Jesus Culture In The United States

Abstract

The figure of Jesus in America is much more than the common image of him as Savior, as Son of God, or the founder and leader of Christianity. In America, Jesus means also something else: he is not only a Christian, but a national icon. He does not only exist as a divine entity, part of the Trinity or even as a moral teacher. In the United States, there is another side to Jesus: he is a cultural figure . However, this has not always been the case. He started out as the face of Christianity, but today he is the face of the American culture. Today, Jesus as a cultural figure appears in movies, comic books, TV series, commercials and billboards. In my thesis I intend to look back on the stages of the image of Jesus in American culture. My main purpose is to find out why and how he became much more than the face of Christianity. As the Son of the Christian God, how did he manage to become a cultural hero in the most diverse country of all?