by cantleave 14 Replies latest social humour
"Black Jesus" is redundant.
Rev 1:14-15
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 bronze, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
Sounds like a grey haired Black man to me.
I think the humor is not in what his color is, but what it is relative to his dad, and the joke turns on this paternity.
Much like this story.
I enjoyed the cartoon!
The comments above made me think (again) how christian religions and their derivatives are somehow instinctively thought of as 'western' or 'European' by so many people. Judaism and christianity are Asian religions by origin (western Asian, yes, but Asian all the same). I remember portrayals of Jesus as being light-skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed (and speaking English, of course!).
I lived in Cyprus for several years. Eastern Med/western Asia. Indigenous Cypriots - in so far as any peoples are truly indigenous - are swarthy-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed. It's only about 100 miles from Israel/Lebanon and about the same from Egypt (Africa). Most peple would be hard-pressed to tell them apart.
Many Cypriots went to South Africa. I often wondered, but never asked, how they were regarded - or classified - during the (religiously-supported) apartheid years.
My understanding is that the 'early Christians' migrated in all directions - to Africa, east deeper into Asia, north to Turkey, and as far as the Indian sub-continent, as well as Europe, and there are established churches in all off those places. Strange in a way that some western new religions (I'm thinking of JWs and Mormons here as examples) while claiming 'special revelations' seem to have based themselves on the Roman church and it's derivatives.
PS: On the issue of 'offence' - I am a firm believer in the principles of free speech and of religious freedom (which includes freedom from religion).
I don't take offence when the religious tell me I am an infidel, a sinner, morally bankrupt, deserve to die, burn in hell, and that sort of stuff. In return I reserve the right to question, comment on and make jokes about their beliefs.
In the vernacular: 'Don't dish it out if you can't take it'.
