Black Jesus, White Jesus, Woman and Jew

The same people who are offended by the blonde, blue-eyed Jesus lift their hands to the black or female Jesus. Hypocrites right? If they insist you can’t have the first because Jesus wasn’t European then you can’t have the second because Jesus wasn’t black and a woman either.

May it never be.

It’s not about history, it’s about story. History is important. But anyone who thinks about it knows that Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew. Odds are he had a big nose, at least by European standards. But that’s not the point. The white-man Jesus has always served as a tool of forgetfulness and exclusion. It says “I am of you. I am not one of them.” It is designed to contract the story of salvation and invest the aura of God in the male authority figures of the West.

The Jesus who is a woman or who is from deepest, darkest Africa is not trying to contract and usurp Jesus. It’s not trying to deny Jesus to anyone. Just the opposite. Black Jesus, Asian Jesus, Indian Jesus, Woman Jesus says, “I am as much you as I am any other. I belong to no one and to everyone.” These Jesus images invite you in, open their dark arms, defy the concentration of power that always corrupts. For the same reason we want a Black Lives Matter movement and an NAACP and NOW but have no use for White Lives Matter or the KKK or any movement of white men insisting on their rights—which is all the NRA really comes down to isn’t it, white men who feel embattled, desperate to hold onto the conquered lands.

We need to put white Jesus in the closet. Don’t throw him away. Someday, if the gospel is truly preached, truly heard, truly believed, his day will come truly; then he can take his proper place among Black Jesus and Woman Jesus and the Jesus of the Middle Eastern Jew. At that time, if it ever comes, we can take that White Jesus out of the closet. It will be a sign of the fulfillment.