Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Associated Baptist Press Foundation
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

What if white Christians had a more realistic image of Jesus, a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee?

OpinionLaura Mayo  |  December 4, 2019

My neighborhood in Houston, Texas, takes the holiday season seriously. Arches cross over the streets. Houses compete for wattage to power Christmas or Hanukkah lights. A baby Jesus can be seen on almost every corner: Jesus in plastic and Jesus in painted wood; Jesus held by Mother Mary and Jesus lying in the hay.

One thing these neighborhood versions of the Christ-child have in common is their coloring. Every Jesus is white. Some even have blond hair. I wonder how things would be different if our modern renditions of Jesus made him look like the Middle Eastern Jew he was.

I think of my friend Nafisa. She wears a hijab. Nafisa looks to me the way I imagine Mary might have looked, especially when she wears light blue. Every picture of the manger scene I saw as a child had Mary with a light blue head covering. Nafisa was leery of becoming friends with me. Her experience of Christians, and Baptists in particular, has not been positive.

The first time I met her was at an interfaith gathering. I explained that I am a Baptist minister. She confronted me: “I know many Baptists. Christians talk a lot about this Jesus and his love, and then these same people are evil to me. You see my hijab. Just this week at Target a man saw me walking into the store and waited on me. As I came inside the doors he began to yell at me, calling me trash and filth, telling me to leave. He spat at me. Is this the love of your Jesus?”

“What if the sins Jesus saves us from don’t have anything to do with gender identity, sexual preferences, race or class?”

Her words filled me with shame: my shame that anyone would treat her so cruelly; shame that her perception of Christians, of Baptists, of me, was of people who talk about love and then spit on Muslims. I wanted to close my eyes and shut out the horror of her words and her experiences. Instead, I held her gaze and apologized. I said how sad I was that anyone would be so cruel. I said she was right that Jesus did teach love and that I couldn’t understand how people who claimed to follow him could be so dehumanizing. I said I was sad, that I was sorry and that I wanted her to be safe and to feel welcome.

I wonder if such mistreatment, hatred and violence would happen, especially in this time of year, if we had a more realistic image of Jesus. I don’t know that it would solve everything, but if the man who attacked Nafisa had noticed that she looks more like Jesus’ mother than his own mother likely does and that Nafisa’s young son looks more like Jesus than his own child does, could he hate her? If we put a dark-skinned Mary, Joseph and Jesus on our Christmas cards, coffee cups and front-yard manger scenes, would it change anything?

Ann Belford Ulanov in Picturing God tells us that without intentional intervention, children in our culture image God as an old white man. This image reigns unchecked unless it is countered with other God images. The idea that God is an old white man is reinforced by our images of Jesus. The vast majority of the artistic renderings of Jesus seen by most Americans depict him with pale skin, light brown hair and often blue eyes. You only need to think of the paintings, movies, TV mini-series and stained glass windows you have seen to know this is true.

As BNG opinion contributors Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez and Greg Jarrell have noted, many of us, without conscious intention or awareness, have become disciples of a white Jesus. Not only is white Jesus inaccurate, he also distorts our connections to the stories of Jesus and the stories of people of color.

Scholars and theologians debate about just how dark Jesus of Nazareth’s skin was. Princeton biblical scholar James Charlesworth notes Jesus was “most likely dark brown and sun-tanned” (The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide, 2008). The late theologian James Cone wrote: “The ‘raceless’ American Christ has a light skin, wavy brown hair, and sometimes – wonder of wonders – blue eyes. For whites to find him with big lips and kinky hair is as offensive as it was for the Pharisees to find him partying with tax-collectors. But whether whites want to hear it or not, Christ is black, baby, with all of the features which are so detestable to white society” (Black Theology and Black Power, first published in 1969).

JESUS MAFA. The birth of Jesus with shepherds, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

While shades of brown are debated, it is clear that Jesus was not white. The earliest depictions of an adult Jesus showed him with a brown complexion. But by the sixth century, some Byzantine artists started picturing Jesus with white skin, a beard and light hair parted down the middle. This image became the standard.

In the colonial period, Western Europe exported its image of a white Christ worldwide, and white Jesus often shaped the way Christians understood Jesus’ ministry and mission. Some 19th-century Christians, eager to justify the cruelties of slavery, went out of their way to present Jesus as white. By negating his true identity as a dark-skinned, oppressed minority, slaveholders were better able to justify the master-slave hierarchy and forget Jesus’ ministry to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18).

Our dominant, white Christian culture has white-washed Jesus. Instead of expanding our understanding of those who are different from us (including many who in fact look more like Jesus than we do), we have replaced them and their stories with a light brown-haired, blue-eyed lie.

We didn’t stop at white-washing, though. Not only was Jesus not white, he was also, as a Jew, part of a religious and ethnic minority in the Roman Empire. Jews were marginalized by Romans, Greeks and other non-Jewish groups in many imperial cities. As an infant, Jesus was the target of ruler-sanctioned violence and his family fled to Egypt as refugees. Joseph and Mary fled because of the gender of their firstborn. The lives of Jewish boys under age two were threatened by the empire. Jesus was a dark-skinned, religious-minority refugee whose family fled persecution because of his gender.

“Some 19th-century Christians, eager to justify the cruelties of slavery, went out of their way to present Jesus as white.”

The story of the birth of Jesus as it’s recorded in the Bible also comes with a significant amount of sexual scandal. In the genealogy that begins the Gospel of Matthew and leads directly to the Christmas story, Tamar appears. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute in order to conceive a child with her father-in-law, Judah, in a desperate attempt at justice and security. Rahab is the next woman listed, and while she saved the Jewish spies and was crucial in the campaign to obtain the promised land, she is most remembered for being a prostitute. Ruth is named. She seduced her way into marriage and security in order to care for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Bathsheba is not named but is listed as the wife of Uriah. King David “took” Bathsheba and then plotted to have her husband, Uriah, murdered. The last woman mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus is Mary. Mary was pregnant before the wedding.

Jesus in the popular imagery of America’s white religious culture – the light-haired, blue-eyed, untainted, popular evangelist – bears almost no resemblance to the stories about Jesus in the Bible. What we find in our sacred stories is a dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired Middle Eastern child born amid sexual scandal; ostracized for his family’s religion; persecuted because of his gender; friend to tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners and other outcasts; who grew up in Nazareth. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

How would Nafisa experience Christians if those Christians saw a manger scene on every corner with dark-skinned refugees? If, as Christians sang “Silent Night,” they remembered that Jesus with his parents fled from the Middle East to Africa in order to escape persecution for Jesus’ gender, could they really say hate-filled words about, and advance unfair and cruel treatment of, LGBTQ persons? Would racism continue and, in many places, now thrive if those who hate people for no reason beyond their skin tone knew we follow a black Christ?

“She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins,” Matthew and Luke tell us.

“While shades of brown are debated, it is clear that Jesus was not white.”

What if the sins Jesus saves us from don’t have anything to do with gender identity, sexual preferences, race or class? Or, actually, what if they have everything to do with those distinctions? What if Jesus embodies the groups that are so often marginalized and oppressed? What if Jesus embodies refugee, religious minority, dark skin, poverty, sexual scandal and persecution for gender identity? What if Jesus saves us from our sins of racism, classism and Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia?

What if the saving grace of Jesus is meant to deliver us from the hell we create with our hate?


OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:racismhuman sexualitygender identitywhite JesusxenophobiaJesus as refugee
More by
Laura Mayo
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • Featured

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      News

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      Opinion

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      Opinion

    • How The Jetsons and Westworld help us think about robots, personhood and faith

      Analysis


    Curated

    • New York City’s Largest Evangelical Church Plans Billion-Dollar Development

      New York City’s Largest Evangelical Church Plans Billion-Dollar Development

      August 10, 2022
    • Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      August 10, 2022
    • Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      August 10, 2022
    • Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      August 10, 2022
    Read Next:

    40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

    NewsMark Wingfield

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • SBC president says he tried to enlist more women for sexual abuse task force but got turned down repeatedly

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      OpinionMarvin McMickle

    • How The Jetsons and Westworld help us think about robots, personhood and faith

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • Some evangelical leaders see FBI visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as evidence of the religious persecution coming to them

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Advice from a sunflower

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • Where are the women on the SBC’s first and second sexual abuse task forces?

      AnalysisMark Wingfield

    • New study finds scammers luring migrants with false information via Facebook and WhatsApp

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What I learned at Wake Forest Baptist Church

      OpinionDavid Ramsey

    • Progressive Baptist congregation on Wake Forest campus votes to close

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Why can’t we accept sexual and gender diversity in humans as well as in all creation?

      OpinionDan McGee

    • I’ve been unaware of my privilege, and if you are a man, you probably have, too

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • South African women’s soccer team success shines a light on gender wage discrimination

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • Are left-wing radicals pushing Cracker Barrel to the edge of the slippery slope?

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • It isn’t a church and doesn’t have members, but it is a way to keep United Methodists in the fold as their congregations disaffiliate

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Al Mohler derides a dead man, and the dead man’s friends aren’t happy

      AnalysisMark Wingfield

    • Rural church offers community development grants through Gratitude Project

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • To be more welcoming, let’s remove our flags

      OpinionJustin Pierson

    • The church needs to do better on monkeypox than it did on HIV, faith leaders say

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • News flash: Not all Baptists are Southern

      OpinionBrian Kaylor

    • Russell Moore named editor in chief of Christianity Today

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Why aren’t we defending Brittney Griner?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • 40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC president says he tried to enlist more women for sexual abuse task force but got turned down repeatedly

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • At long last, Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy appears to be dead

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Some evangelical leaders see FBI visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as evidence of the religious persecution coming to them

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • New study finds scammers luring migrants with false information via Facebook and WhatsApp

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Progressive Baptist congregation on Wake Forest campus votes to close

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • South African women’s soccer team success shines a light on gender wage discrimination

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • It isn’t a church and doesn’t have members, but it is a way to keep United Methodists in the fold as their congregations disaffiliate

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Rural church offers community development grants through Gratitude Project

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • The church needs to do better on monkeypox than it did on HIV, faith leaders say

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Russell Moore named editor in chief of Christianity Today

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • 40 Congressmen urge IRS to reconsider classification of Family Research Council as a ‘church’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Online religion content isn’t luring Millennials away from in-person church

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Study finds congregational leaders report LGBTQ conversations are worth the pain

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • There’s something odd about this Mary, did you know?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Cuban government clamps down more on religion

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • September symposium will celebrate life and legacy of John Claypool

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Faith leaders urge Congress to fund help for families torn apart by Trump’s ‘cruel’ family separation policy

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • It’s possible some senior adults in your church need help with medical costs or food but won’t say anything

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • It’s still ‘Christians only’ at this Tennessee Methodist adoption agency

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • War in Ukraine transforms churches into centers of care

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Distinguished preaching professor says he was fired from Southwestern Seminary; administrators say he quit

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • As frustration and misinformation mount, United Methodist Church’s reputation takes a beating

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Want to lower grocery prices? Urge Senate to pass Farm Workforce Modernization Act, panelists say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • In applauding Victor Orban, U.S. conservatives call their shot

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation

      OpinionMarvin McMickle

    • Advice from a sunflower

      OpinionPhawnda Moore

    • What I learned at Wake Forest Baptist Church

      OpinionDavid Ramsey

    • Why can’t we accept sexual and gender diversity in humans as well as in all creation?

      OpinionDan McGee

    • I’ve been unaware of my privilege, and if you are a man, you probably have, too

      OpinionRobert P. Sellers

    • Are left-wing radicals pushing Cracker Barrel to the edge of the slippery slope?

      OpinionBrett Younger

    • To be more welcoming, let’s remove our flags

      OpinionJustin Pierson

    • News flash: Not all Baptists are Southern

      OpinionBrian Kaylor

    • Why aren’t we defending Brittney Griner?

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • A school administrator reflects on rebuilding relationships between schools and homes

      OpinionStanton Eugene Lawrence

    • Judging the stripper and the carouser in ourselves at the Communion table

      OpinionBrad Bull

    • After the Guidepost report, we need to know more about FBC Woodstock’s City of Refuge and NAMB’s support for it: Was ‘moral failures’ code for sexual abuse?

      OpinionJoanna Sullivan

    • Forsaking Baal for the God who is in recovery

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King and Critical Race Theory

      OpinionKen Zagacki

    • What evangelicals won’t tell you about the actual sin of Sodom

      OpinionRodney Kennedy

    • Giving birth in prison: The grief of separation, the grace of presence

      OpinionKathy Manis Findley

    • Dear Denny Burk, your view of gender is not biblical, it is dangerous

      OpinionEllie Dote

    • Roger Williams, the father of American deconstruction

      OpinionAlan Bean

    • Why I’m an LGBTQ ally who won’t boycott Chick-fil-A

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Do the arts in church still matter?

      OpinionDoug Haney

    • When Christianity becomes toxic ‘Christianism’

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • When a friend went to prison for murder, the words of Jesus took on new meaning

      OpinionAllan Smith

    • What should we think of celebrities for Jesus?

      OpinionKatelyn Beaty

    • Dealing with the truth: An interview with Sarah Churchwell on Gone with the Wind, the Lost Cause and Donald Trump

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • New York City’s Largest Evangelical Church Plans Billion-Dollar Development

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ben & Jerry’s fears its new Israeli owner could sell ‘Judea and Samaria’ ice cream in latest court hearing

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Baby Blues: How to Face the Church’s Growing Fertility Crisis

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Orthodox Alaska Part 2: The Beatles, Bees And Orthodoxy Animated In One Man’s Life

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Hundreds of thousands gather for mass prayer in Baghdad

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ukrainian seminary professor faces difficult decisions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Nondenominational Churches Are Adding Millions of Members. Where Are They Coming From?

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • The Religious Right’s Agenda Is Center Stage Again — And It’s As Unpopular As Ever

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • After Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • At flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, whispered prayers defy unwritten accord

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Assemblies of God Ordains Record Number of Women

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck debate God’s position on abortion on ‘The View’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope Francis’ Pilgrimage of Penance: A Step on the Nonviolent Journey

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Christian flag in speech battle flies, briefly, over Boston

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • A group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn is reviving the golden age of cantorial music

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • At Lambeth, Anglican Communion abandons vote on same-sex marriage

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Oglala Sioux ban missionary, require ministries to register

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • White Southern Evangelicals Are Leaving the Church

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Kansas voters resoundingly protect their access to abortion

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Sikh Americans honor 10th anniversary of Oak Creek shooting

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Congress is considering making same-sex marriage federal law – a political scientist explains how this issue became less polarized over time

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • When does conflict become spiritual abuse? Churches large and small face that question.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope to Kazakhstan Sept. 13-15, may meet Russia patriarch

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • When ‘Pro-Life’ Isn’t Enough: Abortion ‘Abolitionists’ Speak Up

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2022 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS