12/28/2016 InsistingJesusWasWhiteIsBadHistoryandBadTheologyTheAtlantic

Insisting Jesus Was White Is Bad History and Bad

Theology
In trying to police his depiction, Megyn Kelly is wrong on both the facts and the
essential universality of the Christian message.
JONATHAN MERRITT
DEC 12, 2013 | POLITICS

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12/28/2016 InsistingJesusWasWhiteIsBadHistoryandBadTheologyTheAtlantic

Fox News television host Megyn Kelly told viewers on her December 11 broadcast
that Jesus and Santa are both white men.

"Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change,"
Kelly said. "Jesus was a white man, too. It's like we have, he's a historical gure
that's a veriable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it
in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?"

Setting aside the ridiculousness of creating rigidly racial depictions of a ctitious

character that does not actually existsorry, kidslike Santa, Kelly has made a
more serious error about Jesus. The scholarly consensus is actually that Jesus was,
like most rst-century Jews, probably a dark-skinned man. If he were taking the
red-eye ight from San Francisco to New York today, Jesus might be proled for
additional security screening by TSA.

If Jesus were taking the red-eye ight from San Francisco

to New York today, he might be proled for additional
screening by TSA.
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The myth of a white Jesus is one with deep roots throughout Christian history. As
early as the Middle Ages and particularly during the Renaissance, popular Western
artists depicted Jesus as a white man, often with blue eyes and blondish hair.
Perhaps fueled by some Biblical verses correlating lightness with purity and
righteousness and darkness with sin and evil, these images sought to craft a sterile
Son of God.

The only problem was that the representations were historically inaccurate.

Modern Western Christians have carried these images over into their own
depictions of Jesus. Pick up a one of those bright blue Bible Story books in a
Sunday School classroom and youll nd white Jesus waiting for you, rosy cheeks
and all. Or you could survey the light-skinned Jesus in any number of modern TV or
lm portrayals, including History Channels hit series The Bible.

Interestingly, the Bible is far less descriptive on the matter of Jesus skin color than
we are. Christian scriptures say very little about Jesus physical appearance. They
do not comment on his nose, eye color, skin pigmentation, or hair. The glaring
exception is Isaiah 53:2, which prophesies that the messiah wont be much to look
at, another fact that places the Bible at odds with the well-groomed surfer-dude
Jesus who's often put forth.

The Bible is far less descriptive on the matter of Jesus skin

color than are we. The scriptures say very little about his
physical appearance at all.

If the Bible is silent on the matter of Jesus skin color, does it really matter that
Megyn Kelly says Jesus is white?

Yes, actually.

As some historians and theologians have posited, the silence of the Scriptures on
the issue of Jesus skin color is critical to Christianitys broad appeal with people of
various ethnicities. In a world where race often divides communities and even
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churches, the Biblical depictions of Gods son positions him as one who can bridge
those divides.

For this reason, one American Presbyterian minister in the 1880s warned his ock
not to trust popular images of Christ:

If He were particularised and localisedif, for example, He were made a

man with a pale facethen the man of the ebony face would feel that
there was a greater distance between Christ and him than between
Christ and his white brother. Instead, because the Bible refused to
describe Jesus in terms of racial features, his gospel could appeal to all.
Only in this way could the Church be a place where the Caucasian and
Mongolian and African sit together at the Lords table, and we all think
alike of Jesus, and we all feel that He is alike our brother.

In Martin Luther King Jr.s Advice for Living column for Ebony in 1957, the civil-
rights leader was asked, Why did God make Jesus white, when the majority of
peoples in the world are non-white? King replied, The color of Jesus skin is of
little or no consequence because what made Jesus exceptional His willingness to
surrender His will to Gods will. His point, as historian Edward Blum has noted, is
that Jesus transcends race.

Those warnings hold just as true for believers today. Within the church, eschewing
a Jesus who looks more like a Scandinavian supermodel than the sinless Son of God
in the scriptures is critical to maintaining a faith in which all can give praise to one
who became like them in an eort to save them from sins like racism and prejudice.
It's important for Christians who want to expand the church, too, in allowing the
creation of communities that are able to worship a Jesus who builds bridges rather
than barriers. And it is essential to enabling those who bear the name of Christ to
look forward to that day when, according to the book of Revelation, those from
every nation, tribe, people, and language can worship God together.

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Until that day arrives, though, can someone please tell Megyn Kelly that Jesus is not
white?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JONATHAN MERRITT is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a senior columnist for
Religion News Service. He is the author of Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined and A Faith of
Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars.

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