Kung Fu Jesus

"Kung Fu Action Jesus! He's fighting the bad guys! And making them pay! With magic Kung Fu! He'll save the day! It's Kung Fu Action Jesus! (Aw yeah!)"

- "Kung Fu Action Jesus", from Avatar: The Abridged Series

A New Media and comedy trope in which Jesus (or any other similar Messianic Archetype or Crystal Dragon Jesus figure) is depicted doing very, very awesome deeds that somehow were never recorded in the Bible. May involve Jesus being a Badass, or just generally doing something really cool. Has a certain degree of Truth in Television, if you believe in the bible.

Name based on the Exalted fandom and on Avatar the Abridged Series description of Aang as a "Kung Fu Action Jesus". Not to be confused with Something Awful goon and Let's Play aficionado Kung-Fu Jesus.

A Sub-Trope of Jesus Was Way Cool, and also Historical Badass Upgrade.

See also Church Militant and Pals with Jesus. Might go on adventures with Action Santa, or Gandhi II. Push it to the extreme and you got Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting.

Anime and Manga

 * In Shaman King, God is also known as the Great Spirit, the ultimate spirit who can only be channeled by the victor of the Shaman Fight. So, if God is the Great Spirit, does that mean? Yes. Jesus was the victor of a Shaman Fight.
 * As was Buddha.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Vi Vid sees the resident Clone Jesus Vivio practicing the local version of kung fu ("Strike Arts"). It is also unambiguously said that the "original Jesus", the Saint King Olivie, was among the two strongest fighters in the multiverse during her lifetime.
 * Jesus from the current continuity of  was an user of the same psychic powers as the rest of the main characters and grants the heroes most of their abilities.
 * In One Piece,

Comic Books

 * The comic book Loaded Bible, in which Jesus returns to earth to fight vampires. There's a scene where Jesus spits in a vampire's face and its head explodes. The Bible is some good stuff, but that's right on up there.
 * Well it was holy spit. That's mostly holy water, right?
 * The Godyssey. Jesus gets Biblical.
 * "Jésus Wins: Theology!"
 * And let's not forget National Lampoon's short-lived Son-O'-God comics
 * The comic book, Jesus Hates Zombies Jesus Christ was resurrected to save the world from zombies. He kinda lacks his normal powers since his powers is based off of faith so right now, he's Badass Normal.

Fanfic

 * "Hitler, I'm going to kick your ass in the name of the Father, Myself, and the Holy Ghost," said Jesus.

Film
"The First Testament: An eye for an eye. The Second Testament: Love thy neighbour. The Third Testament... KICKS ASS!"
 * For a less subtle example, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

""Turn the other cheek is really showing class, but I really think it's sexy when he kick's Satan's ass! Kicks Satan's ass! Kicks Satan's ass!""
 * Hamlet 2 - The song "Rock Me Sexy Jesus"


 * Kung Fu Jesus actually makes an appearance in the kung fu film Legend of the Liquid Sword, where he descends with a cross and defeats the villains with his "Jesus punches".  Even in the context of the film it's still pretty much a Non Sequitur Scene.

Literature

 * Paradise Lost has Jesus (referred to as the "Son of God", because He hasn't been born as a human yet) take part in the third day of the war in heaven. After two days of deadlock between the two angel armies, the Son takes the field and single-handedly drives Satan and his entire army into Hell.
 * Left Behind: At the end of the series, Jesus comes to Earth and kills all of the bad-guys by reciting Bible verses that cause them to explode in horribly graphic manners.
 * Apparently there was some discussion/debate between the authors as to how literal this should be.
 * The slacktivist Deconstruction of the novels has coined the term Turbo Jesus (Short for Turbo Robo Killer Jesus-2000 with his deathly deathrays of deathlyness) for this version of Jesus, while the deconstruction of the kids-books prefers to call him Zod. Neither is very pleased with this interpetation of Jesus, especially since the Left Behind authors insist that they are only writing what Jesus really will do soon.
 * The absurdist comedy Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff spends a long time devoted to the time span where the story of Jesus' life is missing from the Bible (roughly from about age 12 to his early 30s). In Lamb Jesus (and Biff) spend most of this time wandering the east, learning alchemy, science, and Kung Fu, (literally) among other things.
 * Jesus develops a form that does not cause great physical harm or death. It's called "The Way of the Jew"—or "Jew Do". This is by no means the worst pun in the book.
 * The author even lampshaded in the book's afterword. He writes about about how he was going to leave the Kung Fu part out because it didn't fit the timeline... until he spent a couple of minutes thinking "But what if Jesus knew Kung Fu?" He had to throw it in.
 * Older Than Print: In Dante's Divine Comedy, Jesus has stormed the gates of Hell during the three days he was dead, tore them down, summoned a massive earthquake that was felt down at its eighth circle, and then whisked away the Old Testament saints (who weren't technically Christian and thus went to Limbo). Now, there's a busy fella... This legend can be traced back to the Gospel of Nicodemus, so Dante wasn't actually the codifier per se.
 * Aslan is Narnia's resident Jesus Expy/allegory, and HE. IS. BAD. ASS. Jesus Christ is a lion, get in the wardrobe!
 * Plans for the Final Hope continuity of Stationery Voyagers include spaceships blowing up or disintegrating as Minshus descends into Mantith's atmosphere. As he nears the troposphere, he begins descending on a cloud - with strobe eyes that near-blind any villains that try to gaze at him with contempt. He arrives, and immediately proceeds to make an army of the resurrected assist other resurrects in climbing out of their graves, and spreads this around the world until all are resurrected and collectively pulled into the Judgmentverse before he bombards all of Physicalia with antimatter with the flick of a wrist! Astrabolo's propaganda even tries to characterize him as "a meaningless punk with zombies on his side."
 * Okay, so it's similar to what the Book of Revelation describes, but takes a LOT of liberties with HOW certain events take place.
 * Minshus has a Chinese ponytail. And in a promotional art piece, is shown riding a lightning zebra down a chasm tube along with some of his angels. (Who are just as prone to Supernatural Martial Arts.)
 * Polish writer Jacek Piekara did a sort of a Deconstruction of the idea in his stories about Inquisitor Mordimer Madderdin. The titular inquisitor lives In a World where Jesus decided "eh, screw you all!", descended from the cross, ordered his Apostles to slaughter all of Jerusalem, and conquered the Roman Empire. Since the dominant religion is far from even pretending to preach mercy, and alternate-Jesus obviously didn't die for anybody's sins, it's one hell (close to literal) of a Crapsack World.

Music

 * The Judas Priest song "Painkiller" is about God sending a messiah down to Earth to fight evil. This messiah is called the Painkiller, and is a cyborg motorcyclist who rides a motorcycle with circular saws for wheels and a fire breathing dragon for a chassis. He proceeds to kick evil's ass and resurrect mankind before returning to heaven.
 * The Axis of Awesome song WWJD? describes Jesus as "a zombie wizard who also knows kung fu," and is described as having killed Judas with his laser vision and saved Lois Lane by flying round the world backwards. Also, he is the lead singer of Kiss.

New Media

 * The power of Super Mecha Death Christ 3000 compels you!
 * The Nostalgia Critic has been seen countering with Robotic Donkey Kong Jesus Riding a Puff of Smoke. And now, all praise the Santa Christ!
 * Jesus and Hitler square off in a wrestling match on Judgment Day.
 * Cracked.com's 5 Real Deleted Bible Scenes In Which Jesus Kicks Some Ass

Professional Wrestling

 * In WWE's ECW revival, John Morrison was once asked what his opponents had in store at the upcoming Pay-Per-View. His response was, "Imagine if Jesus knew kung-fu. That's what everybody else is dealing with."

Religion

 * There's an apocryphal legend (one might say Biblical Fanon) that Jesus as a child in exile in Egypt killed another child in the "playground" equivalent by the power of his mind, then had a Heroic BSOD, brought him back to life, and resolved never to use his power lightly again. Although he did do it to a fig tree in the Gospels.
 * In the (apocryphal) Infancy Gospel of Thomas he killed a couple of kids for getting in his way, and then drove his teacher insane, and then took away people's voices when they got upset about it. Joseph convinced him to fix everything, but it wasn't until some kid accidentally died near him and he got unfairly blamed for it that he apparently started to realize what a social nightmare it is to make everyone hate you with your superpowers, and started ingratiating himself. When he brought the kid (Zeno) back to life, he was really annoyed.
 * Some Christian faiths tell of the "Harrowing of Hell" where during his 3-days being dead, Jesus went to hell, kicked satanic ass there, and rescued all the good souls who couldn't go to Heaven until then because he hadn't yet died for their sins.
 * The Book of Revelation, in which a figure (commonly believed by some circles to be Jesus), descends from heaven wearing a blood-soaked robe, wielding a double edged sword, leading the armies of heaven in the battle of Armageddon. It goes to show that even a softie who just wants people to be nice to each other can only be pushed by evil so far.
 * Or when He clears the temple in Jerusalem. With a whip. That he made himself for that very occasion. It's worth emphasising pacifists are not usually known for wandering into public meeting places with weapons to beat eight tons of crap out of everyone making a quick buck off of religion. Yet that is *exactly* what Jesus did.
 * This is very common in old Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Dream of the Rood is all about portraying Jesus as a young warrior prince who is crucified not because he knew he had to and so he let it happen, but rather wanted to be crucified because he knew how important it was. No Roman soldiers nailed him to any cross, He climbed up on that cross himself, like the badass He is.
 * Not to mention that He spent a good part of his youth doing manual labour as an apprentice carpenter with his father. Dude would've been fit.
 * Based on the Shroud of Turin, it was estimated that He weighed 185 lbs with a muscular build at the Last Supper (He lost a lot of water during the Passion to the point that the dehydration made Him appear emaciated, but the Passion itself was an amazing display of strength).
 * According to Islam, two of the major signs that the Day of Judgment (Yawm ad-Din) is fast approaching are 1) the appearance of an Antichrist or false messiah (ad-Dajjal), followed by 2) the return of Jesus, who will then kill the Antichrist, end all wars, and preside over a period of total peace and prosperity...until  Really.
 * That was probably inspired by Revelation, which has a similar prediction. After the Tribulation Period (which begins with the Rapture and ends at Armageddon, mentioned above), there will be a seven-year period in which God Himself will reign on Earth. After that period, He will loose the forces of Hell for one last hoorah before finally and permanently banishing them and what followers still remain on Earth to the Lake of Fire. He'll then merge Heaven with Earth, creating a perfect paradise free of eternal damnation, with New Jerusalem as its capital.

Video Games

 * Playable character in the Adult Swim web game, Bible Fight.
 * Adapted for MUGEN.
 * He is also a playable character in another web game, Faith Fighter.
 * I-Mockery's Santa-Fu features a literal example as well as a
 * The most powerful Persona of the Judgment Arcana from Persona 3 is Jesus. Well, okay, it's never outright stated to be Jesus, instead going by the name 'Messiah', but the description given pretty firmly implies exactly which Messiah it is meant to be.
 * Especially since, at level 95, he gets the skill Absorb Pierce.
 * Chaos from Xenosaga. He's implied to be the literal Jesus Christ and fights with his fists and legs. And he destroyed Gnosis by touching it with bare hand.
 * The Last Resurrection contains a fireball-hurling Jesus as its Big Bad.

Web Comics

 * Major subversion in this Sinfest comic where it starts off looking like Jesus is the divine version of Batman until he gets nailed at the end.
 * But then later on in the comic's run, he does stuff like this.
 * And this.
 * And this.
 * And this.
 * This, however, is by far the most literal example, with this one comming in a close second. Jesus Kick!
 * Also the comic within a comic "The Dark Jesus Return", its not canon though.
 * Super Saiyan Jesus!
 * Superssiah Jesus.
 * Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun - Where else can you see a gun-toting Jesus partner up with a time traveling Ernest Hemingway to fight Nazis, Mutants, and a massive Were-Hitler?
 * From Cracked.com: BAM! Super Jesus Presumably going off to fight Super Aryan Hitler!
 * In Alien Loves Predator Jesus plays baseball for the New York Yankees. Naturally, he's the star player.
 * Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gives us this strip.
 * The page title for the index page of Errant Story changes regularly, but for a while it said "We now return to the Adventures of Kung-Fu Jesus and His Amazing Giant Robot."

Western Animation
""This summer, let he who is without sin... KICK THE FIRST ASS.""
 * In a Family Guy episode, it turned out the sequel to "The Passion of the Christ was an action film, where Jesus was a gun-toting cop.


 * ....With Chris Tucker.
 * And one of their other random cutaways made him even more awesome. "For my next miracle, I'm going to turn water... into FUNK."
 * Did you know Jesus and Moses used guns to defeat the Romans?
 * Robot Chicken did a nearly identical joke, except it was a parody of Kill Bill that replaced the Bride and Bill with Jesus and the Easter Bunny.
 * South Park had Jesus storm an Iraqi prison to rescue Santa Claus.
 * Jesus was killed by an Iraqi later in the episode. The boys and Santa escaped to South Park, at which point Santa gave a speech to the assembled townspeople, urging them to, from this point on, to remember Christmas as the day a brave man named Jesus died. Which is Easter, by the way.
 * Then taking down the head of the Catholic League with the Glaive from Krull, complete with an epic Glasses Pull, and leading the forces of Imagination in the final battle Aragorn style. Jesus is a Badass in South Park.
 * Well, after he Took a Level in Badass, since his initial appearances had him a little meek, and got his ass handed to him by Satan in a boxing match (before Satan threw the fight).
 * In a recent episode of American Dad, Jesus arrives to take control of the forces of good at Armageddon and becomes known as Commander Jesus. His counterpart, the Anti-Christ, however, is not nearly so badass.
 * Well, Jesus said that the Anti-Christ was the opposite of him in every sense, so if Jesus was badass, it's obvious that the Anti was not.

Web Animation

 * The flash Madness Combat involves Jesus quite extensively from making zombies to kill the protagonist to murderizing mooks with a massive smith and wesson and a sniper rifle. He also has a sword marked 3:16, this passage being "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
 * Is it ever specifically stated it's John 3:16? Yes, it's the more famous 3:16, but Luke 3:16 "John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" is equally Badass in that context.
 * Revelation 3:16 also fits well, "Because you were lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth."

Other

 * The Church of the Subgenius take on the mythos, the Fightin' Jesus. The badass that chased out the moneylenders. In the war against the Elder Gods, he pilots the starship Blood of Christ.
 * The most popular depiction of his physical appearance actually is somewhat similar to Chuck Norris.
 * There is a Norse version of the Bible that portrays Jesus as a righteous warrior in a very literal sense.
 * One of the kenning names for Jesus was 'the white Thor.' Given that Thor was the God of Fighting and Surviving ...
 * The sketch by the French Humorists "Les Inconnus". Jesus II, the Return
 * According to a bit of 40K fluff, Jesus was highly likely one of the many pseudonyms of The Emperor of Mankind. Jesus must have been feeling incredibly merciful when He only used a bullwhip at the temple. But it's probably just because bolters hadn't been invented yet..
 * One illustration in GURPS Powers has been called Fire Breathing Kung Fu Jesus.
 * Passion 2: Judgment Day
 * Jesus Christ: Violent Communion
 * Indie action figure company 3A created Fighting JC, who has been released with different colored robes, and different tattoos.
 * Some people have described it as Jesus Christ, reborn to kick some Zombie ass, given that Fighting JC was released as part of a line dealing with the survivors of a Zombie Apocalypse.