I had the great fortune of landing in an apartment full of apostate ladies one year at BYU. As far as I know, I’m the only one who has gone full-blown apostate, but they were all “rebellious” in their own way. They didn’t hassle me about not going to church. They didn’t give me the stink eye for drinking coffee, since they drank coffee too. They didn’t judge me for what I did or did not do, and they were game for discussing the icky parts of church history, and railing against the sexism of the church. We candidly discussed our fears of what might happen in the temple, or how much we didn’t want to be celestial broodmares.
In short, they were a breath of fresh air.
We had a friend that was over almost every day. We’ll call him Kyle. One day, my roomies and I were bitching about the blond, almost Swiss-looking Jesus that adorns the walls of every faithful Mormon home.
“When are people gonna realize he wasn’t white?” I whined.
“What do you mean?” asked Kyle. “Of course he was white.” He said it like it was indisputable truth, common sense, something that everybody knew, like the color of the sky or Gordon Hinckley’s middle initial.
So my roommates and I spent about a half hour trying to convince Kyle that as a Middle Eastern Jew, Jesus was most certainly not white. Not only did Kyle not believe us, but he acted as if saying that Jesus wasn’t white was some sort of blasphemy, and he’s probably not too far off. I’m pretty sure that if Brigham Young had heard our heretical views on Jesus’ ethnic makeup, blood atonement would have been exacted, tout de suite.
Here are some Jesuses that put Del Parson’s Jesus to shame:
Lady Jesus. Or Jesusa. Either way, blood atonement.
