Does racist American believe in Jesus the Christ?


 

By Bud Johnson

   “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, very God from very God, begotten not made, of the same substance as the Father, through whom all things were made, both things in Heaven and things in earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into Heaven, and shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost.”
The foregoing text found in The History of Christianity, is the core of the world’s largest religion, yet as we prepare to celebrate Easter Sunday 2006 in the land of the free, the same arguments that followed the original decreed in 15 century Nicea, Greece prevail today. Even so,in a nation that ideally was founded on Judea-Christian principles, there has never been any real push (by mainstream America’s Christian leaders) to truly get to know the man Jesus whom they worship so devoutly. Woebeit in mostly segregated churches throughout the land of the free. Why? Insofar as African American News & Issues is dedicated to asking and answering hard questions, Easter Week 2006 is an opportune time to explore Jesus’ ethnicity. Why is a Christian nation reluctant to address a preponderance of evidence that Jesus the Christ was, indeed, made incarnate in an African male?
Perhaps, a better question is, could racist believe in a Black Jesus (FYI: By the mid-1960s, the whole of America was plunged into one of the most turbulent periods of its entire history. At the core of the festering racial time-bomb was a loud clamoring for fundamental changes, not only in Black-white relations, but also for an examination of those things that the Black community had come to accept as normal and factual. This, of course, was a direct reaction to the years of cultural stultification and historical exclusion that was practiced relative to Black History. Moreover this thirst to examine and conceptualize history from a Black perspective was driven by the historical portrayal of Blacks as an inferior race of people whose contribution to world development was practically nil.
Religion, as a foundation for spiritual belief, was therefore one of the places that Black intellectuals and thinkers would have to start since the Black community had been conditioned over 400 years to accept Christ of the Christian religion as white and blue-eyed. But, for many years anyone who dared to buck the status quo was sternly reminded that to even criticize biblical teachings was committing a sin and sacrilege at the same time. So, for many years Black scholars gave religion a wide berth and only penned soft, wide and safe conclusions about how Blacks could break their embrace of white religious ideology.—Michael D. Roberts, Caribbean Voice March 2002.) On the flip side, a White Christian’s perspective is offered by the book, “Theories about the race of the historical Jesus,” which reveals: “Contemporary textual evidence on Jesus' life is scarce and specific descriptions of his appearance even more so.
“There are no direct references to his appearance during his physical lifetime, though Revelation 1:13–16 describes his features as he appears in his heavenly form, as seen in a vision by John. Some commentators use this passage to argue that Jesus was black, based on the description of his hair as being ‘like wool,’ possibly a reference to hair that is tightly coiled, as most people of African descent have. However, most interpret the reference to ‘wool’ as referring only to the color of Jesus' hair, not the texture. The "feet of fine brass" line has also been used to argue for a black or Middle Eastern race. Additionally, the references to having a white ‘head’ and a countenance that is ‘as the sun shineth’ has been used to argue for Jesus being racially white. In the majority of Western art, narrative and cinema depicting Jesus, he is portrayed with brown hair and brown eyes, having a short beard and white skin.
“However, some artists, including notably Dürer, have also depicted him as blond and/or blue-eyed. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico and Michelangelo all depicted Jesus as white (See Classic picture on front page.) Nonetheless, it must be noted that most figures of the Bible, including the Israelites and Egyptians described in the Old Testament, were also portrayed as identical in appearance to European whites.” Opposing perspectives notwithstanding, the most vexing question isn’t, “Could a racist American worship a Black Jesus?” Instead, it’s would made in America African Christians so readily be raising holy hands to that giant picture of a White Jesus the Christ—on Easter Sunday 2006-- if he looked like a disenfranchised and despised Black man?