“Jesus was white…”

Just to be clear, Jesus was not a white man.

I thought up until tonight, no one legitimately believed anymore that Jesus was white. That is until news anchor Megyn Kelly said, in response to an article on Slate.com written by Aisha Harris:

“Jesus was a white man, too… he’s a historical figure that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that…”

If you’re wondering, Jesus was a Galilean, some say that he was a Palestinian Jew, most scholars agree and have a consensus that Jesus was of a darker skin complexion. Yes, Kelly was right when she acknowledged that Jesus was a historical figure, but even though we have no historical documents describing what Jesus looked like, it’s safe to say that Kelly was wrong in saying that Jesus was white.

In the same way you’d think that someone would look as if they were Japanese because they have an entire lineage of ancestor’s from Japan, so we would also assume that Christ looked like a majority of other’s from the middle east because of his entire lineage of ancestor’s being from the middle east…

In a perfect world, race would not matter; unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world that has been convoluted by sin and pride, which has created a system of hierarchy based on arbitrary factors like the contour of one’s nose, the shape of one’s eyes, the symmetry of one’s face, and of course the color of one’s skin.

You see after Megyn made these statements, the internet exploded with outrage because of coloring the biblical Jesus white, is more than just associating Jesus with a certain race, it’s associating Jesus with a certain class, turning Him into a man of privilege.

Though Kelly may not have meant this to be racist, her statement does have racist implications. Assuming Jesus was/is white, with the knowledge that He was born in an area that is not in the least white, is to infer the superiority of whiteness. It’s to infer that God felt it best to make His Son white in a middle eastern context because… white is best? [Speaking to those of you who are white, I hope you can now, to the smallest extent, understand how offensive this might come across to those of us who are not white.]

Claiming Jesus to be “white” as a “historical verifiable fact,” in today’s Americanized context is to put theological implications on God that just aren’t true.

It’s not just the color of Jesus’ skin that we fabricate, in saying Jesus was/is white, but it’s the entirety of His life that we’ve seemed to fabricate. In our Americanized version of Christianity, we’ve turned the Messiah into an authoritarian, middle-class, male who drives a sedan, waving to us every morning as we trot out of our homes to get the paper.

To say it another way, Jesus is not “Leave It to Beaver’s” dad. I know it’s uncomfortable to imagine, but Jesus probably looked more like Osama Bin Laden than he did Ward Cleaver (Leave It to Beaver’s Dad).

Overall I think this goes to show that, in the states, we’ve created a Jesus that fits who and what we want Jesus to be. I think we’re all guilty of this. [Just so you know, as I don’t believe Jesus to be white, neither do I believe Jesus to have been Asian or black.]

I believe Jesus to be God, and Jesus as God to be one who, even within our American context, transcends the barriers created through social systems of hierarchy. Jesus was, is, and always will be God-with-us, one who was an advocate for those suffering, the poor, the outcast, and marginalized.

NT Wright sums it up pretty well, stating:

“The longer you look at Jesus, the more you will want to serve him in his world. That is, of course, if it’s the real Jesus you’re looking at. Plenty of people in the church and outside it have made a up a ‘Jesus’ for themselves, and have found that this invented character makes few real demands on them. He makes them feel happy from time to time but doesn’t challenge them, doesn’t suggest they get up and do something about the plight of the world. Which is, of course, what the real Jesus had an uncomfortable habit of doing.” – N.T. Wright