“Racism, white nationalism, and white supremacy all make no sense if you are a Christian. Christians literally worship a dark-skinned, Jewish savior from the Middle East. Not only is racism sinful, it is remarkably stupid for anyone who identifies as a Christian.”
Ed Stetzer
I saw this quote a few years ago and loved the pointed power of it. I’m a firm believer that the brand of “Christianity” exhibited by those who form a portion far too large of the American “Church” has been overly-influenced by the blue-eyed Jesus with the flowing blonde hair depicted in Warner Sallman’s famous painting, Head of Christ. The fact that anyone would believe that Jesus looks like what we see in that painting betrays how grand the scale of the biblical and cultural illiteracy of adherents to this “White Jesus” crowd.
“Dark-skinned?” Well, yes. More than likely. As a Galilean Jew, we would expect him to look like the typical Galilean Jew. I mean, I would think that if he was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man from Galilee, someone would have said something.
And the Bible itself hints at few things. The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah wrote, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” In a couple of places, his hair was described to be like wool, his complexion more bronze. He was a carpenter’s son, and was probably trained as such. Rough hands, strong arms and shoulders. He suffered. He thirsted. He was hungry. He wasn’t some kind of idealized super-human.
Even more though, God commands us not to make images for worship – not just meaning idols to worship instead of him; but also, that we are not to make things that we say are him, leading us far too often on paths to worshipping the image rather than the true God.
And this brings me back to the church. Because I’m afraid that far too many people have made an image of “White Jesus” that (not even “whom”) they worship; and with that image, they alienate and injure so many others. Now, I don’t mean to conjure an image of Jesus in any other way either (that would be quite ironic). I’ve described the possibilities based on historical and archeological fact, but I have absolutely no idea what Jesus looked like. No one does. And this is key, because it is far more important that we turn to what he did for us rather than whether he looked like any particular group of us. Focusing on the latter is simply a distraction – and, sadly, a distraction that’s been used, and will continue to be used, to do us all great harm.
That is a great quote