The book of Genesis tells us that God created man in His own image. Another absolute truth is that men have tried, for many years, to create God in their own image; more precisely, creating Jesus in their image. Some churches in the Far East display pictures of Jesus Christ with decidedly Asian features. Churches in Africa, Europe and the Americas similarly depict Christ in ways reflecting the primary populations on those continents.
Creating Jesus in man’s own image isn’t limited to portraiture. Productions like Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and The Last Temptation of Christ have also sought to portray the savior of mankind in a manner believed to represent Him, demonstrating the artistic license invariably taken when the subject is someone of renown, divine or otherwise.
The latest example comes from filmmaker Martin Scorsese, whose pending project is described by Variety only as “the Jesus movie.” Scorsese told the Los Angeles Times that he’s written a screenplay for this film and hopes to begin shooting later this year. We don’t know what the final cut will look like - I doubt Scorsese knows yet either - but there are clues based on his motivation and the film’s source material.
Scorsese says he wants to make the teachings of Christ “more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion,” because he believes religion has “failed in so many ways.” Witnessing the widespread corruption of biblical Christianity in so many denominations, I cannot disagree with him on that point.
The LA Times characterizes the film as “focusing on Jesus’ core teachings in a way that explores the principles,” but that isn’t very meaningful. Is “love your neighbor” a core teaching while “beware of false prophets” is a peripheral teaching? Do the core teachings of Jesus include things like, “out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness,” or “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers,” as He proclaimed while driving out the money changers from the the temple at Jerusalem with a whip of cords?
We can only presume that Scorsese and his colleagues will use their very best judgment to identify for us the core teachings of Christ. In any event, it’s a good bet that Scorsese’s Jesus will be in his own image, at least in part. Scorsese’s Jesus will also be made in the image of acclaimed Japanese author Shūsaku Endō, whose book A Life of Jesus is said to be the basis for the movie.
Published in 1973, Endō wrote his book primarily for Japanese audiences. In his preface to the American edition, Endō explains “I tried not so much to depict God in the father-image that tends to characterize Christianity, but rather to depict the kind hearted maternal aspect of God revealed to us in the personality Jesus.” His rationale for this approach recognized the target demographic for his book. “The Japanese tend to seek in their gods and buddhas a warm hearted mother rather than a stern father.”
I understand that people write about God and Jesus and faith in a manner they think will resonate with readers. I try to do that, feeble or effective as my efforts may be. Less easily understood is how the only son of God, whom Jesus describes in His Sermon on the Mount as “Our Father,” can be honestly portrayed through a “kind hearted maternal aspect,” or a “warm hearted mother.”
Journalists, authors, historians and other scribes tell us the best sources of material are original sources. Yet Scorsese apparently decided against basing his movie on the original source material about Jesus: The Bible. Some critics consider reliance on the Bible absurd; it’s merely a collection of oral histories and translations over thousands of years. If that is so, how is any book about Jesus written in the last 1,500 years any better?
There’s a very good reason one of God’s commandments is, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,” and it gets to the nature of man. Whatever image of Jesus we might conjure up is necessarily tainted by our own flaws. Whether it’s a painting, a sculpture or a movie, any likeness of God or His son created by man would not reflect divine perfection but our human corruption.
I love Martin Scorsese’s cinematic images of New York City cabbies, boxers and gangsters. I don’t know if they’re accurate but I’ve watched a lot of his movies more than once. We’ll just have to wait and see whether his next movie will be more informed by his marinating in Hollywood culture for the past half century, or the Jesus of the Gospels.