Happy Birthday Black Jesus!

For Christmas I would like to share some of my recent artwork dealing with Jesus Christ.

Happy birthday Jesus!!!

I pray that you will be with the poor, the lonely, the humble, 

and the weak on this beautiful day.

I also pray that people will be willing to help those in need,

just a Jesus of the oppressed would (and did) do.

Amen!

A Black Jesus

This poster, with an image of a Black Jesus, is designed to represent James Cone's theology in my Make it Plain art exhibition.  James Cone was a theologian who made the idea of a black Jesus famous.  Cone was responding to the images of a white Jesus and a white God that supported the oppression, murder, enslavement, and oppression of blacks. James Cone responded with the idea that Jesus represents the oppressed peoples, and Jesus therefore was seen as black.

Cone combined the ideas of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.  He took Malcolm's ideas of self love and a added them to Kings philosophy of loving others.  Cone  used MLK Jr's Black Christian theology.  James Cone is known as the founder of Black Liberation Theology (which still had some grit if you read his actual sermons).

The church responded to Cone with the idea "God is not black; God is race-less."  Keep in mind before Cone, God was seen as white often with blonde hair and blue eyes....sorry, God is not European (don't worry I know Jesus was not biologically African either).

For Christmas I would like to wish Jesus a happy birthday and thank him for teaching us to love those our society sees as bad, evil, poor and untouchable. 

European Jesus from Sodahead.com

People who have heard of James Cone in response to the anti Obama campaigns, have heard incredibly distorted views of what black Liberation Theology actually is saying.  These same people seem to forget the circumstances that men like James Cone and Malcolm X were responding to and living with on a daily basis.

Visit my art blog to see more art work from this Make it Plain

Click here to listen to James Cone on NPR.

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Update: I don't believe the BLT is 100% perfect, anything that is "Jesus +" is not the true Gospel. Nor do I believe that Jesus was actually black. This poster was a component of a larger art exhibition.

Bible vs. Koran??

 I found this cartoon the other day when I was looking for some design inspiration.

Being an art student, I am used to this attitude and see it nearly every day.  My husband is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering and topics like this really don’t come up. 

There was a ceramics project up in our fine arts building a couple weeks ago.  The project appeared to be from Beginning Ceramics and the project had to do with using slabs of clay to build something.  One of the projects was a Bible like book that said “JESUS: Today’s Modern Fairy Tale.”  My husband was appalled (not surprised) at the idea of people mocking Christianity.  He brought up the point that you would never see something like this referencing the Koran or a Holy Book from another religion.

When I found this image while searching for inspiration, I literally laughed out loud.  I guess I commend any artist who can humorously capture the sad realities of life.

Check out my poster project that was in response to a series of Christian-Bashing posters…

UPDATE: Body Piercing

See the old poster
See the poster series Grace is A Bit Queer

Posterss

My husband just put up all of our band posters. I am stoked about it. Here they are. We have actually seen most of these bands together.  There are a few cut off around the corner.

The Kurt poster is from a show that was in the Seattle Art Museum all about Kurt Cobain. It was a pretty sweet show.

GRACE

Grace is Queer

This poster is hard for me because I chose to use topics that I am against and raise fairly strong emotional responses.  For example my biological father was murdered by a member of the KKK and in high school my dad's (adoptive/ real) car was bombed in our driveway.  The poster is telling the viewer that "we are called to forgive everyone," even the people that have done this things to me. 

I know that the call to action for this poster is not nearly as as easy to do as it is to say.  I know that forgiveness is a difficult everyday decision that we can actively make.

God, please help us to forgive 

those who sin against us.  

Lead us not into temptation 

but deliver us from evil...

Amen!

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Don't Blame the Dark for Being Dark

I am not saying that people shouldn't or wont be held responsible for their actions.  There are consequences; however, we should not be blaming the victim.  

This is a call to Christians to reach out to others and show the gospel of love instead of preaching and expecting people to understand.

Check out more posters at Grace is a Bit Queer.

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What if?

I have a couple classes where people bash Christians on a daily basis.  It gets annoying because most of these people don't know much about Christianity.  It is also frustrating because our society no longer sees the many great projects that Christians do.  They associate Christian with bigot and ignorant, not graceful and loving.  

What if things were different? 

Check out my website to see some ways that we can make things differenet.

Grace is a Bit Queer

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The Righteous don’t need a Savior

Grace is Queer

The healthy don't need a doctor

More about this poster.

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Hey Fred, God Loves Gays

Read more about this poster and others at my site titles "Grace is a Bit Queer."

If Jesus loved the murderer on the cross next to him, I would be willing to bet that he loves gays as well.  God loves the glutton and the lustful (both of which are addressed in the Bible more than homosexuality.  There is not a person on this earth that has fallen short of the glory of God and there is not a person that God doesn't or can't love. 

It is hard to grasp but God even loves Fred Phelps.
Even though I do believe his hate makes God soooooo Sad.

It is easy to think "God doesn't like that person, or this person because...."  I would argue that God may not like someone's actions, but there is no way that I would argue or could be convinced that there is a person whom God doesn't love.

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I Believe that Grace can Save Lives

How can this one Biblical principal of grace save lives?

A person often chooses suicide because they believe that there is no other choice, there is no hope, they are worthless, no one would miss them, they have nothing to live for or a combination of these beliefs.

Suicide is often a brash decision.  In most cases all it takes to prevent a suicide is one conversation and a tiny ounce of hope.  This is one reason why suicide hot lines are so beneficial.

One example of grace is taking the weird kid in your class out for coffee or sitting by him at lunch.  This would show them that someone cares.

If you decided to talk to this "weird" kid during lunch and get to know him, you could show him that that you do care.  By asking questions about him you can show that you think he is valuable (not worthless).

At the end of this conversation asking your new friend if you can sit by him tomorrow at lunch will give him something to hope for the next day.  They now have a reason to live one more day. 

By showing someone the alternatives side to suicide (and suicidal ideation) you can help save their life.

Let's learn more about GRACE and how to use it everyday to save lives or at the very least, make new friends...

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Jesus vs. Christianity

Oh boy, I have a ton of journals about religion and such things that would fit in this blog. This one is from almost a year ago. It was why I decided to create my "Grace is a Bit Queer" poster series…

The other day I saw a bunch of posters on social issues that a Graphic Design class created. It was interesting how many of them talked about religion. One poster was of a church and above it said “straights only.” Another poster addressed how religious people are “blinded by faith” and avoid scientific facts.  A third stated that the religious "prey on the week" and had a gun.  The overwhelming consensus was clearly that Christians are bullies as well as a hypocritical and ignorant community. It made me think about Christianity and Christ.

Jesus seems like he would have rather had breakfast with a gay man than go to church.  He laid his hands on the week an healed them.  It is sad that our churches are seen as the opposite of the New Testament Jesus.  We are seen as the problem.  I guess the point of this is that I want people to see the Jesus that I see; the young rabbi with infinite amounts of wisdom, grace, and love.

…My respose to this experience was a series of about ten, maybe more, posters. I have had around five of them up in public spaces so far. Woot!