A very quick ‘e-xchange’ with a friend earlier this year,
who very much liked the movie, 'Dogma':
I thought 'Dogma' was great...I mean things like God being a woman and Jesus
being a black man... they're possible, are they not?
1. If by 'black man' you mean that Jesus was a Negro, as in a NON-Jew(!),
then all our historical data (even the non-Christian ones) positively deny
this. They all point out that he was a Jew. Bear in mind too that
the Jewish era Jesus was living in was VERY SENSITIVE about their ethnicity,
rituals,
'eschatology' (i.e. what climatic plans God has in store for them), so there is
just no way that Jesus could've appeared obviously non-Jew and the historical
records not stating this anywhere.
2. God a woman? This question is a bit of a 'category mistake',
because strictly speaking God the Father (whom I reckon Alanis Morisette was
meant
to represent! *grin*) as revealed in the Bible isn't even human - so how
could He be a 'female human'? He may
have (variously understood) feminine qualities (compassion, patience,
etc.) but this is an altogether separate thing. When we see God 'in heaven', we will see the perfect PERSON who
will almost certainly not look like Alanis M. rather whose face will be the
epitome of love, warmth and pure personal life.
And - to take the matter slightly further - Scripture teaches that there are no
marriages in Heaven and, well, no sex.
But don't be too perturbed... we sometimes strive and settle for
'lesser' goods, you know...like children who, when being told of sex, ask
"Is it better than chocolate?"...(that analogy was from C.S. Lewis,
btw)...
All this does eventually relate to the question of whether or not God looks
like the Best Female Artiste. The issue can hardly get off the ground,
once we've put forth the governing assumptions.
Warmly,
AL