Was Jesus white? Why do we often picture a white Jesus? Does white Jesus promote white privilege? These are questions MTV’s Franchesca Ramsey attempted to answer in an episode of her web series, Decoded.
Ramsey makes several valid points, first of which is: The gospel is universal, says Dr. Michael Brown.
But some of her logic is flawed: For example, the Bible does assign Jesus a race—He’s Jewish!
In the Renaissance, artists began depicting Jesus as fair-skinned, Anglo and even Caucasian.
“A lot of it was the church reflecting itself ethnically, severing itself from its Jewish roots,” Brown says. Through art “Jesus has been taken away from the Jewish people in many ways.”
This image seeped into culture, and it could be detrimental. Watch the video to see why.
