A Familiar Face

Julie and I were at Wheaton College in August, simultaneously rejoicing and fighting back tears while dropping off the first of our children to leave home for college. Taking a break from one of the many parent information meetings, I was surprised by a familiar face in the Billy Graham Center. Well, not actually surprised by the face. The exhibit was advertised all over campus. I was surprised by its size. Behind the crowd ropes, covering most of the back wall from floor to ceiling, was the image that had hung in an 18 inch frame over my grandmother's living room sofa. It was Warner Sallman's "Head of Christ"—much bigger than life-size version.

In American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, Stephen Prothero notes that this painting "would eventually be reproduced in almost every imaginable form—on prints, plaques, bookmarks, funeral cards, church bulletins, buttons, calendars, clocks, lamps, coffee mugs, stickers, billboards, and key chains. As it multiplied, among Christians and non-Christians alike, this picture helped to transform Jesus from a celebrity into a national icon. As of the turn of the twenty-first century, over 500 million copies had been produced, making Head of Christ the most common religious image in the world." Many thought the image made Jesus more accessible. Divorcing him from the Gospel narratives with a head and shoulders portrait in soft light, Sallman offered an image of Jesus that was warm, approachable, and—he thought—masculine.

Why did its popularity fade? Even in the sixties, critics derided it as too soft, too effeminate, and too transcendent. It made Jesus look kind, but not empathetic—a Jesus who sees our pain, but does not share it. Fortunately, the realities of life draw us to the real Jesus, of whom Bonhoeffer said, "Only the suffering God can help."

Bob