Images of Jesus Christ can inspire or enrage

Shaped by shifts in demography, scholarship and theology, images of Christ inspire as well as enrage people, particularly if the portrayal conflicts with their own idea of the divine.

"There are Christians who believe that imaging Jesus at all is inappropriate," says Robin Jensen, professor of the history of Christian art and worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Her latest book, "Face to Face: The Portrait of the Divine in Early Christianity," (Augsburg Fortress, $20), examines how Jesus was depicted through the 7th century.

"There are some traditions that do not use art at all, with a belief that it is impossible to portray Jesus at all," Jensen says. "And there are traditions, especially the Orthodox Church, that say he had to be visible if he was human and portraying him that way affirms the incarnation."

How Christ is depicted sparks more controversy than the question of whether he should be depicted, Jensen says.

"Do you try to be historically accurate or try to open up in different ways," she says. "There are those who are uncomfortable with contemporary varieties that stir up emotions. For example: Jesus as a woman."

Altering what is sacred is controversial, says the Rev. William Buchanan, senior pastor of the 15th Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn. His church has a relief behind the altar featuring a black Christ figure with a multiethnic group gathered at the foot of the cross.

Buchanan says the church was not trying to capture what the "historical Jesus looks like."

He says it was commissioned five years ago because church members sought an "image, a visual representation of our ministry in this community."

"In that relief, you'll see great diversity, people of all walks of life reaching up to the Christ figure," Buchanan says. "For those who enter the sanctuary, the focal point is on Christ inviting people of all walks of life to come unto him."

God comes to people in a way that they can relate to him in their time and place, he says.

"Faith is based on relationships, a relationship between God and that person," Buchanan says.

Art does not serve to substitute for the divine but to connect humans with the creator, says the Rev. Peter Do Quang Chau, pastor of a Catholic Vietnamese congregation in Ashland City, Tenn.