Essays On Faith: ; Jesus Painting Prompts Question

Summary

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WHEN I came home from seminary nearly 50 years ago to visit my parents, I spied a new picture on the wall. The image was identical to the one causing a lot of fuss and bother in a school in Harrison County. It was the iconic "Head of Christ" by Warner Sallman. Now, my folks were Presbyterians and inheritors of a tradition that generally forbade representations of religious subjects.

Things were changing by the time I went to theological school in Richmond, Va. Now and then a church classroom might have a piece of religious "art," and popular themes were made available by church publication houses. Colored glass became pictorial, and I can remember that a vast and beautiful new church was built in Charlotte, N.C., with a stained-glass representation of Christ on the cross above the communion table. Statuary appeared very rarely, perhaps out of a fear of making "graven images."

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Extract

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Essays On Faith: ; Jesus Painting Prompts Question

So, the picture in the living room of the home of my parents gave me cause for pause. There it was. A picture purporting to be of Jesus of Nazareth hung on the wall over the s...

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