Re-imaging Christ, etc

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 18 April 2004 12:40:02

At http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580930433/qid=1082284671/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_11_2/026-6744239-5902853" you'll find a book called I.N.R.I. by writer Serge Bramley and photographer Bettina Rheims. It's a fantastic work of art. It's a 200+ page book released in 1999 (there was a travelling exhibition too) which seeks to 'tell' the passion narrative through photography within a contemporary context. I guess many Christians would find it a bit challenging perhaps. I think mainly because it messes about with out mental constructions of what Christ and the other characters of the narrative should look and be like. For example The Three Wise Men look like Derek Jarman, Zodiac Mindwarp and King Arthur Pendragon. One of my favourite works is of John the Baptist as a dreadlocked child with multiple piercings alone in an overgrown scrapyard; just seems to make perfect sense to me. Mary washing Jesus' feet is also brilliantly well done, as is The Wedding at Cana, both of which have such a warm sensuous, even erotic quality, which is so often written out of (or imagined out, or perhaps not imagined into) contemporary passion narratives (yet to see Gibson's The Passion of Christ film, seeing it later this week). I think what most people will find disturbing about this book though is the triptych of three crosses: male Christ figure on the right; empty cross with blood stains at the head, hands and feet in the middle; and female Christ figure on the left; with the text 'The day they tortured the son of man to death was the day the whole of humanity was crucified.' Which to me has strong resonances of the Medieval tradition of Jesus as Mother, which came about through the influence of Thirteenth Century female mystics. I guess the question is whether it is possible to repair the masculinisation of Christianity by rediscovering / rewriting / re-imaging this lost feminine tradition. I think I.N.R.I. is a step in that direction.

Going to see The Passion of Christ on Thursday in Europe's tallest cinema, UGC Renfrew Street, Glasgow.

Then next Sunday is the first meeting of our book group! Book of the month to be discussed is The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh, which I'm sure I've blogged about before.