The Image of Christ
There has been a lot of discussion recently about ‘White Jesus’ and not just at Memorial. As is expected, whenever a religious topic enters the public sphere the dialogue ends up watered down and muddled. Because we are having our own discussions (and actions) around one image of a white Jesus it makes sense to offer a few thoughts on it here.
A few basic things to keep in mind:
the image of Jesus has always been contested and political and its pointless to pretend otherwise.
It is good that there are as many images of Jesus as there are people on earth - because we should all be able to see Christ in each other.
Jesus wasn’t white.
We make a mistake when we argue against ‘White Jesus’ because we want to be ‘historically accurate.’ Jesus Christ WAS a man who lived in 1st century Galilee AND Jesus Christ is a universal savior for all humanity. If we limit Jesus’ image to what he looked like when he was alive, we also limit the reach of his salvation. As Christians we believe that Christ resides in each of us. The tomb is empty for a reason, so that we may seek and find Jesus in all places. So there is nothing in principle wrong with an image of Jesus with white skin.
But that is not what ‘White Jesus’ is about. When we talk about ‘White Jesus’ we are talking about a modern effort to sanitize the liberating story of Christ into a mild-mannered blond haired, blue eyed Sunday school lesson. More discreetly, we are talking about an effort to take Jesus out of the universal and in to the particular. Jesus is made in the white man’s image as a reminder of who holds power and who doesn’t. Who is in control and who isn’t. This ‘White Jesus’ imagery derives directly from the institution of slavery, both of native americans and African-Americans. Black and brown people are ‘less than’ - which justifies their enslavement, but if they accept Jesus taught to them by white men about the salvific acts of this one white man, they may be redeemable.
This is the thinking that allowed Churches to give out ‘slave bibles’ that were missing all the stories of liberation from the Old Testament. That made it okay to have slave galleries or slave porches in churches. That made it acceptable for White Churches to provide black congregations with white pastors until they had grown enough in their faith to be on their own. This is the thinking that led the Dame Family to dedicate ‘The Transfiguration Painting’ in our Sanctuary to the memory of The Rev. Dr. William Meade Dame.
Now this does not mean that previous images of Jesus, or other images of Jesus in other cultures and contexts aren’t problematic. That’s why I started with reminding us that the image of Christ has always been political and disputed. From the very beginning! After Jesus’ resurrection Mary doesn’t recognize him in the garden, Thomas refuses to believe in his return until he sees for himself, the Disciples on the road to Emmaus don’t recognize him till he breaks bread, Peter is so confused by his appearing that he strips naked and jumps in the Sea of Galilee. A good portion of the book of Acts is dedicated to whether or not Paul did in fact meet Jesus on the road to Damascus. And that’s just the first few books of the New Testament!
As early as the 300s you can find images of Jesus as a Roman Soldier and a Rabbi, with and without a beard, with dark skin and light skin, in stunning detail and as a stick figure. By the 1000’s images of Jesus as a woman were easy to find. The impact and import of these images change and shift over time. What they mean to us changes too. During the crusades it was common for returning crusaders to get tattoos in Jerusalem to mark their conquest. Today you will find every returning group of young hipster Christian pilgrims to Israel coming back with the same tattoos - mostly oblivious to the origin.
All of these images and symbols were and are political. We can debate the windows in Notre Dame or the Sistine Chapel or Rafael’s forum, or the work of Caravaggio in another forum. They may have used a light skinned Jesus, but that is not what we mean when we talk about ‘White Jesus.’
“White Jesus’ is not just about the image of a light skinned savior. It is also about the intention, the purpose, and the symbolism of the work. We are talking about images, teaching, and theology born out of a need to legitimize slavery that depicted good people as white and bad people as black and Jesus as the best of all. The image of Christ became then a tool of repression rather than liberation and a symbol of bondage rather than salvation. It is for this reason that we should interrogate both the art and the underlying theology of our churches and institutions so that we can depict a universal Christ who offers salvation to all, even us sinners.