Nov 15 2009
Sunday Sacrilege: Dark-Skinned Mary
Wow. The above statuette (behind plexiglass) shows Mary with very dark skin. Talk about a deep tan. Oh. And baby Jesus had dark skin, too. Shocking.
How many Bible-Belt worshippers, I wonder, would continue to bow down to Jesus if he were presented as having dark skin and curly hair. Far fewer, I bet.
To me this is evidence that religion is largely a social phenomenon. It’s about real relationships in the real world. Sure, an important component is imagined relationships to entities in a supernatural realm. But these entities and the relationship with them matter in terms of real-world implications: perceptions, beliefs, feelings, behavior.
The photo, by the way, was taken on public property in Sicily. Many towns had religious icons right there in their parks and public spaces. Of course, Sicily is much more religiously homogenous then other areas of the globe, particularly in the older and smaller cities and towns.
