meaningful, then, for Jesus and Mary to look like I do. Why should he look like an alien if he and I are one?

One reason we might put forward is that he is an alien to all but Middle Eastern Jews. There is a spiritual and theological reality to be communicated by this fact too: "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22) - a too often neglected reality among Christians.

I believe there is something to be learned from every trait of Christ. He is human. He is male. He is Jewish. He lived in the Middle East in the first century. It all matters. Everything about him matters. Each particularity is significant, for he is the Logos, the incarnate Word; his is the flesh of God.

The contemporary situation of the Church is somewhat changed, at least where I live. Members of other races no longer appear alien. We go to elementary school with people of every race and are surrounded by a plurality of races all our lives.

In this situation, when we make an image of Christ for our churches, what racial characteristics ought he be given? Members of any race are liable to behold it, pray before it, contemplate his holy face. It seems to me that, in this situation, it is most sensible to portray him as a Jew.

That being said, there are contexts and subcultures to consider and there can be great meaning in an image of Christ bearing the features of any race. He bore our offenses, after all; surely he can bear our features.

Relics, Cremation and Organ Donation, Part 3

Within the Christian tradition, to bury the dead is a work of mercy – to burn the dead a desecration. The bodies of our departed holy ones are rightly venerated in altars, catacombs, and cemeteries, in reliquaries and ossuaries in reverent expectation of the coming resurrection.

In the light of traditional Christian respect for the corpse, ought Christians to regard the transplantation of human organs as a desecration or a veneration of the body?

Most Christians are firmly in the latter camp, believing with neither doubt nor hesitation in this modern medical miracle. Others hesitate. I have hesitated for years.

A compelling argument against organ donation, it has seemed to me, is the resurrection of Lazarus. Imagine that, upon his death, Mary and Martha had carved him up and used his organs to save other folks’ lives. This would put a whole new spin on Christ's command, "Lazarus, come out!" Would his organs, in obedience to their Creator, have jumped from the guts of their recipients?

Lazarus is not unique. The Seven Holy Sleepers, too, rose from the dead. Peter raised the dead (Acts 9:40). The bones of Elisha raised the dead (2 Kings 13: 21). How, if some organs of these lived on, would their resurrections have occurred?

Would Jesus have wanted His organs donated?

If, indeed, our bodies are to rise from the dead, are not our organs to rise with them? What is a body but a group of organs? Significantly, our bodies will rise from the dead – our souls are not given new bodies. Body and soul are linked. The soul is the life of the body. Our bodies rise and, if we are saved, are glorified. They are made new, but are not recreated.

Compelled as I have been by these arguments, in truth, “the free gift of organs after death is legitimate and can be meritorious” (CCC 2301).

Saints Cosmas and Damian, unmercenary physicians, performing a miraculous transplant of a leg.

What is more, the practice of organ transplantation actually has ancient Christian approval. There's a legend that Sts. Cosmas and Damian, as here illustrated, once performed a miraculous leg transplant as a means of healing an ulcerated leg.

The workings of resurrection are mysterious – unplumbable. Our omnipotent God has taught us the greatest love is the gift of self – self-sacrifice. For the sake of such love, God, Who is Love, will surely make a way. Where I have seen contradiction, there is none.

No greater reliquary could there be for the organs of a departed loved one than the body of another – here is a reliquary of God’s own creation, “more precious than the most exquisite jewels and more purified than gold” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, c. 135). Here indeed is a fitting place to deposit our remains.

Russia and the Pope, continued

From Reuters, Africa:
Pope in rare meeting with Russian Orthodox cleric

So, the Pope and Metropolitan Kirill have met behind closed doors. Details are not forthcoming. Could be good. Could be bad.

Hopefully, this means things are not so bleak as I have feared. This same Metropolitan has been quoted as saying: "the big chill is over and it's thawing time" as regards Russian Orthodox relations with the Vatican.

Islam and Iconoclasm

This week we celebrated the feast day of St. John Damascus (Dec. 4th), best known for defending orthodoxy against the iconoclasts. He famously wrote:

“In former times God, who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now when God is seen in the flesh conversing with humans, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter: I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take his abode in matter: who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honoring the matter which wrought my salvation! I honor it but not as God.”

12th century Sinaitic icon of St. Theodosia,
a Constantinopolitan executed by the iconoclasts
in the 8th century.
from the Monastery of St. Catherine

Less well known is the means by which he was able (without being killed, that is) to defy a heresy so prevalent among Christians that the Eastern Christian Emperor Leo himself forbade the use of icons.

St. John was immune to the persecutions of the iconoclasts because he lived under Muslim rule. That’s right, here is a Christian saint protected… from Christians… by Muslims.

A second defender of orthodox iconography during the time of the iconoclasts is the Monastery of St. Catherine, which preserves to this day many of the oldest icons in existence, most of the rest having been destroyed by the iconoclasts. Here in the Sinai desert, while much of the Christian world was breaking icons and killing those who used them, their veneration continued. This bastion of orthodoxy, too, was under Muslim rule.

From The Monastery of St. Catherine, by Dr. Evangelos Papaioannou:

"According to its tradition, the monks of St. Catherine sent a delegation to Medina, in 625 AD, to ask for Mohammed’s patronage and protection. The request was granted; a copy of the original document… proclaims that the Moslems would defend the monks, who were also exempted from paying taxes. Legend has it that Mohammed visited the Monastery on one of his journeys as a merchant. This may well be so, for the Koran does mention the holy places in Sinai. So, when the peninsula came under the rule of the Arab conquerors in 641 AD, the monks and their Monastery continued to live unmolested and emerged unscathed from the early Arab period."

The later Arab period was not so kind, but that is a different story. The Monastery remained under Muslim rule whilst the iconoclast heresy was prevalent (throughout the 8th and 9th centuries).

The irony of all this is that the heresy of Islam embraces iconoclasm as heartily as any of the iconoclasts (witness the desecration of Hagia Sophia). The Muslims, believing icons to be idolatrous, would have had no sympathy for the beliefs they were inadvertently protecting. But the presence of certain Christians among them was insignificant enough that they saw fit to leave them alone (at least during this time). Its icons of great antiquity (even then) were consequently left unharmed.

I am convinced that our Lord and God does not hesitate to use the adversaries of the Church to shape her and correct her, as with a stone against a blade.

Currently, Islam appears to have lost much of its former tolerance of Christians. I believe God is using Islamic persecution of Christians, as with the previous Islamic protection of Christians, to strengthen the Church. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches are now faced with the need to unite or be overthrown. Unprecedented steps toward that reunion are made daily.

Dark Chocolate

Today's sin ad is brought to you by Dove Chocolate:



I have observed that such ads are frequently for chocolate. What can this mean?

Combox Crit

Tim Jones of the blog Old World Swine has come up with a wonderful idea I am here imitating: a "combox crit," as he calls it, of his paintings.

A critique (or "crit"), for those unexperienced in art education, is the capstone of a studio course wherein the artist's work is openly analyzed by a group of his professors and fellow students. Both strengths and weaknesses are discussed, with a view toward improving the artist's ability to recognize these as he is working.

Mr. Jones has just conducted something very like this on his blog.

He writes:

I thought I would see what might happen if I invited readers to offer combox critiques of certain of my paintings. You don't have to be an artist or a collector or anything, just offer an honest critique. The usual rules of combox etiquette apply, of course. Brevity is the soul of wit. Be as specific as possible. Give reasons for your response... "I don't like it" doesn't really help. If you just don't happen to like the kind of work I do, save it. This is about the merits of the individual piece.

Also, if you just really like a certain piece, or want to compliment my work in general, save that, too. Comments like "Wow, I can't even draw a stick man..." are appreciated, and all... just not for combox crits.

So, please, fire away. I eagerly wish to hear your honest assessement of this painting. It is titled, "Forerunner," and depicts St. John the Baptist or St. Elias.

Relics, Cremation and Organ Donation, Part 2

Pagans like fire.











I can hardly blame them. Among earthly things, fire is significant. It creates, destroys, warms, burns, breathes, lives, and dies. Its connection to the spiritual is apparent.

God appeared to Moses as a Burning Bush. The Holy Spirit descended as tongues of fire upon the Apostles’ and Mary’s heads. Christians like fire too. Neither Catholic nor Orthodox Christians would consider a liturgy without candles.

But Pagans sometimes worship fire and burn the dead. That’s where our similarity ends.

The practice of cremation has been widely adopted in contemporary times among Christians. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks tersely of the issue: “The Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body” (CCC, 2300).

Not so in the early Church. From the earliest times, Christians buried their dead, in continuity with the Jewish practice. At first, this distinguished them from the practices prevailing in the larger Greco-Roman culture, although later a general cultural shift toward burial of the dead would take place. The practice of cremation was repugnant to Christians 1) because it was common among the pagans, and 2) because it appeared defiant of the Christian belief in the incarnation of God and the resurrection of the body.

During the Roman persecution of Christians, cremation of the martyrs was sometimes used as an official public mockery of these Christian beliefs.

That provision given in the Catechism ("provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body") is necessary, for it can certainly seem to so deny.

I’ll not be burning any of my relatives’ bodies nor requesting such for my own.