Neal's Workshop

I never thought installing Google's AdSense would result in links I might actually want to click on, much less post on. But somehow, my Losing my Religion posts (Parts I and II) resulted in the ad to my left about Teen Jesus.

As the ad says, "What's up with that?"

Well, it's a link to a painting by Tom Trujillo. As Tom says:

How come you never here [hear] about Jesus the teenager? It's a question I asked myself before starting this painting. You read about him as a child impressing the priests at the temple with his biblical knowledge, and we all know about him as an adult before being crucified. But you will find nothing written about him between the ages of 13- 24. Of course if you've ever raised a teenager you might know why.

And so it came to pass, that Tom painted a masterpiece: Jesus, the Teenage Years.

In Trujillo's depiction, Jesus is an anglo skin-head with an "APOSTLES" tattoo across his ripped torso. Based on the Lord's stance, I sense he's about to say like, "My dad is God, yo! Holla!" right before flashing his sign. Meanwhile, he's hanging out with his ho, Zhora from Blade Runner, and just having a good time. He has some sort of halo: I'm not sure if it's holiness or the reflection from his shaved head.

Tom wisely notes in the official symbolism, "Jesus lived all that we (weak humans), experience - anger, doubt, temptation, hunger and more." Good points, Tom, I'll come back to this.

While you're on teenagejesus.com, make sure you read some of the comments. Here is my favorite:

As I look upon this poster I want to cry and throw up. This portrays Jesus as a sexual being. And the chick with her tit showing....... now what's up with that.

Yeah, what is up with that? I'll tell you what's up with that: it's the first Mardi Gras and Jesus is throwin' down!

Seriously (cue the Full House music), I think the intent behind this painting was straight autoDogmatic: it catalyzes thought about issues we too often shelve. People don't think about Jesus as a human being - someone who makes mistakes or gets depressed. Though I think Tom's depiction of Teen Jesus is kinda silly, it begs the question: who was Jesus, really? In what ways was he human? Can you imagine sitting by a campfire with the Christ, and hearing him suddenly rip a huge fart? That's humanity, not blasphemy. I bet Jesus could break Holy Wind with the best (worst?) of us.

So I ask: if you were to paint Teen Jesus, how would you do it?