There is not much we can say with absolute confidence about the early church, but we can be fairly sure that the first Christians would not have dreamed of making a likeness of Jesus.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.
I was raised Catholic, and I remember in all the pamphlets and pictures we'd look at, Jesus was basically blonde with blue eyes. He kind of looked like Jared Leto.
I had always owned them to be the Word of God... the careful reading of the Acts afforded me a practical picture of the early church; which made me feel deeply the contrast with its actual present state; though still, as ever beloved by God.
If only Jesus' followers shared his personality. That one shift alone would correct so many of the ridiculous and horrifying things that pass for popular Christianity.
Therefore, the church is not absolutely necessary as an object of faith, not even for us today, for then Abraham and the other prophets would not have given assent to those things which were revealed to them from God without any intervening help of the church.
As I toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me.
Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.
I believe with all my heart that the Church of Jesus Christ should be a Church of blurred edges.
I'm not really a churchy person, although I do think Jesus was a good bloke.
St. Paul was making it impossible to be Jewish and Christian at the same time. What is very striking about those early churches and communities is that you could be both. Under Paul, though, you absolutely couldn't.