News In Briefs

 New film ‘The Colour Of The Cross’ by Jean Claude LaMarre will feature a black Jesus. LaMarre, who plays Jesus, wrote, directed and financed the film.
 "It's very important because (the film) is going to provide an image of Jesus for African-Americans that is no longer under the control of whites," says Stephenson Humphries-Brooks, an associate professor of religious studies at New York's Hamilton College and author of "Cinematic Savior: Hollywood's Making of the American Christ."
 What Jesus looked like has long been debated by theologians around the world. Different cultures have imagined him in different ways, says Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University. In Japan, Jesus looks Japanese. In Africa, he is black. But in America he is almost always white, like the fair-haired savior painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in "The Last Supper" in 1495.
 While some black churches have images of a black Jesus behind the altar and others have claimed Christ was black, Prothero says "none of those arguments or images have filtered much into the mainstream."
 It looks like a Ghetto Passion is on the cards.
 “It provides a positive image of blacks, something that's been scant in the U.S.,” says the Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, longtime leader of L.A.'s First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a producer of the film.
 Yep, black man arrested for no crime, tried and found guilty, then executed. WAY positive.
 It’s taken over a hundred years to get a black Jesus onto the silver screen. News In Briefs wonders how much longer till we have a Palestinian (or HISTORICALLY ACCURATE) Jesus.