Images of the Christ - 2

One of the images of Christ which I have found to have caused the most reaction, even though much of it was surprise, from non-Christians was the image of 'Buddy Christ'. It comes from the film 'Dogma' and the idea was that it was a rebranding of Jesus to move away from the blood, gore and distance between Him and us.

Now the film was, bad language apart, one which I found to be rather good in terms of the theological challenges it created, that is until the last five minutes when God (Alanis Morrisette) turned up and the whole thing fell into the sea!

That aside, I bought a couple of 'Buddies' and one ended up on my computer monitor and the other on a senior police officer's desk. In my workplace people were a little shocked, but knowing I was 'one of the Christians' they sort of avoided any comment on it. I noticed though, that after a few days, when they'd had a good lood whilst I was absent, they started asking questions about it and it was areal ice-breaker. The senior police officer found the same and where the CPA (Christian Police Association) sticker hadn't brought any comments (or identification) fromChristians - soon people would just 'drop in' for a chat about their faith and their problems where there was no faith.

Seems that taking our faith seriously but ourselves less so and showing that rather than be offended (the people who introduced me to Buddy in the Swiss banking organisation I worked for were also worried they'd offend) we can deal openly and in a 'not up our own behindsides' (as an American colleague so nicely put it) opens doors.

So here he is:

Whadyaathink?