A very muscular brand of Christianity

| 29/08/2011

(The Guardian): When you hear the name Jesus, is the first image that comes to mind a dewy-eyed pretty boy with flowing locks? If so, think again. After 2,000 years, the Messiah is getting a makeover. This time he's less "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" and more of a kick-ass action hero – a Chuck Norris in sandals. No more cissy Kumbaya stuff. In this testosterone-fuelled theology, the Saviour finally has the rippling biceps he would have developed as a carpenter from a working-class home in Nazareth. The macho Jesus movement has been bolstered by books like No More Mr Christian Nice Guy and The Church Impotent – the Feminisation of Christianity. 

But it's artist Stephen Sawyer, whose paintings of the Son of God as a tattooed biker and boxer have captured the imagination of Christian men searching for a more manly role model.

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  1. Gordon Barlow says:

    As we are Christian or Moslem or heathen, Jesus was Jewish; as we are European or African, he was Asian; as we are English or whatever, he was Israelite – a tribe that may have begun as refugees from one of the Hittite Empire's subject-nations.

  2. Atheist says:

    Jesus as a hippy biker is no more delusional that Jesus the sanctimonious white Eurpoean. The historical Jesus, if he existed, was Jewish carpenter, not a WASP with blue eyes and flowing locks, as he is generally depicted.