Uncrossed
Did any of you catch SNL this weekend? They did a parody of Tarantino’s DJango Unchained called DJesus Uncrossed. Many were deeply offended by the depiction of Jesus in this, but David R. Henson blogged about how this skit revealed what we’ve already been doing for quite a while as a culture. In his blog post, entitled DJesus Uncrossed: Tarantino, Driscoll and the Violent Remaking of Jesus in America, he points out that “we’ve been trying to uncross Jesus for decades in this country, long before SNL got their pens into him.” This is why the cross is so central to who Jesus really is and what he came to do. When we uncross him, it’s very easy to bend him into our own violent imaginings. Although we disagree with the author’s assessment of the Jesus found in the book of Revelation (see Greg’s blog on this from 2010) we wholeheartedly agree with the rest of his thoughts.
Let’s pattern our lives after the God most truly revealed in his humble sacrifice out of love for all of us.
From David’s blog:
We have tried to arm him with our military-industrial complex, drape him with our xenophobia, outfit him with our weapons, and adorn him with our nationalism. We’ve turned the cross into a flagpole for the Stars and Stripes. We have no need for Tarantino to reimagine the story of Jesus into a fantasy of violent revenge. We’ve done it for him. We’ve already uncrossed him, transforming him from a servant into a triumphalist who holds the causes and interests of our country on his back rather than brutal execution.