Darker is better. 

That's the lesson to be learned from the Batman franchise.  We went from a corny Batman in tights and external jockstrap(see above) to a stiff Batman with nipples (Clooney).  Holy Cheese!

Then we got the Dark Knight (see above).  Layered.  Dangerous.  Edgy.  This we got.  This was good.

James Bond got it, too.  

Back when, he had a kitschy cool that came off a little goofy (see above).  In his impeccable tuxedo, he played women like dominoes, always with a plastic smile that made you think of kitchen linoleum.  He had his practiced one-liners, chock-full of hokum.  He tried too hard. 

Then we got Daniel Craig: cratered, craggy, crackling.  A Bond with a past, with gravitas, a heart of darkness, a tortured soul who didn't let on.  This we got.  This was good.

Like Batman and Bond, Jesus needs a renovation.  He needs to be darker.

This is Jesus today:

It's not that we need to create a new Jesus.  But we do need to draw out a Jesus of the gospels who has gravitas and raw soul.  Because the current evangelical Jesus does not inspire.  This Jesus is an embarassing conglomeration of Homer Simpson and effable Buddha.  He is insipid, irrelevant, clueless, naive.  Holy cow, he would make for a great kindergarten teacher!  Oh! the practical jokes we could play on him!  But savior of a dark, damaged, deranged world and people?  This Jesus?  Not so much.  This Jesus mollilfies the naive and sweety-sweet, yay Jesus church, but not so much the mud-covered urchins that most (all) of us are.

As your Jesus is, so your heart is.  A blissfully clueless church has created a blissfully clueless Jesus (see above).

Fact is, the gospels depict a Jesus much, much darker and edgier than evangelical Jesus.  One who is not quite so nice.  One who has plumbed the depths of hell (literally), one who has stared evil in the eye and did not buckle, street-smart and people-wise, unwilling to entrust himself to anyone, lonely, brutal, prone to get into verbal and physical fights (he used a whip, maybe because there wasn't a switchblade on hand).  There was a deep, dark side to him, one that would freeze your blood had he ever let it show.  This is a Jesus who instills fear and awe in me. 

I need less of the sweet-sunshine and more of the dark side of the Son.

There are some people who are universally beautiful.  Across ethnic and demographic lines, they are considered to be stunners.  For example, during the Olympics, my non-Asian colleagues at work were gushing about Chinese diver, Guo Jingjing (above).  Maybe it was because she was in a swimsuit, maybe it was the sleek-dolphin-like way she emerged from the water, maybe it was the shower, but they were all agog about her.   Guo has universal beauty.

Then there are some who have an ethnic beauty.  These are people who are considered beautiful only by members of their own ethnic group.   Their appeal is in-group: outsiders just don’t get it.  Korean actor Bae Yong Joon (above) of Winter Sonata fame has ethnic beauty.  Asians look at him and see a serene and assured beauty topped by glowing passion simmering in his hair.  Non-Asians see a wimpy dude in a turtleneck with orange hair.  Bae has ethnic beauty.  Reverend Eugene Cho (below) is another example.  Although he often self-deprecates his own looks, he has an undeniable Asian masculinity-beauty about him.  Non-Asians don’t see that, though.  Cho is an ethnic beauty.

The same applies to spirituality.  There is universal spirituality and then there is ethnic spirituality.  Universal spirituality is that which is recognized and praised across ethnic-demographic lines.  These are people with Mother-Theresa-like qualities, who have an overabundance of the fruits of the Spirit and a life of undeniable sacrifice and goodness.  A person with universal spirituality is deemed by all ethnicities as holy and godly.

Ethnic spirituality is different.  Only members of the same ethnicity recognize it for what it is: holiness expressed through the pores of ethnicity.  There is an Asian-spirituality just as there is a latino-spirituality and a black-spirituality.  A person with ethnic spirituality will likely not be viewed by a different ethnic church as the spiritual saint that he is in his own ethnic church.  For example, an Asian Christian might be praised for his control over his tongue, his humility, and for being a great listener.  Plug this person into a non-Asian church, and suddenly all these attributes are flipped on their head.  Instead of a spiritual giant, he is viewed as sullen, a mere follower, a dullard with nary an opinion.  In the same way, the white Christian leader, plugged into an Asian church, is often viewed as brash and a loudmouth.

The fact of the matter is this: every ethnicity measures holiness in a different way.  This is not a bad thing or even something which should be done away with.  But the sooner the church grasps the extent to which ethnicity is more part of the warp and woof of the church than e.g., its denomination, the faster the acceptance of monoethnic churches will flourish guilt-free.