SPIRITUAL focus on books May 17, 2004 Issue

Jesus—not really a 'new' Superstar

By Marilyn Jones

As a lifelong Christian, I was never really troubled by the question of Jesus' identity. Having grown up in a mainline Christian church, I learned in Sunday School that Jesus was the Son of God, that he performed miracles, taught his followers to love, was crucified, resurrected, and later ascended "into heaven." My job as a follower of Jesus was to keep the Ten Commandments and love my neighbor as myself.

The physical image I kept of Jesus from childhood and well into adulthood, I now realize, derived mainly from the famous portrait Head of Christ by Warner Sallman, which has hung in American homes, Sunday Schools, church buildings, and pastors' offices since it was painted in 1940. In this portrait, Jesus appears with Anglo features, in three-quarter profile, his long hair and aquiline features softly backlit by the suggestion of a diffused halo.

What I never realized until reading Stephen Prothero's recent book, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, is that the Jesus I've known and loved my whole life is a decidedly American Jesus—just one of many versions that have evolved since the Puritans set foot on this continent.

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