Nicole’s e-Pistle “The Image of Christ”

October 21, 2026

Greetings, Friends!

I have started yet another attempt to read through the entire Bible… technically in a year, though I am sure it will take me longer. I have attempted this on numerous occasions throughout my life, but now that I am a pastor, it is especially embarrassing that there are certain pieces of scripture that I have never read – or have at least never read closely. So, today, I began again with a new devotional book called “The Bible in 52 Weeks: A Yearlong Bible Study for Women,” by Dr. Kimberly D. Moore. It also meant that for the 48^th time (that’s an estimation, but probably not an overestimation!), I read Genesis 1-4. I suppose every study of the Bible in a year’s time expects to begin at the Beginning.

Still, every time I read about the days it took God to create the heavens and the earth, about Adam and Eve and the Serpent, and about Cain and Abel, something different stands out. Today, it was the phrase, “created in the image of God.” As I have aged, that phrase has come to mean something completely different. It is easy to settle on thinking of oneself as being the image bearer, but I have come to see how that interpretation affects others who are not myself… the poor, the overlooked, the marginalized, the immigrant, the Queer… (I still feel uneasy using that term, since when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s it was a deeply insulting word, but I have been told by numerous people in the LGBTQ+ community that it has been reclaimed as a matter of Pride.)

I attribute much of my attitudes toward social justice interpretations of scripture to my time at Columbia Theological Seminary. When I was growing up, faith was personal and communal, but largely only within one’s own community. In other words, faith was practiced alongside people who looked like me, came from the same socio-economic and cultural background as me, and whose lived experiences mirrored my own. I had friends at school who did not fit into the categories of my own existence, of course, but I learned later in life that I had assumed their outlook on the world was measured by what I considered “standard” or “universal.”In other words, I viewed the world and all people in it through my own lens and reality.

[Note… If you do not like reading or thinking about bathroom issues, please skip this next paragraph…]

I still struggle with viewing the world through my own lens, which I think is common, but I am at least becoming more aware of it. For example, when I traveled to India for a cultural immersion experience during seminary, I was aware of my own judgment in hygiene practices after using the restroom. Our professors highly suggested we fly to India carrying our own pack of toilet paper, since it is not used there, except at highly rated Western-style hotels. Half-way through the trip, I asked my white, female professor (as opposed to my male professor who was born and raised in Tamil Nadu) how Indian women navigated feeling clean when they only had a bidet or a hole in the floor. She smiled, with all the patience and compassion she could muster, and said that it depends on our definition of “clean.” In the United States, clean means dry. In India, it means… well, clean. It was the first time that I considered that perhaps our use of paper was not “normal” for most people in the world. It certainly isn’t the best option for the planet.

Just as we tend to view others through the lens of our own perspectives, and even our own biases, we do the same when we talk of Jesus. Christians – not just some, but all Christians – speak of Jesus through their own lenses and perceptions. In some cases, this is harmless and is simply how we are often wired as human beings. However, it can be used in ways that are harmful for those who are different from us. For example, the early missionaries often did harm to indigenous peoples in trying to spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They taught them that the “right” way to be Christian was to speak the Western languages of their mother countries (input English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.), to use Western technology, to wear Western clothing styles, and to be called by Western-sounding names… NONE of which has anything to do with the teachings of Jesus!

The worst examples are of groups that pray in the name of Jesus Christ using language such as this: “Oh God, our Heavenly Guide, as finite creatures of time and as dependent creatures of Thine, we acknowledge Thee as our Sovereign Lord. Permit freedom and the joys thereof to forever reign throughout our land… Bless us now in this assembly that we may honor Thee in all things, we pray in the name of Christ, our blessed Savior. Amen.” These were the first and last lines of a prayer given on June 7, 1964, by the Grand Chaplain of the KKK in the Boykin Methodist Church near Raleigh, Mississippi. After a brief sermon, the group donned their hoods and masks, armed with shotguns, rifles, and pistols to protect their fair community from the influence of a “n****r-communist invasion.”

So God created humankind in his image… and indeed, it was very good…

In her 2007 book entitled, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions in Writing and Life,” Anne Lamott wrote, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” All people, even those who prayed at a Klan service, were created in the image of God. However, it is not our bodies, with their myriad of colors, shades, identities, or inclinations, that represent God’s image. It is in our capacity to love… whomever and however that manifests itself. When we try to strip God down to look and sound like us, to advocate for things that we desire but that are contrary to the actual teachings of Jesus, we deceive ourselves and wander just a little farther from being the image bearers we were created to be.

May we all strive to embody love, compassion, peace, and forgiveness. May we work for justice for all people, but especially for those that society deems the least of us. May we live lives that uplift others, rather than degrading them or tearing them down. May we become more aware of the ways in which our own perspectives and preferences cloud our ability to see the image of God in others. And above all, may we look into the eyes of every face we meet, knowing that in each face… in each heart… there dwells a capacity for love that was divinely created and is eternally cherished.

Blessings and peace,