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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is it OK to Portray a Female Christ in Church Art?
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
I brought this up in the Homeless Jesus thread but figured it needed its own thread. Please don't talk about women's ordination even if there seems to be an obvious connection.
If it is ok for different cultures to portray Christ as looking like them in their church art, is it also ok to ocassionally portray Christ as female? Obviously Christ was not a pale European, but neither was he a sub-saharan African or an East Asian, but he has been portrayed as all of these. I doubt many would argue that the only way to portray him in art is as a 1st-century Palestianian Jew. Traditionalists would argue that portraying Christ as whatever the local ethnicity is has existed since ancient times, but portraying him as a woman is an unjustifiable rupture with tradition.
People may well feel that a private artist can do whatever he or she wants with his/her work, but I am talking about art in worship spaces like (epsecially) the main crucifix near the altar in a liturgical church. If it is wrong to portray Christ as female here, would it also be wrong to do so in other crucifixes (like a processional cross) or in stained glass, murals, sculptures, mosaics, or other art in the same church space? Or are all ok? Why?
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Just to give some examples.
[link to Google Image Search for "female Christ" removed]
[ 02. December 2013, 17:27: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
I understand LeRoc's dseire to be helpful by posting some relevant images, but I'm pretty sure some of them qualify as not safe for work.
We want to avoid people accessing the Ship from their workplace and/or work computer from getting into trouble, and others may want notice of such images. This is probably a particularly important thread on which to bear this in mind, so please compose any links accordingly and/or ensure that any content that might be deemed inappropriate is at least another click away after clicking on the link. If in doubt about whether something is "inappropriate", please err on the safe side.
Thank you!
/hosting
[ 02. December 2013, 17:33: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Anyuta
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# 14692
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Posted
well, I personally am not a fan of portraying Jesus of Nazareth as anything other than a middle eastern male. not that I think it's WRONG to do so, just that I don't personally care for it. I believe that there was a person who was born in 1st century Palestine, who was a middle eastern male. I understand the concept of everyone relating to Jesus in their own way, and thus painting him as whatever they can related to (race, sex... species...) I mean, would an alien Christian portray Christ as an alien? if I related better to animals, could I portray Jesus as a dog or cat or bear or whatever?
symbolically, I think it's perfectly OK to portray Jesus i any way one wants. but it's not JUST about symbolism (to me). it's about affirming that there was such a person living on earth,in a particular place and time, and therefore while we can't know every aspect of His appearance, we should probably do our best to convey the reality. hair length and skin tone (and face shape) may not be something we can know exactly, but sex? yes, we do know that, at least for the biological being that was Jesus.
I could appreciate a purely symbolic paining of a female Jesus, trying to convey the universality of salvation. but that would be in a very specific context, such as an art exhibit. I'd have trouble with it in a worship environment. but.. that's just me. I also don't like modern music in my liturgy.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
As we are surrounded by female Christs I don't see what the problem is.
Patricia Arquette in the film Stigmata echoes Him terribly well.
And An Instance of the Fingerpost by Ian Pears is the most beautiful 'heresy' I've ever read.
God the Father as a black woman in The Shack and by Alanis Morissette in Dogma.
And my favourite visualization of the Holy Ghost is as Gelert.
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Love wins
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
I'm with Anyuta. Jesus was an actual person and should be represented as that actual person. Jesus as some kind of mythical figure is a lie. Portraying the Holy Spirit as a woman, Sophia or Holy Wisdom is perfectly fine and has a historical precedent.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
if I related better to animals, could I portray Jesus as a dog or cat or bear or whatever?
One could argue that C.S. Lewis pretty much did: Narnia is an attempt to imagine a world in which Christ was a lion.
So, yes, I don't see any arbitrary norms on how Christ can be represented in art. If you want a very old example of feminine imagery of Christ, images of him as a female pelican may go back to the 2nd Century.
Liturgical art, though, would seem to have narrower limits. A female corpus on a crucifix, for instance, would probably make me think about Jesus' sex more than a male one would. I can see merit to doing this at times, but should this be part of every worship experience?
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Eutychus: I understand LeRoc's dseire to be helpful by posting some relevant images, but I'm pretty sure some of them qualify as not safe for work.
Sorry, I hadn't thought of that. You're absolutely right.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
He saw Himself as a hen.
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Love wins
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
When I say surrounded, I don't mean in popular culture, I mean in all women.
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Love wins
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
The merits of iconoclasm abound. Seriously, I'd prefer that there we no "artistic" representations of Christ at all, especially in church buildings.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Just to give some examples.
[link to Google Image Search for "female Christ" removed]
cough, splutter, rising blood pressure, tonight's amontillado going down the wrong way, good grief, LeRoc, are you trying to kill me?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
quetzalcoatl: cough, splutter, rising blood pressure, tonight's amontillado going down the wrong way, good grief, LeRoc, are you trying to kill me?
Think of your heart! Sorry again, I guess I saw it as 'artsy' and didn't realize that there was rather a lot of nudity in there.
I tried it again with the SafeSearch filter, but it didn't help much either.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
When I say surrounded, I don't mean in popular culture, I mean in all women.
I suppose that having an image around occasionally might remind people of that.
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CL
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# 16145
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Posted
No, it's heresy and possibly blasphemy too.
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
Before I write this, please let me remind people to not discuss the ordination of women here. Why does portraying Jesus as female make an editorial statement that is much more profound or distracing from worship or distracting from the historical Jesus than portraying Jesus as belonging to a culture completely different than the one he belonged to? People might answer that biological sex is a more inherent part of who a person is than culture or race. They can indicate that with race especially, science has shown that it exists more in our heads and social attitudes than in anything genetic. But over 100 years ago, there were plenty of people who believed that race was an inherent biological part of who someone was and who would have objected strongly to portraying Christ as anything other than the race he "belonged to" (how Anti-Semites got around the fact that Christ was Jewish I am not sure, but white supremacists would have definitely insisted that Christ be portrayed as white). You could point out the Galatians passage that there is no gentile or Jew, no slave or free, no male or female in Christ, but such people back then would have argued that an artist could maybe show the universality of salvation in a work of art outside of a church by portraying a Christ of a non-Caucasian race, but that this image on the principal crucifix or other art in a church was much too distracting from the historical Jesus and too political, etc.
Now, the "scientific" theories of racial supremacists and eugenicists of the late 1800s/early 1900s have been discredited, and our culture has changed quite a bit, making a black or Asian Jesus a lot less "distracting" than it used to be.
It is true that there is a scientific basis to biological sex (at least in our sex chromosomes, as long as the genes on them are expressed). But that does not mean that in 100 years or so people might not see much of a political statement in there being a female body on a crucifix. The fact that Christ is described in the gospels as biologically male might not seem that important then.
I know that the maleness of Christ is something that many Christian denominations believes needs to be reflected in the text of the Liturgy - no female pronouns for the Second Person of the Trinity, for example. Again, not going into the discussion of the ordination of women - what is it that is so important about remembering that Christ is male and portraying Him as such? Why does it lessen the reality and concreteness of the incarnation to portray Him as female? How is a male Christ more "real" or more "accurate"?
Some churches might feel that since a female corpus on a crucifix in perceived as "political" whether or not it is intended to be (and whether or not anything can ever be apolitical), it should be avoided so as not to create controversy that would drive people away from worship. But I know many people, male and female, myself (a male) included, who feel uncomfortable venerating a male image as the principal image of God incarnate in our worship, especially because we know that replacing that image with a female image would not be allowed. Many women might have no problem only going to Church and seeing Christ as male in art - but there is no choice of how to portray Christ in the art used in worship that does not offend a significant amount of people.
Protestants from traditions that shun images in worship spaces might be thinking "I told you so!" but I think that the sensory is an indispensible part of worship and that idolatry consists of making any created thing a substitute for God, not in allowing created things to draw you to God.
So why is Christ's maleness (or, since a small partially clothed male body on a crucifix could be seen as androgynous, non-femaleness) seen as something worth preserving in regulations cncerning liturgical art? Why is maleness seen as a key part of who Christ "is"? Why is a male Christ in art more "realistic" than a female Christ? (And let's not talk about women's ordination, as much as I or anyone else may want to.)
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agingjb
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# 16555
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Posted
Caravaggio's supper at Emmaus (National Gallery) shows a (resurrected) Jesus that some have seen as a remarkably feminine image.
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Refraction Villanelles
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
agingjb: Caravaggio's supper at Emmaus (National Gallery) shows a (resurrected) Jesus that some have seen as a remarkably feminine image.
This time it's Work Safe.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
No, it's heresy and possibly blasphemy too.
If all souls and bodies are either male or female, this maleness or femaleness is eternal, and this maleness or femaleness is central to all souls' identity, which I would argue is Roman Catholic teaching, then yes, it's heresy. (I think that the Roman Catholic hierarchy may have painted itself into a corner though when there are bodies that are not clearly male or female - and some of the people with those bodies do not identify as either male or female. How can the Church be so sure that such people must have either a male soul or a female soul?)
But why is a female crucifix in church blasphemy?
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Anyuta
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# 14692
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Posted
not entirely the same thing, but I have a recording of Jesus Christ, Superstar where Amy Ray (from Indigo Girls) sings the role of Jesus. I do LOVE the recording. But sound is not image, and JCSS is certainly not liturgical. But she sounds better than some others I've heard sing the role.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
The merits of iconoclasm abound. Seriously, I'd prefer that there we no "artistic" representations of Christ at all, especially in church buildings.
What about the pictures your brain makes when listening to hymns, worship songs, sermons, and Bible readings? What picture comes into your head when you hear something like "Precious Lord, Take my Hand"? That's an icon of your own making. What do you see in your head when there is a reading of the Passion? Is the cross empty?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Mk. 12:25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
Gal. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
er, so what sex are we in the Resurrection?
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Love wins
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the giant cheeseburger
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# 10942
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Posted
Many of the middle ages paintings of white European Jesus do look a little like a female face with a beard glued on, so if it's heretical it's not a new heresy.
The only time I've seen a white European with a feminine face and a beard glued on, it was a woman at a fancy dress party.
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
not entirely the same thing, but I have a recording of Jesus Christ, Superstar where Amy Ray (from Indigo Girls) sings the role of Jesus. I do LOVE the recording. But sound is not image, and JCSS is certainly not liturgical. But she sounds better than some others I've heard sing the role.
There is plenty of history (on the stage and on film) of female actors playing male characters and the reverse. The identity of an actor does not necessarily change the identity of the character.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Mk. 12:25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
Gal. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
er, so what sex are we in the Resurrection?
Roman Catholic teaching is that even our resurrected bodies are male and female like they were in our lives before death - and that in whatever experience we have of Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell between our death and the Resurrection and Last Judgment, we are male or female just like we were before death in that existence, too. I am asking how can everyone be strictly male or female when there are some people who both in their bodies and in their identity are not either.
And, more broadly, even if Jesus is unambiguously male both biologically and in terms of his gender identity, why does it matter so much for portrayals of Him in art used in worship?
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I think one of the problems this idea runs up against is quite simply that most crucifixions portray Christ as at least semi-naked.
Modern culture being the way it is, icons (in all senses of the term) being what they are, and irrespective of where one stands on the gender of the Godhead, I'd say a semi-naked form that's recognisably female is going to create connotations of objectified sexuality a lot more readily to a lot more people than most variations on the historical norm of pictures of a male Christ on the cross.
That leaves the question of Christ portrayed other than on the cross (as with Carvaggio above) open - but such portrayals are also (as with Carvaggio above) likely to be more ambiguous, are they not?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
The only female crucifix I've seen was about as gender specific when it came to the chest as a Barbie doll. It was, overall, an abstract depiction of the human body, but a recognizable female one. The cloth covering Christ's male bits is there for reasons of propriety more than for historical accuracy, so if there is to be a female corpus on a crucifix, there is no reason not to give cover her chest as well as her groin.
Going briefly on a tangent - when men or women were crucified in the Roman Empire, did they have any clothes on? If so, what usually were they wearing? Was it different for men than for women? Were women crucified in Ancient Rome?
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Going briefly on a tangent - when men or women were crucified in the Roman Empire, did they have any clothes on? If so, what usually were they wearing? Was it different for men than for women? Were women crucified in Ancient Rome?
Both sexes were crucified, and generally naked.
The problem - for me - with portraying Jesus as female, is akin to the problem with portraying Jesus as not middle-eastern. Both seem to run contrary to the incarnation, in the same way.
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Jack o' the Green
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# 11091
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Posted
I believe that people were crucified naked. One theory as to why Jesus is never portrayed in this way - apart from squeamishness about portraying Our Lord in the buff - is that his circumcision would mark him out as unquestionably Jewish.
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
I think that for many people seeing Christ "as one of them," and seeing Christ elsewher looking like someone else actually makes the incarnation more real, not less. If Christ is always portrayed as whatever Jews in Galilee looked like in the first century (I honestly don't know), it would help dispel historical misconceptions but would also make the incarnation seem like just an event in history rather than a working of salvation for all and the renewal of all creation - a working that is also seen in its fullness in the Passion and Resurrection but that also continues today.
And seeing Christ naked and circumcised today in the US, where many men, especially middle aged and older men, are circumcised for non-Religous reasons, would not necessarily make Christ appear more Jewish. But it would make people (me included) uncomfortable! I have a hard enough time not being sexually attracted to Him already! But the necrophilia aspect is a turn off.
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
On of the main questions here is, do you want art, or do you want an illustration for your religious texts?
As an artist, I'd be very wary of taking on a commission from a church, partly because I know how precious church people can get about their images, and partly because overtly religious subjects don't really interest me. If I were to take on a commission, then in common with many artists the way I work is to spend a lot of time thinking about the brief - seeing where it takes me in a kind of free-association way. I'd also look at the location for the art, and engage imaginatively with that. If I felt that my best response to a painting of Christ was to paint a female figure, that's what I'd do. Whether you like it or not, or think it's good theology or not, is up to you.
(Sitting here thinking about it, I think my Christ wouldn't be female. I think I would want to paint something that was more about absence than presence.)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
The merits of iconoclasm abound. Seriously, I'd prefer that there we no "artistic" representations of Christ at all, especially in church buildings.
What about the pictures your brain makes when listening to hymns, worship songs, sermons, and Bible readings? What picture comes into your head when you hear something like "Precious Lord, Take my Hand"? That's an icon of your own making. What do you see in your head when there is a reading of the Passion? Is the cross empty?
I tend to think in words and emotions, rather than images unless I'm using the revelatory gifts of the Spirit in which case I do think in images. However, I have to say that I rarely, if ever, picture the physical body of Jesus in my mind's eye when contemplating his personhood. However, I wouldn't consider that sort of mental imagery as being of the same order as artistic depictions of that mental imagery because the thoughts and emotions that accompany the mental imagery have the ability to root it in biblical revelation in a way that cannot be replicated third hand.
[ 03. December 2013, 07:55: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Mk. 12:25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
Gal. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
er, so what sex are we in the Resurrection?
The second verse you've quoted says precisely nothing about resurrection ontology. It is a specifically soteriological statement and can only be applied in that context and for that purpose without doing unacceptable violence to the original context and purpose of the text.
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
However, I wouldn't consider that sort of mental imagery as being of the same order as artistic depictions of that mental imagery because the thoughts and emotions that accompany the mental imagery have the ability to root it in biblical revelation in a way that cannot be replicated third hand.
You sound very definite about that. I don't see why the thoughts and emotions can't accompany actual as well as imagined imagery in the way that they can accompany actual or imagined music or sounds.
BTW it seems you have no comment on Martin's first verse?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
I'm a bit puzzled about an insistence on souls being, in perpetuity, male or female.
I am not constantly aware of my being female, only when necessary. In fact, there are aspects of my femaleness which I would quite cheerfully not miss if they weren't to be resurrected, since they would then have no purpose, and have spent rather too much time distracting men from my person. I simply don't identify my me-ness with my double X chromosomes and their consequences. (This may have contributed to my single state, of course.) I don't know about others.
If a male hierarchy are so insistent on the eternal nature of their maleness, I would be concerned that they spend too much of their celibate time being aware of their male nature, and the otherness of females - and there is all too much evidence of the latter attitude. And absolutely no evidence of what state we will be in after death.
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The Revolutionist
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# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I'm a bit puzzled about an insistence on souls being, in perpetuity, male or female.
I am not constantly aware of my being female, only when necessary. In fact, there are aspects of my femaleness which I would quite cheerfully not miss if they weren't to be resurrected, since they would then have no purpose, and have spent rather too much time distracting men from my person. I simply don't identify my me-ness with my double X chromosomes and their consequences. (This may have contributed to my single state, of course.) I don't know about others.
If a male hierarchy are so insistent on the eternal nature of their maleness, I would be concerned that they spend too much of their celibate time being aware of their male nature, and the otherness of females - and there is all too much evidence of the latter attitude. And absolutely no evidence of what state we will be in after death.
Well, I believe the Bible indicates that our destiny isn't to be disembodied souls, but raised to new life in resurrection bodies.
In Genesis, being created male and female is part of God's very good creation and paralleled with being made in the image of God. Being made male and female is not an incidental biological quirk, but part of our humanity to be enjoyed, expressed and celebrated.
The only passage that could suggest a post-gender existence is the one Martin referred to, "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."
But ISTM that the absence of marriage at the Resurrection is because marriage and sexuality are a shadow and reflection of the perfect spiritual relationship we will enjoy with God. I don't see any reason to think that God will change his mind at the Resurrection about "male and female" being "very good".
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Aristotelian medieval scholasticism is a long narrative dying.
[ 03. December 2013, 11:58: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
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Anglo Catholic Relict
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# 17213
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I brought this up in the Homeless Jesus thread but figured it needed its own thread. Please don't talk about women's ordination even if there seems to be an obvious connection.
If it is ok for different cultures to portray Christ as looking like them in their church art, is it also ok to ocassionally portray Christ as female? Obviously Christ was not a pale European, but neither was he a sub-saharan African or an East Asian, but he has been portrayed as all of these. I doubt many would argue that the only way to portray him in art is as a 1st-century Palestianian Jew. Traditionalists would argue that portraying Christ as whatever the local ethnicity is has existed since ancient times, but portraying him as a woman is an unjustifiable rupture with tradition.
People may well feel that a private artist can do whatever he or she wants with his/her work, but I am talking about art in worship spaces like (epsecially) the main crucifix near the altar in a liturgical church. If it is wrong to portray Christ as female here, would it also be wrong to do so in other crucifixes (like a processional cross) or in stained glass, murals, sculptures, mosaics, or other art in the same church space? Or are all ok? Why?
A female Christ would be Aghia Sophia; Holy Wisdom.
The wisdom of God is always female, and can be portrayed as a woman.
I would not object to images of Christ as a woman, but I would not create them myself. There are far too many women saints to portray, before I would do that.
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
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Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
However, I wouldn't consider that sort of mental imagery as being of the same order as artistic depictions of that mental imagery because the thoughts and emotions that accompany the mental imagery have the ability to root it in biblical revelation in a way that cannot be replicated third hand.
You sound very definite about that. I don't see why the thoughts and emotions can't accompany actual as well as imagined imagery in the way that they can accompany actual or imagined music or sounds.
BTW it seems you have no comment on Martin's first verse?
You're right, I do tend to express things more definitely than perhaps is necessary. It's probably symptomatic of the Reformed tradition in general and the way that I have been formed by it.
However, I'm certainly not denying the affective elements of visual art. I'm suggesting that visual art has the capacity to have a very profound and powerful effect indeed; a capacity that can be used - both intentionally and unintentionally - in order to propagate falsehood and communicate spiritual error if it is not managed carefully and intelligently.
[ 03. December 2013, 12:43: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
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Originally posted by CL:
No, it's heresy and possibly blasphemy too.
Care to expand on your reasoning?
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
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Gwalchmai
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# 17802
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Posted
The whole point of the incarnation is that God became incarnate at a particular time and place as a single idetifiable person, and human biology being what it is God had to choose between male and female (I note the comments about intersex people up thread, but that is a different conversation). We might discuss why God chose to be incarnated as a man rather than a woman, but Christian belief is that he became incarnate in Jesus, a man. No amount of politically correct argument can change that. So it is simply wrong to portray Christ as a woman - it does not accord with Christian belief.
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
Gwalchmai - why is it more incorrect and more out of accordance with Christian belief to portray him as a woman than it is to portray him as a pale Northern European? Or as wearing the contemporary dress of whatever culture depicts him? Should most images of Christ in Western European churches be removed?
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Mk. 12:25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
er, so what sex are we in the Resurrection?
Here's how I'd read the verse. The ground of the verse is that the dead will rise; there will be a resurrection to life. There are two subordinate clauses which make two additional propositions. Firstly, that people after the resurrection "will neither marry nor be given in marriage" and that "they will be like the angels in heaven".
Now, it seems to me that the first of these subordinate propositions may actually affirm the continuation of gender via the use of traditional language of "marrying" and "being given in marriage": this might refer to men marrying, and women being given in marriage. However, it could also mean that there will be no procreation in the New Creation by which children are born, grow and are eventually given in marriage.
The second proposition suggests that our risen bodies will be similar, in some way, to angelic bodies. I think this refers to a qualitative similarity in the sense in the resurrection we, like angels, will be everlasting having been clothed with immortality.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Some things move us toward God, some things move us away from God. I am willing to tolerate things that move people toward. Jesus could be portrayed as anyone if this helps. With the caveat that the historical facts that he was a man are confirmed.
I also like representational art that leads my perception to new understandings versus resembles precisely the things painted, sculpted or drawn. There is fundamentalism in art as well as in text. But many people don't attend to art enough to know that.
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
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Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I'm a bit puzzled about an insistence on souls being, in perpetuity, male or female.
I am not constantly aware of my being female, only when necessary. In fact, there are aspects of my femaleness which I would quite cheerfully not miss if they weren't to be resurrected, since they would then have no purpose, and have spent rather too much time distracting men from my person. I simply don't identify my me-ness with my double X chromosomes and their consequences. (This may have contributed to my single state, of course.) I don't know about others.
If a male hierarchy are so insistent on the eternal nature of their maleness, I would be concerned that they spend too much of their celibate time being aware of their male nature, and the otherness of females - and there is all too much evidence of the latter attitude. And absolutely no evidence of what state we will be in after death.
Well, I believe the Bible indicates that our destiny isn't to be disembodied souls, but raised to new life in resurrection bodies.
In Genesis, being created male and female is part of God's very good creation and paralleled with being made in the image of God. Being made male and female is not an incidental biological quirk, but part of our humanity to be enjoyed, expressed and celebrated.
The only passage that could suggest a post-gender existence is the one Martin referred to, "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."
But ISTM that the absence of marriage at the Resurrection is because marriage and sexuality are a shadow and reflection of the perfect spiritual relationship we will enjoy with God. I don't see any reason to think that God will change his mind at the Resurrection about "male and female" being "very good".
Two points, to both of you:
1. In Genesis God creates humanity FROM male TO female in the Hebrew terms used - a spectrum, not a binary system.
2. Don't confuse gender with biological sex - gender is a societal construct and sometimes matches with biological sex, sometimes not. The two aren't related. Actually our binary system of biological sex is also a construct to an extent - nobody matches the biological 'ideal' perfectly, and most people are a bit more like the 'opposite' sex in some way in terms of physiology (eg a flat-chested cisgender woman is still not conforming perfectly to 'biological' norms).
So, there will certainly be people other than male and female (ie genderqueer and intersex people) in Heaven.....
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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CL
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# 16145
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Posted
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Originally posted by Yonatan:
I believe that people were crucified naked. One theory as to why Jesus is never portrayed in this way - apart from squeamishness about portraying Our Lord in the buff - is that his circumcision would mark him out as unquestionably Jewish.
I guess the hierarchy didn't get the memo....
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
quote:
Originally posted by Yonatan:
I believe that people were crucified naked. One theory as to why Jesus is never portrayed in this way - apart from squeamishness about portraying Our Lord in the buff - is that his circumcision would mark him out as unquestionably Jewish.
I guess the hierarchy didn't get the memo....
Um...everyone knows Jesus is Jewish, and the Catholic hierarchy certainly knows that. What makes you think that anyone suggested otherwise?
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The long history of persecution of Jews after the Roman Empire made Christianity the state religion.
The book, not the film, Constantine's Sword, does a good job of tracing this. From the erection of a Christian cross at Auschwitz back to Constantine's vision of a chi-rho. It is the history of supersessionism, which we have yet to resolve.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm suggesting that visual art has the capacity to have a very profound and powerful effect indeed; a capacity that can be used - both intentionally and unintentionally - in order to propagate falsehood and communicate spiritual error if it is not managed carefully and intelligently.
I would agree. I would also say the same about hymns and songs. Witness some of the bizarre goings-on in worship sessions in certain charismatic circles. The antidote to misuse of art is not non-use.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm suggesting that visual art has the capacity to have a very profound and powerful effect indeed; a capacity that can be used - both intentionally and unintentionally - in order to propagate falsehood and communicate spiritual error if it is not managed carefully and intelligently.
I would agree. I would also say the same about hymns and songs. Witness some of the bizarre goings-on in worship sessions in certain charismatic circles. The antidote to misuse of art is not non-use.
True. Not everyone who sings the same words believes they mean the same thing. And not everyone who looks at a picture will experience the same affections and think the same thoughts. However, it is the duty of the faithful minister of God's word to teach God's people what the words of songs mean via their teaching of what scripture says. Conversely, it is not the duty of the minister of God's word to immerse God's people in the sea of subjectivity and speculation which art, both good and bad creates.
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