How We Made Christ in Our Own Image by Jeff Callaway

How We Made Christ in Our Own Image

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

The Comfortable Jesus We Invented

Somewhere along the way, we traded the Christ of Scripture for a domesticated deity who validates our choices, affirms our feelings, and makes us comfortable in our sin. The American Jesus smiles gently from a thousand wallet cards, nods approvingly at our lifestyle choices, and never demands anything that might cost us something real. He is a projection of our desires, not the Person revealed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. He is a Jesus we made in our own image.

This is not the Jesus of the Gospels. This is not the Christ proclaimed by the Catholic Church for two thousand years. This is a cultural invention, a comfortable fiction that allows us to claim Christianity while living like pagans. And it is killing our souls.

The Catechism speaks plainly about who disciples must be. A disciple must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it. That is the real demand. That is the actual call. Not therapy. Not validation. Not spiritual entertainment. Total transformation through total surrender.

The Jesus Nobody Wants to Meet

Open the Gospels without your cultural blinders and you will meet someone unsettling. Jesus Christ demands that anyone who comes after Him must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow. Not occasionally. Daily. Not when convenient. Always. Matthew records these words without softening them, without explaining them away, without making them palatable to modern ears.

This is the Jesus who speaks of the cross before Golgotha, who tells His disciples they must be willing to lose their lives to find them. The cross was not a symbol of hope in first century Palestine. It was the instrument of the most shameful, agonizing death the Roman Empire could devise. Crucifixion was designed to maximize suffering, humiliation, and public disgrace. When Jesus told His followers to take up their cross, He was not speaking in metaphors about minor inconveniences. He was demanding they be prepared to die.

The same Christ who calls us to radical self denial also declares in the Gospel of Luke that He came to cast fire on the earth and wishes it were already kindled. This is no gentle hippie wandering through fields blessing flowers. Jesus Himself proclaims that He did not come to bring peace but division, that families will be split because of Him, that loyalty to Him must exceed even the bonds of blood. From this moment forward, He says, households will be divided, fathers against sons, mothers against daughters. This is the polarizing power of truth in a world that prefers comfortable lies.

The real Jesus is a confronter. He walks into the temple and overturns the tables of the money changers with righteous fury. He drives out those who turned worship into commerce, who made the house of prayer into a marketplace. Picture it clearly. Jesus making a whip of cords. Jesus physically expelling merchants from the temple courts. Jesus calling out the corruption that everyone else accepted as normal. This is not a Jesus who tolerates sin for the sake of inclusion. This is not a Christ who whispers gentle affirmations while people perish in their transgressions.

He stands before the Pharisees, the religious experts of His day, and calls them whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of death within. He tells the rich young ruler to sell everything and follow Him, then lets him walk away sad because the demand is too high. Jesus does not chase after him with an easier offer. He does not negotiate the terms of discipleship. The cost is the cost.

This Jesus tells would be disciples that following Him means hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even their own lives. Unless they renounce all their possessions, they cannot be His disciples. These are not the words of someone trying to maximize attendance. These are the words of God incarnate demanding nothing less than total surrender.

What the Church Actually Teaches

The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not mince words about conversion. Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of His grace.

This is not therapy language. This is not self help spirituality. This is the language of warfare against sin, of death to self, of transformation that cuts to the bone. The Church has always understood that following Christ means interior conversion that finds expression in visible signs, gestures, and works of penance. Without interior conversion, external practices remain sterile and false. But interior conversion demands expression. It changes how we live.

The call to conversion is not a one time event at baptism. The second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church. We are simultaneously holy and in need of purification. We follow constantly the path of penance and renewal. This is not popular preaching. This does not fill megachurch auditoriums. But it is the truth the Church has proclaimed since Peter wept over his denial and was restored by Christ's threefold question after the resurrection.

Catholic teaching on discipleship makes radical demands that distinguish followers of Christ from those who reject His costly call. In the encounter with the rich young man, Jesus demands radical discipleship and lets him refuse and walk away. Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship as denying oneself and even family for the sake of the Gospel. When people do not receive the message, the disciples are told simply to shake the dust from their feet, turning them over to the Lord without wishing them ill but also without compromising the truth.

The Catechism insists that conversion finds expression through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice, admission of faults, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, and endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance.

This is not convenient. This is not comfortable. This cuts against every instinct of fallen human nature. And that is precisely the point.

How America Domesticated the Savior

Warner Sallman never intended to redefine Jesus for a nation. But his 1940 painting, Head of Christ, became the most reproduced religious image in history. Over half a billion copies have been distributed worldwide. For generations of Americans, this gentle, serene, soft focused face became the definitive image of Jesus Christ.

Sallman was a commercial artist trained at the Chicago Art Institute. He worked in advertising. He knew how to create images that appealed to consumer tastes. When he painted Jesus, he gave America what it wanted. A Jesus with flowing hair and soft features, gazing peacefully into the distance with slightly pursed lips. Some scholars note the striking similarity to the Breck girl in shampoo advertisements of that era. This was not accidental. This was Jesus as a marketable commodity.

The image became ubiquitous during World War II when pocket sized reproductions were distributed to American servicemen. It appeared on church bulletins, funeral announcements, greeting cards, clocks, lamps, coffee mugs, buttons, and every conceivable surface. Kriebel and Bates, who marketed Sallman's work, understood the power of mass distribution in an age of consumer culture. Jesus became a brand. Christianity became merchandise.

This Jesus would never overturn tables. He would never call anyone a viper or a whitewashed tomb. He would never demand that his followers hate their own lives. This Jesus would make a very good 1950s church member. He might even make a very good Methodist pastor, except for the long hair. The long hair was Sallman's only concession to Jesus' essential strangeness. Everything else was entirely domesticated.

This was the Christianity white America wanted to believe in during the middle of the twentieth century. A Jesus who looked like them. A Jesus who affirmed their values. A Jesus who blessed American empire and suburban prosperity. A Jesus who asked nothing that might actually cost anything.

The problem is not that Sallman painted Jesus with European features. The problem is that this gentle, comfortable image displaced the confrontational prophet of the Gospels in the American imagination. Generations of Christians grew up thinking Jesus was nice, safe, and easy. They never encountered the real Christ who comes not to bring peace but a sword.

The Cultural Mirror We Worship

Americans have always remade Jesus in their own image. In every era, cultural forces have shaped how we imagine Christ. During the Civil War, both North and South claimed Jesus for their cause. During the Cold War, Jesus became the defender of capitalism against communist atheism. In the prosperity gospel, Jesus became the guarantor of financial success. In progressive Christianity, Jesus became the affirmer of every lifestyle choice.

This is idolatry dressed in religious language. When we shape Jesus to fit our cultural preferences, we are not worshiping the Christ revealed in Scripture and Tradition. We are worshiping ourselves. We are bowing before our own desires and calling them divine.

Popular media and modern depictions have accelerated this domestication. Film and television portray Jesus as infinitely understanding, endlessly patient, always gentle. They strip away His confrontational teaching. They ignore His warnings about judgment and hell. They present a Jesus who would never make anyone uncomfortable, never demand repentance, never insist on holiness.

This leads directly to a Jesus who affirms the self rather than calling the self to die. When Christ is portrayed as validating personal identity and cultural preferences, this undermines the doctrines of sin, repentance, and surrender. It creates a private spirituality disconnected from the public, demanding discipleship the Gospels describe. It produces consumers of religious experience rather than disciples willing to suffer for Christ.

The American Jesus erodes the reality of judgment and hell. He is friendly and nonjudgmental, excluding or softening teachings on sin, the necessity of obedience, and the eternal consequences of rebellion against God. This creates spiritual consumerism where faith becomes something tailored to personal taste, designed for comfort, stripped of challenge.

Cultural Christianity replaces biblical Christianity. Shallow cultural religion takes the place of authentic calls to holiness and cross bearing. The sociological cost is weak discipleship. The spiritual cost is shallow faith and loss of moral urgency. When the Church accommodates itself to culture rather than confronting culture with the demands of Christ, it loses its prophetic voice. It becomes salt that has lost its saltiness, good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

What We Must Recover

True evangelization proclaims the full truth of Jesus. Not a palatable version. Not a culturally acceptable version. The Christ of Scripture and Tradition in all His demanding glory. The General Directory for Catechesis emphasizes that catechesis must be Christocentric, transmitting Jesus Himself rather than cultural interpretations. We cannot hand on what we have not received. We cannot proclaim a Christ we have never truly encountered.

This means teaching the hard sayings. This means preaching repentance. This means calling sin what it is and demanding conversion. Imagine if Jesus had avoided the tough topics. What about the Apostles after Pentecost? We would not have the Catholic Church we have if they had watered down the message. So why are we afraid to boldly teach and proclaim all that the Catholic Church teaches?

The answer is usually one of two things. Either we do not believe it ourselves and have serious doubts, especially about tough teachings on sexuality and the moral life. Or we recognize that what the Catholic Church teaches is no longer socially acceptable. But it is no less radical than Jesus turning Judaism and paganism upside down with what He taught. The message was always countercultural. The cross was always foolishness to the world.

The Eucharist, confession, and prayer bring believers into real encounter with Christ far beyond cultural depictions. In the Eucharist, we do not receive a symbol or a memory. We receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. In Confession, we do not share our feelings with a therapist. We confess our sins to Christ through His priest and receive absolution. In prayer, we do not engage in positive thinking exercises. We commune with the living God.

These sacramental realities shatter cultural projections. The Christ we encounter in the sacraments cannot be domesticated. He cannot be reduced to American preferences. He remains who He is, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God made man, Savior and Judge.

Living the call to conversion means concrete steps toward embracing Jesus' radical demands. Surrender. Detachment from worldly comforts. Witness to truth amid cultural pressures that demand we remain silent. It means fasting when everyone around us indulges. It means prayer when the culture tells us to be productive. It means almsgiving when the culture tells us to accumulate. It means accepting suffering when the culture promises that comfort is our right.

The authentic Jesus liberates not by making life easy but by making life holy. He frees us not to pursue our desires but to be transformed into His image. Liberation through obedience, not through affirmation of personal preferences. This is the scandal the culture cannot accept. This is the truth that divides households and costs disciples their lives.

The Reckoning We Need

We have made Christ in our own image and called it faith. We have domesticated the Lion of Judah into a house cat. We have turned the King of Kings into a cosmic life coach. We have reduced the Savior of the world to a validator of our lifestyle choices.

This is not discipleship. This is delusion.

The Catholic Church has always proclaimed the real Christ. The demanding Christ. The Christ who calls sinners to repentance, not to self affirmation. The Christ who promises persecution, not prosperity. The Christ who demands we take up our cross, not that He take away all our problems.

But we have not always had the courage to preach this Christ. Too often, we have accommodated ourselves to the culture. We have softened the message. We have avoided the teachings that make people uncomfortable. We have prioritized attendance over conversion, membership over discipleship, donations over transformation.

The Holy Father speaks clearly about this. Our vices and sins are like anchors that hold us at the shore and prevent us from setting sail. To stay with Jesus requires the courage to leave, to set out, to leave behind our vices and sins. We are to invite and include, but not at the expense of leaving others and ourselves mired in sin that separates us from God.

The laws of God are laws of a loving Father so His children may live in His joy. The Church needs the courage and love to be clear in inviting people to leave their sin. What Jesus offers is better than what the world offers the person in sin. His grace and power is sufficient to free anyone from the slavery to sin.

This requires that we stop projecting our desires onto Christ and instead conform ourselves to Him. It requires that we face the real Jesus of the Gospels who might comfort the afflicted but who absolutely afflicts the comfortable. It requires that we embrace teachings that cut against every instinct of our fallen nature.

Repentance. Conversion. Radical discipleship. Not comfort.

This is the call of Christ. This is the demand of the Gospel. This is what two thousand years of Catholic teaching has proclaimed without wavering. The question is whether we will have the courage to answer the call or whether we will continue to worship the American Jesus we made in our own image.

The comfortable Jesus cannot save you. He is not real. The demanding Christ of Scripture and Tradition, the Christ proclaimed by His Church, the Christ present in the Eucharist is real. And He is waiting for your answer.

Will you follow Him, or will you continue to follow the projection of your own desires?

The cost is high. The cross is heavy. The way is narrow. But Christ promises that whoever loses his life for His sake will find it. Whoever takes up his cross and follows Him will enter into the joy of the Lord. Whoever denies himself will discover his true self hidden with Christ in God.

This is not the message American culture wants to hear. But it is the message the Church must proclaim. It is the truth that sets us free. It is the Christ who saves.

Stop worshiping the Jesus you made. Meet the Christ who made you. Let Him remake you in His image. Let Him crucify your false self so your true self can rise with Him.

This is the Gospel. This is the demand. This is the only way to life.

~ Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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