Not only is white Jesus inaccurate, he also can inhibit our ability to honor the image of God in people who aren’t white. Without conscious intention or awareness, many of us have become disciples of a white Jesus. In all likelihood, if you close your eyes and picture Jesus, you’ll imagine a white man. While Christ the Lord transcends skin color and racial divisions, white Jesus has real consequences. In most of the Western world, Jesus is white. Indeed, white Jesus is everywhere: a 30-foot-tall white Savior stands at the center of Biola University’s campus white Jesus is featured on most Christmas cards and the recent History Channel mini-series The Bible dramatically introduced a white Jesus to more than 100 million viewers. When I am in US Christian spaces, I encounter this assumption so often that I’ve come to believe it is the default assumption about Jesus’ appearance. I wasn’t shocked by this student’s assumption that Jesus was of European descent, or the certitude with which she stated it. The Jesus of history likely looked more like me, a black woman, than you, a white woman.” After one of my recent lectures, a Christian college student approached me and asked if black people are uncomfortable with the fact that Jesus is white.
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