Writer and activist Shaun King announced Monday that he supports the destruction of statues that depict a white Jesus. King, who has been an outspoken supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, tweeted his remarks on Monday. He noted that historians believe Jesus likely had the appearance of...
www.newsbreak.com
interesting article
God bless to everyone, let me offer my perspective on this issue.
My perspective
Obviously when speaking of issues of race and ethnicity it can be beneficial to see what
people in that group think. So as a Christian African American male, let me share my thoughts
for what its worth. Not necessarily so that anyone can agree with me but so that you can get
a glimpse into another perspective, possibly.
**Dear God please let my words be pleasing to you and from you, in Jesus name I pray amen. **
So this is obviously a sensitive topic for many reasons. Anytime you speak about race, people either
keep silent because they are uncomfortable or run towards their defensive positions or take up offense.
I'll try not to do either, though I like yourself am human.
God First
So as Christians our focus is to do the WILL of God, correct? Hopefully everyone who is a Christian
can agree with me on that. Meaning, if God spoke from heaven and stated, this is my WILL concerning these
statues, those who professed to follow Him should likewise obey His leading. Since God has not spoken
directly from heaven and shared this is what we are to do with these statues that leaves us 3 basic ways
to decipher His WILL. His Word which is the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ which instructs and
gives council to one another.
History
Most people will have an initial reaction to being in favor or oppose to the actions called for in this article. However,
I'm not seeking to ask my ego how I feel but I'm trying to deeply search the mind of Christ to see what Jesus would
have us to do. To do so I'm first asking myself, why would anyone want these statutes to come down. My thoughts
are that they want to do so because first the statue represent a lie ( a misrepresentation of Jesus), and also represent
a lie from a cultural system which many feel oppressed by (Eurocentric culture). A culture in which many
cultural items were changed from how they originally were to represent the skin complexion of the colonizers
(
https://www.washingtonpost.com/reli...jesus-white-man-was-distributed-around-world/ )
So historically speaking, the fact that Jesus was not painted as blond hair and blue eyes until far later in history
is not something really to be debated as many know this is true. However does that mean that we should now
remove all those statues of Jesus?
The Bible
Well, let's explore further. Taking a step aside from the Black Lives Matter movement what would the Bible say about statues
of Jesus in general. Well the 2nd commandment tells us
Exodus 20:4 “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness
of any thing that
is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth"
God in His infinite wisdom knew that having earthly depictions to represent God would lead to many problems and would
do more to divide than unify His people. He also knew the human heart and how the devil could easily use such items
to separate God's people. Ask yourself, in heaven do you think there will be pictures of Jesus on the wall? If not, why?
Well I suspect because we will have the real thing. Likewise, as Christians we should have the real thing, living in our
hearts and thus we do not need it before our eyes for we walk by faith.
Even the concept of wearing a cross, often can do harm to the Christian faith. Though I will not rebuke anyone doing so,
personally I can see how it does not always help. People sometimes wear cross to show to the world that they
are Christian and are not ashamed of Jesus. However Jesus said, that they will know that we are His disciples by
our love for one another, not by a certain symbol that we carry.
So in matters of truth, it seems that historically Jesus was not blond hair and blue eyes, and Biblically we are told not
to make images to represent God. So if that is the case, what attachment do we have towards the statue? Will
pulling these statues down harm to Christianity? Or is more harm done when people have these statues or images
showing that they are Christian but don't show His love?
Make a difference
What did the statues do when they were erected in churches during the era of slavery. Christians carried on with
the painting of Jesus on their wall and statues in their church, while still supporting slavery and the horrible
treatment of Blacks. If having the statues present back then didn't seem to help Christianity and allowing people
to be more loving than do we think that taking it down will somehow hurt Christianity now?
These statues are mostly on private land I would assume, perhaps church land. As a result, I'm opposed to vandalism
or mobs pulling down the church property. However I think that the churches need to make this decision on
their own, without influence from the state governments. The churches needs to ask themselves, what is
our attachment to a statue if its removal will communicate to our brothers of color that we love them.
Paul talked about meat sacrificed to idols and how he was willing to give up his right to be right for the
sake of his weaker brothers in the faith. I don't mean to say that anyone is necessarily weaker, however
I am saying that the church should ask itself, do we love our Black brothers enough to take down a statue
if it offends them and if its removal will draw us all closer in unity and truth, or is our attachment to a statute (speaking
of a statue, not of Jesus) stronger than our love for our brothers in Christ?
I will not answer this question for anyone but this is my perspective on what I see before us as a body.
I'll put it this way, as a male, I feel that sometimes females may be overly sensitive to certain scriptures because it
uses a masculine pronoun. For example, "Though will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him
because He trust in Him." Often females will advocate for gender neutral language. For me as a male, my love for
my female sisters in Christ is stronger than my need to have a masculine pronoun and I'm not sacrificing truth,
but being united with them in love. So for me I will gladly say "Though will keep
them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him
because
they trust in Him."
I will do this gladly because I love them and my attachment to my sisters in Christ is greater than
my attachment to a pronoun, and once again suchs actions do not sacrifice truth.
With Love WNL