IS THERE AN AUSTRALIAN PORTRAIT OF JESUS? or 'Who do you say I am?'   cf also THINK , Work, Response, , Aboriginals 1  Aboriginals 2, and the Jesus pages that continue the discussion below, viz, a, b, c 

Our experience

• Our group shared its images of Jesus from Australian experience - the immigrant Jesus, struggling to survive; the beachcomber - a set of footprints on the sand...is Jesus alone?  Carrying another?  The lifesaver?; a Jesus who is both human and divine - but no particular Australian image for this at the moment; the companion, fellow human, ordinary bloke; someone very human and alive; the Good Shephgerd - but in an Australian way - perhaps the drover, or the aboriginal stockman or blacktracker, maybe even the coutry philosopher - each little town has one, the camp fire, story and parable at night; the Christ of urban Australia (cf some of Les Murray's, Bruce Dawes' images); the ironic Christ a la Leunig, with the counter-cultural observation; Christ in the pub - there was a painting along these lines by John Percival: Christ Dining At Young and Jackson's.
• An Australian portrait of Christ has to deal with such broad areas as the bush, the urban sprawl and the multicultural nature of the population.
• A portrait of sorts might emerge from the line taken by Hugh Mackay in Reinventing Australia - he sees our young culture as now in its adolescent stage, wanting to establish its identity but showing signs of confusion and rebellion.  A homeless Jesus, then? Single mum?  Runaway?  Rejected by society? Unemployed?
• Here it is September and we haven't mentioned sport, which is almost a religion in this part of the world (Melbourne).  We even call our best footballers 'God"!
• Our worship of the hero, be it Don Bradman or Phar Lap.  The highly mythologized images of our heroes.  Then there is a recent Stuart Diver (Thredbo survivor).  Look how we use the Christological language as he 'rose from the dead'  And is Fred Hollows a Christ figure (he did say not to do this sort of thing to him when he was gone!)?
• And of course there is Ned Kelly!  We think of the stylised version in Sidney Nolan's paintings - Kelly on a horse riding into town (Christ on his donkey...?)

THE TRADITION