Changing the face of American Jesus

In our "Reflections From the Classroom" series, seasoned teachers talk about their experiences walking with students and guiding their learning. This post is the second of two parts showcasing the impact of a unique course taught during January at the Brooks School. Part one introduced Brooks, prep school culture, and the course description for “American Jesus.” Part two delves into various readings, discussions, and student responses to Jesus in the prep school classroom.

Brooks students entered a dated and pretentious room with the feel of an old study. They sat in a circle as they listened to Professor Edward Blum. One lecture illustration was the defaced image of Christ from after the Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The room transformed as Blum’s slide showed the stained-glass window with a hole where the holy face of Christ had been. Race was briefly absent from this depiction of Jesus. Blum’s talk introduced students to the Jesus used by white supremacy to justify hatred and the killing of four black girls, as well as the Jesus used in the civil rights movement to end Jim Crow. This version of American religion was different from how students at this elite New England boarding school perceived it.

Teaching a course with Jesus in the title is risky here. New England, according to Stephen Prothero, is the least churched culture in the United States. Students who took “American Jesus” often lacked basic religious literacy, making conversations about American evangelical culture a greater challenge than anticipated. The term evangelical evoked suspicion. Often national religious figures such as T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, and Rick Warren were unfamiliar to students.