From the Rector…
Imago Dei is a Latin term meaning “the image of God.” Theologically, it speaks to what it means for humanity to be created in God’s image. Over the centuries, however, that idea has often been distorted. God has too frequently been imagined as a white male seated on a throne in the clouds, clad in flowing white robes with a long white beard. This image is not only culturally constructed—it is theologically misleading. Other than his maleness, even Jesus did not resemble this picture.
Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew with olive skin. He did not sit on a throne. In fact, in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels, Jesus says of himself, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt. 8:20; Lk. 9:58). He lived without status, without possessions, and without the trappings we often associate with power. He also died at about thirty-three years old—hardly the age of a white-bearded patriarch. If Jesus does not fit our inherited images of imago Dei, perhaps we are not meant to take those images literally.
Instead, imago Dei invites us to consider the immaterial dimensions of being human. To be made in God’s image is to bear God’s likeness in how we live and relate. It means that every human being carries inherent dignity and worth. It means we are called to steward creation—not with domination, but with humility and care. It means we are invited into compassion rather than contempt, into service rather than control. To reflect God’s image is not to remake God in our likeness, but to allow our lives to be shaped by God’s.
And yet, we often do the opposite. We reshape God into our own image—what might be called imago hominis—and in doing so, we distort both our theology and our witness. One of the clearest places this distortion appears is in the conflation of church and state.
Christian nationalism, in particular, has blurred the line between faith and political identity. It attempts to fashion a version of Christianity that serves national power as readily as it serves God. But these loyalties are not interchangeable; they are fundamentally incompatible. Jesus himself draws a distinction: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Those words were confusing and unsettling in the first century, and they remain so today. But they are a necessary boundary. We are not called to render unto political leaders the devotion that belongs to God alone.
Recent cultural moments make this confusion visible in unsettling ways. When political figures are depicted in explicitly religious or Christ-like imagery, it is more than distasteful—it reveals how deeply entangled our theological imagination has become with our political allegiances. Such portrayals are not merely inappropriate; they signal a loss of our ability to discern the difference between the sacred and the civic.
But this is not simply about one person or one image. It is about all of us. We proclaim that God is love, yet we judge others as unworthy and treat them without dignity. We confess God as Creator, yet we exploit and degrade creation for convenience and gain. We name God as Redeemer, yet we declare people beyond redemption. I am as guilty as anyone.
The misuse of religious imagery in political life may be sacrilegious, but it also exposes a deeper spiritual sickness. If we are to recover a faithful understanding of imago Dei, we must once again learn to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s—and to God what is God’s. Rather than elevating political power to divine status we are called to bear God’s image with integrity: to speak truth, to act with compassion, and to live our faith by speaking God’s truth in our lives and living it in our hearts.
Light and Life,
Candice+