The Problem With The Passion

A Black Perspective On The Epic Film

If we as a people, as black people, as black Christians, have no voice, if we are meant only to be matriculated into the cultural and religious mainstream, that in and of itself puts the lie to the claim that race doesn't matter. Of course it matters. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be so afraid of it. If it didn't matter, there'd be greater diversity within our ministries and churches. If it truly didn't matter, we wouldn't be looking at one another across a great divide that only whites seem unable to see or admit exists.

Who we are, as a people, as a culture, has been raped and destroyed by people who, to this day, either actively or passive aggressively continue to deny us as brothers, deny us as sisters, deny us as joint heirs by relegating this dialogue to the domain of extremists and whack jobs; some insane rhetoric better left to the National Enquirer, Ebony Magazine or late night infomercials. This is certainly not true of all Christians in America, but it is true enough. We are not holding our brothers and sisters accountable for sins of their predecessors so much as for a current sin. An ongoing sin. A sin of omission. A sin of dismissal. Sunday, in America, remains the single most segregated day of the week, with huge and powerful white ministries of all denominations casting a brotherly yet brotherly superior eye on the lowly black church; a cultural lame cousin existing largely in the shadow of ministries ten and twenty times its size with much greater reach and demonstrably greater political and economic power.

Does a black Jesus threaten and demean a culture the way a white Jesus certainly does? I hardly think so, but I feel white Christendom would get a fair hearing, while black Christendom is still better seen and not heard. We are not the race peddlers. We are not the dividers. Those who have stripped us of everything and who have created God in their image— not to heal, seek and save that which was lost but to remind us of our place and shame us for our sin of blackness — are. While this certainly sounds like extremism, this is, indeed, the reality for black worshippers of Christ. And, until only very recently, we ourselves bought into the whole nonsense of the black race being “cursed;” a people who can find redemption and salvation only through the grace of the white Jesus, whose purity is frequently spoken of in hues of “white as snow.”

If Christ's ethnic makeup truly doesn't matter, if people of color have no cause to be anguished over the white Jesus, why then do many white Christians react violently to our assertion that Jesus could not possibly have been a square jawed Caucasian? If we have no reason to be anxious, why then are they so anxious, often violently so?

I agree that, ultimately, what color Jesus was shouldn't really matter. Most Christians, of any ethnicity, would tend to agree. All I'm saying is, if Jesus' color indeed shouldn't matter, then the larger body of Christians should stop perpetuating what is, in fact, a lie. White Christians who argue that color shouldn't matter, should then find the courage to put this conviction into practice. They never do. Never. Not once. If color indeed doesn't matter, why, every single time, is Jesus portrayed as a European?

“At this point why, then, aren't we, the black Christian community, making a movie as well or perhaps a documentary?” Reverend Brown asks. “If we are so intent on being factual, we have the means, the talent, and the visionaries to make something like this happen.”

“I am sure that many people don't even know that the original renderings of Jesus were not of a blue eyed and blonde haired man but have looked at this [The Passion] and accepted it,” Pastor Johnson says. “Gibson is aware of the situation and made somewhat of an effort to take the blue eye star and make his eyes brown and work on the complexion so let's not beat him up too much.

“I am convinced that Jesus came and died for all of us so what's the big deal about his color. I know that Jesus didn't look like Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the movie. I know that the early artists painted Jesus and His Disciples as black men. I know that Michelangelo painted a self-portrait as a rendering of Jesus. I know that the influence of Europe changed Jesus from a black man to a blue eyed and blond hair white man. He certainly wasn't blue eyed or blond haired because Jews didn't have those characteristics during His time. John, in Revelation 1:14-15, describes Jesus for us. This is what he saw: ...his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 'Hair like wool' sure sounds like a black man to me. 'Feet like bronze' sounds like a black man to me. Is it really that important to put a color or race on Christ or is it more important to accept what He has done for us?

“What's important?” Johnson concludes, “It is important that you go see the movie and experience the last hours of Christ. It is important that you come away with an understanding that God sent His only Son to die for your sins. Finally, it is important for you to know that there is only one way to be saved and that is through Jesus.”

This view does not address the issue of the oppression of people of color by means of a ethnically-focused view of Christ. This cuts both ways— black and white. Forcing a black Jesus on the world is as wrong as what's been perpetuated for six centuries now. Even the most racially sympathetic white people cannot really connect and cannot ever fully understand the sin of racism and the sin of oppression, and how a European Christ oppresses and marginalizes billions of people— Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, and certainly African.

As followers of Christ, we are obliged to speak the truth. Not just our truth but His truth. With complete respect for every opinion expressed here (and we invite all opinions on the matter), I maintain that simply, “letting it go,” simply, “don't make a big deal out of it,” simply, “don't make an issue of it,” is an abdication of responsibility first and foremost to our God, to the truth, and most certainly to ourselves.

At the end of the day, a lie is simply a lie. Holding a white Jesus up for our children to pray to is simply shameful, most especially since we know it is wrong. We have empirical evidence it is wrong. And yet we continue to just let it go so we can stay focused on what's important. Truth is truth. And if we allow, say, 15% lie to exist so we can proclaim 85% truth, we're simply hypocrites and cowards. If we allow God's truth to be packaged and marketed, wrapped in a lie, we're certainly not worthy of His name, and our preaching is entirely in vain.

It's not about black and white. It's not about the politics of liberation. It's simply a matter of what is true and what is not. Politely declining to stand for the truth, even with the best of intent to promote the Gospel, only diminishes the very Gospel, the very Good News, we struggle to proclaim.

“I thoroughly appreciate your stance of this matter and your speaking to it. Although I also intend to see the movie, it disturbs me also that Jesus is ALWAYS depicted as being European, especially in this particular film that is being lauded as being so factual,” Donna Munn, Executive Administrator of True Spirit Baptist Church said. “I believe we need to see it, and have our children see it, but we have a responsibility to tell them that as 'factual' as it may be, there are still some things, including the color of Jesus' skin, that were personal interpretations by the filmmakers.”

I agree that, at the end of the day, Jesus' race is so much less important than Jesus' grace. But, as a Christian community, I believe it is our duty to place into perspective a film that is so brutally honest and brutally accurate that the choice of a white Jesus must be considered as a deliberate choice to perpetuate a stereotype at the expense of the Truth, and to dismiss, as a demographic, an entire race of people. Whether intended or not, this issue must be spoken to and pointed out.

We owe that, at least, to ourselves, to our children, to our prosperity, and most certainly, to our God.

Christopher J. Priest
1 March 2004
editor@praisenet.org
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The Reasonable Response

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An independent, liberal Catholic magazine has raised a few eyebrows by presenting a “new Jesus for a new millennium” — one who is black! The magazine publisher proudly proclaimed the death of the more popular white, blue-eyed Jesus. Truth is that Jesus was probably unlike either of these pictures. Being a middle-eastern Jew, He most likely had semetic (sic) features.

And those who find a “black Jesus” to be newsworthy only demonstrate how out of touch they are, for there are already portraits of a “black Jesus” in thousands of African-American homes and churches just as there are of most other ethnic groups as well.

The question begs to be asked: Does it matter?

To some it does. There are people see everything in light of skin color. History, politics, religion — it’s all based on outer appearance.

But God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7) and tells us that we must as well! Those who know Jesus and have experienced His love share that love with all people regardless of how they look, what they wear or the circumstances of their birth and upbringing... the Bible does not give us a physical description of Jesus — perhaps because we are to identify more with who He was and what He did than what He looked like.

As Christians, we are called to break down the walls that our sinful natures have erected. Rather than divide our culture based on ethnicity, we are to demonstrate love and community that brings us together and will cause the world to marvel. We are to be one in Christ (John 17:23, Colossians 3:11)

—Tom Short, The Short Report: Reaching America's Campuses With God's Word, What Color was Jesus? 

Origins Of The Contemporary Christ

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“Europe felt it was necessary to divorce the image of Deity and the Messiah with the image of Africa or Blackness. They rewrote history by suppressing the long history of Black images of the Messiah.”

For example, Pope Julius II commissioned the Italian artist Michelangelo to paint a series of religious pictures of God Almighty, Jesus and his mother Mary, the wise men and other biblical characters for which, argues Mr. Comissiong, he used his family members as models. “And so ... we had almost for the first time the image of the blond-haired, blue eyed Jesus, the image of the European Mary, the Holy Madonna.”

Mr. Comissiong argues that these images have been successfully “foisted” upon the Black race.

The European conceives of his God and Savior in the image of a European, the Chinese in the image of a Chinese and the Indians do the same, and I dare say that the Eskimo probably conceive of their God in an image of an Eskimo,” he says.

He adds, “The only people on the face of this earth who do not conceive of their God in their own image are Black people.” —David Comissiong, Director of the Clement Payne Cultural Center

In Michelangelo's day (the end of the fifteenth and the start of the sixteenth century), Rome was still recovering from years of neglect. Vain and often unscrupulous popes at times advanced Rome and, at other times, took the city a few steps backwards. Ill-gained wealth paid for much of the great art. Proud popes built tombs, churches and cathedrals as memorials to themselves. Michelangelo's patron, Julius, tried to undo some of the art work of his predecessor, a man who apparently at one time attempted to poison Julius.

Michelangelo was petty at times, also often paranoid about his competitors as well as his assistants and patrons. He was also a pious man, a devotee of the rabid monk Savonarola and a man willing to read signs from floods, illness and other natural acts. Much of the time Michelangelo feared for his life from seen and imagined enemies. The human miracle is how the artist triumphed amidst these real problems.

—Review of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

Clip and Stills from The Passion Of The Christ
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