Religious Icons & Idols are Racist.

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Consider the following images  (e.g., Jesus and Mary, resp.):





Did you notice how both images depict people with European features, when the people they are supposed to represent were Semitic?  This is typical of most icons and idols in so-called "Christian" churches all over the world, including "third-world" countries, and presents the not-so-subtle message that white people are to be worshiped.

It's images like these that promote white supremacy and racism.

No erect statue,picture,bust of any likeness to that in heaven above,earth below or water below earth.

For I, almighty lord god your creator am jealous god,visiting the inequities of the fathers on the sons to the 3rd and fourth generations of those that hate me.Giving blessing eternal to those who love me and watch my commandments.

Asereth Ha Devarim/The Ten Commandments

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." -- Exodus 20:4-6

Even if the image is supposedly of The Creator, genuflecting toward it, praying to it, or offering gifts to it is idolatry of the image.  But that's all beside the point of this thread, which is that the images themselves are racist because they imply that being "white" is somehow connected with being divine or holy.

Yes, modern English syntax

I understand your,that's why gave the 2nd of the ten commandments in old Hebrew syntax.

The Europeanization of Christianity likely came because Paul was Greek speaking and his message spread faster in Greek speaking cultures.

Then when Constantine converted Christianity was the religion of Europe.

There was Christianity in Africa but it was seen as heretical by the Roman church.

Today Coptic and other Oriental orthodox branches survive but most was lost to Islam in the Eighth century.

Had the new testament been translated to Arabic,Persian and other languages Christianity wouldn't have been so Europeanized.

Maybe in modern America. Medieval Europe:




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Madonna

While theology of icons, idols and other depictions of God in christianity is a subject of controversies and fights since the beginning of this religion, racism entered it only in already-racist societes. Medieval Europe divided people by religion (pagan-Christian-Muslim), not skin color.

Last edited by magz on 16 Jul 2020, 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ahh ... thanks, Magz!  The racist nature of even these "Old-World" idols is evident.

?
Maybe for someone who sees racism everywhere...

No, think about it ... the basic premise is that the people the images are supposed to represent were Semitic, not European or African.  When people of a specific race claim (by the appearances of their icons and idols) that Jesus and the "Saints" looked exactly like the race of the people who created the image, it is a racist claim.

Those images (imho) should look more like the race of the people they represent -- the Semites or Israelites of their time.  Of course, we do not know exactly what Semites or Israelites looked like 2000 years ago, but it is fairly certain they did not look like 20th-century Europeans.

Think of it the other way: Icons and other religious depictions (in any religion I know that produces them) aren't meant to be realistic reconstructions of historical figures, their purpose is to carry some spiritual symbolism. Without much access to precise data, your idea of "how a human looks" is shaped by the variation of people you see.

By the way, maybe because of Eastern Orthodox influence in my region, the keyword "depiction of Jesus" brings to me rather something like this:

Ethnocentric: Yes, of Course, Every Word of the New Testament
From Its Innumerable Roman Greek Writing Ghost Authors; And
Perhaps Paul the Original 'Saul' And Christian Hater, Who may Have Really Lived Basing His Writing on a View
From An Hallucination That is Converted to Holy And Sacred Text; Then, Away, from the 'Couch of a Psychiatrist'.

Racist: No, Not Then; As there is Some Suggestion That Leonardo DaVinci Painted Himself as the
Form of Jesus in the Last Supper Painting; Creating An Ethnocentric Renaissance Flavor of European Art.
And Of Course, Basically, 'Team Catholic', Before in the Roman Empire, Edited All the Pieces of Various Stories
together, With only The Verses Numbered in The 13th Century too; Centuries of Scribe-by-Hand-Copied-Mistakes
And Intentional Changes as Just Part of What Human Nature Does; Finally, Printed A Few Centuries Later than
Verses Numbered And Revised in Many Ways After that; True, Every Letter; Every Word That Humans Create
Are Abstract Constructs and Idol Forms of Essence They Represent; But This Is How We communicate Still;
And Develop Some Mutually and Consensually Way accepted to Share Each View of Existence We Co-Create.

Are All These Idols of Essence That Are Form, The actual Essence;
Well, There is No other way to Communicate Essence Other than
Experience it ourselves; This is why 'Smartest, Brightest, Artistic Souls' Look Within Still
Now 'almost Chosen' As Such; For Answers to 'the Biggest Questions' in Life Not As Tainted By Other Soul Views;

In Other Words, Now, Original Creativity; Where There is No Real Target Audience
But Within; as Later other Folks Join in on A Solo Soul PartY oF Art; THiS Ain'T Nothing New.

If one Really Wants to Know Who This Jesus; This Mary; This Whole Story Some
Folks Worship as 'Pivotal God Players' Are; in Reality it is the Souls of the Artists, The Poets,
The 'Older Catholic Editors and Publishers' that Folks Still Kneel Down to And Worship At Church.

Ironic, it is;
Yet Truth it is
In Light; Those Who
Fear to Look Within And Find
Their Truths in Light And Dark
Will Settle For The Views of Others
or not Believe in much of anything at all.

At Least, The Story of 'Jesus' Properly Delegates
This Authority to The Readers indeed of Common
Individual Feeling, Sensing, Experience Coming to 'Know' 'See'.

Archaeology, Paleontology, And Other Cultural Anthropological
Studies Suggest that the Original 'Jesus' was Close to Five Feet
Tall; A Bit over 100 Pounds; Weathered From A Life Outdoors; Brown,
With Shortly Cropped Thick And Coarse Hair; Surely Not 'A Looker' From
What was even suggested in Earlier Prophecies in Terms of Old Testament,
Isaiah 53; But Obviously, Depictions of that Reality as Prophecy Would Not Have Sold
Many Renaissance Paintings as the Ideal of Beauty Then Was Expressed As is; It Appears
That Some may continue to Bow Down to the image of Leonardo DaVinci; EPic 'Revenge of Artistic Nerds'...

Never Doubt The Power of Art; For Art Still Rules The World From Bottom to Top of What Comes First: Human HeART.

People Bond And Bind Over Symbols They Create;
This is Religion; This Is Human Nature; It Changes.
It's Interesting to Study; i really Cannot See Getting
'Butthurt' Over Any Part of Human Nature As God Yes:

It is what it is;
And We Do
All Share Parts oF iT ToGeTHeR;
Only One Color of 'God' iS Way too Boring for me...

But i Score 100 Percent on Openness; and 100 Percent
on Extroversion From the 'Big Five Personality Test'; No
Wonder i see More than one Color of God too; And That
Too is Just Part of 'All the Colors':

God is All

the Colors;

Some Folks See More;
Some Folks See Less;
That's Life; Wow, We Breathe...

Jesus may have actually looked more like this:

Than this:

Maybe. I always imagined Him with longer nose and wiser face expression but whatever.

Anyway, I think Aghogday used the right word: ethnocentric. A tendency to depict Jesus as "one of us". It carries important symbolism of God becoming One Of Us.
Is it racist? In my opinion, only when "one of us" implies "and not one of them".

Maybe ... maybe not ... some of us may never know.  I imagine a man like many of those I've seen in Israel and the Palestine Territories -- Medium height, swarthy complexion, long hair (like an Essene), possibly bearded, largish nose, dark eyes, and ruggedly built like a man who had spent about 20 years laboring outdoors as a carpenter and carpenter's apprentice.Again, "Maybe".  In my opinion, there is no sharp distinction between "ethnocentric" and "racist" -- one is just a more "politically correct" term than the other.

He would have called himself Yeshua (in English Joshua)He called himself Ben Adam (son of man) but Paul called him Christos which meant "anointed" after the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) which also meant anointed.So Paul declared him Messiah or Mashiach by calling him Christos or Christ.

Jesus Christos (Christ) Greek
Yeshua Ha Mashiach Hebrew

Joshua the anointed English ,they all have the same meaning.

Last edited by vermontsavant on 16 Jul 2020, 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The continuum between "ethnocentric" and "racist" probably lacks well-defined boundary. If almost all the people you've ever seen look some way, there is no reason to suddenly depict Son of God differently. In more racially diverse environment, it becomes more and more slippery.
Modern American Buddy Christ with pink cheeks and blue eyes is... ridiculous. That's my opinion.