Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” For much of human history this is true. Much of the historical records that we have has come from Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Italian, French, British and American historians. Each of these empires have taken the time to record and preserve the records of what has happened during their reigns. But in doing so they have also taken the time to write a narrative, to shape how we view history. And sometimes this narrative and history can be twisted or altered in order to make the dominant people group or culture look better and superior. A primary example of this is the narrative surrounding the ancient battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, you know that battle where brave King Leonidas led his 300 Spartans against the 2 million Persians as recorded by Herodotus the “Father of History.” In reality, this is a false narrative. The truth is King Leonidas was not alone at Thermopylae but was joined by other Greek City-States and commanded an army of about 7,000 Greeks against 230,000-300,000 Persians, not 2 million. It is still an impressive feat for Leonidas, but widely over embellished and inaccurate. For the longest time this skewed and inaccurate view of history was held by all, it made the Greeks look superior to the Persians, and it worked!
This embellishment of historical events is done quite often. It’s done through writing or tales and songs or speeches but it is done especially through art. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it most certainly can be an extremely dangerous and harmful thing if we are not careful. Unfortunately, we often find ourselves trapped in the lies and deceits of false narratives after it is too late. As Christians, we unfortunately find ourselves already deeply ensnared in this trap as it has slowly begun to kill us over the last few centuries, revealing its poison to us now.
Let me ask you, close your eye for a second and picture: if Jesus walked into the room right now, what would he look like. Describe him: what is he wearing, what color hair does he have, what color eyes does he have, what color skin does he have? If you are like most kids or college students who have walked through my ministries, or even most adults, you would have answered the same as everyone else: red and white robes, long brown flowing hair with a thick beard, beautiful blue or green eyes and clean white skin. Does this sound familiar? It probably does, because that’s almost all of our art work which depicts Christ! Your typical white lumber jack. But is this really who Jesus was? Is this really what Jesus looked like? Or is it just another narrative that has been intertwined with history and our view of scripture?
As a youth pastor, I absolutely love working with kids, especially middle schoolers. They are so blunt and honest. They say exactly what is on their minds. In every single church, I have ever served at, I have always done the same experiment with the middle school and high school in Sunday school. Typically, these kids are the kids who have gone to church every Sunday for most of their lives, they grew up in the Church, so they should know this stuff, right? I present the kids with 3 pictures: typical Jesus (you know that picture hanging in the prayer room of every church or on your grandmother’s bookshelf), a picture of Fabio (the famous Italian model who regularly features on the cover of romance novels) and a picture of Osama bin Laden.
I always ask the kids to pick which one Jesus would most likely look like if he came into the room right now. In all the years, I have been doing this, I have never once had a single student select bin Laden. They all select typical Jesus or Fabio. When I ask students why, they typically say, “Well Jesus was white,” or “That’s how Jesus always looks,” “Wasn’t He born in England? Why would He not be white?” “Why would Jesus have that type of skin color, that’s the color of bad people.” These are all true answers I have received from children who grew up in the church and were taught scripture since they were toddlers. All true answers from children, except the last one, that one was from an adult.
You may be sitting in your seat right now angry that people would ever say these things or you may be sitting there asking what is wrong with these responses or just plain confused. Whatever the case, the answer to all of these responses is simply, NO! Jesus was not white. This little experiment shows us how Jesus is seen in the eyes of children, but it also shows us one of the biggest fault of Christianity in American: we simply don’t know who Jesus is anymore.
The reality is Jesus would have looked nothing like typical Jesus and nothing like Fabio. Most likely he would have looked closer to bin Laden; olive skin, dark curled hair and dark colored eyes. Jesus was a first century Jew in a first century Semitic culture, who worked with his hands as a mason, not like a modern carpenter with an abundance of wood, that doesn’t really match the geography of Israel. He wasn’t an Anglo-Saxon teacher adorned in robes sitting in a chair at a table eating supper with His 12 friends. Jesus was a man of the people, who walked and lived amongst His people in His culture. He was a refugee and a migrant, who fled from tyranny and violence, who spent His early years in Egypt. But that’s not what we teach in our Sunday schools, or even in our Sunday sermons. No Jesus was just like us, He looked and acted like us.
But why is this happening, why is this the narrative surrounding Jesus? Simply put, it is because history is written by the victor. Ask yourself: Who has been the dominant force throughout history? Where has Christianity been centrally focused and distributed from? Where is all of our popular Christian imagery from? The answer is Europe. Most of our religious iconography, like The Last Supper, The Creation of Adam, or The Madonna del Prato originated in the European Renaissance and depict Jesus and the characters of the Bible as white Europeans. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it becomes, and has become a bad thing if it is the only narrative and imagery we have and if it is the only way we see Jesus. The European or “Aryan” Jesus has become the default image of the church and the worlds view of Jesus. Even our modern religious movies about Jesus or really any biblical character depict Jesus and everyone in the Bible as white Europeans.
If we are to really know and discover who Jesus was and is, then we must re-contextualize the gospels and see Jesus for who he really is.
From the Other Side of the Pew 