God is Black. He is also White, Native American, Asian, Arab and the list goes on (Joel 2:28). He is either all of those things or none of them as He is a Spirit. Of note, many, many Black individuals feel disenfranchised from Christianity due to the image of White Jesus/White God and conversely, many hold up Revelation 1:14-15 to say that Jesus was Black/African. Additionally, as many cultures that depict Jesus will generally portray him as of their race. In this day and age, common sense would hope to prevail in that Jesus was a Jew from Palestine, rendering these portrayals impossible to contend with in an Earthly sense (in a spiritual sense I think it’s wonderful, he was truly given to us to be ingested). In this case, this is wrong due to several characteristics regarding the Book of Revelation. The pertinent sentiment being that Jesus was also written to have a sword in his mouth; those same individuals would stop short of saying he walked around with such an appearance (Revelation 1:16). Furthermore, the entirety of the book was a vision save for the appearance of Jesus post resurrection (Revelation 1-13).

As well, in my personal opinion I don’t believe it was coincidence that Jesus basically came to “the middle” of the world. If Jesus came through Asia, for example, the Indigenous West may feel alienated from him and vice -a- versa. This is obvious speculation but in my belief it really is undeniable, seeing as how we cannot describe the Jewish person as either fully white or Black. Particularly so in that time before Jews propagated the rest of the planet along with everyone else, thereby mingling with other races in their progeny (again like everyone else). In other words (in my belief), this is a clear example of God needing to reveal himself to be known even though we already have the scripture; the aforementioned points can be made clear through specific revelation. The theme of this blog entry is this: it basically doesn’t matter what Jesus looked like, racially speaking (throughout the article where I refer to his appearance I’m referring to his race; I make this distinction due to the significance of his meekness (2 Corinthians 10:1). To consider this point, we as Christians believe he came to Earth to deliver The Holy Spirit among other things.

The Spirit

I point to the Spirit to speak to the nature of the mission; it’s conventionally believed that Jesus departed and sent the Spirit because the Spirit can be everywhere at once whereas the flesh (God on earth, Jesus) cannot achieve this. One can conceive that if it does matter what he looked like in the flesh it was due to our fallen nature wanting to perceive someone this special as one thing or another (our own when in truth he’s meant to belong to everyone), thereby this thinking is referential to the point about him coming to “the middle of the world”. Again, this is my personal thought process about this (and this is a blog entry after all) but I believe that so much has been lost due to being stymied or otherwise burdened by the necessity to discover his appearance on Earth.

In my belief, I sometimes feel like God only has 6 or 7 kids: The African Man, the European Man, The Asian Man, The Indian Man, The Arab Man, The Indigenous Western Man (it is not my place to just call them Asians with excellent cardio) and the Jews, being clearly distinct regardless of your belief (at least it seems that way). I do realize that you can split the races up regarding the Sino-Russo connection & the South Pacific Islanders and/or the South Asian experience for example, however whether or not they qualify as a different Race requires ardent study of Human Taxonomy which is far to precise for a blog post.

Room to breathe

I’m writing about this because this causes so much unnecessary strife and violence when there is room for everyone to be comfortable. God is HUGE. As stated earlier, he can without effort be all of those things. It is strange to me that any one race would either claim or be accused of claiming him for himself; there’s enough of him to go around. I believe we can come to a place where we can share God. Sure, I can see that one can say “The Black Church” without being looked at as if they had two heads or that the word “Orthodoxy” has Eastern European implications, and also that Catholicism brings to mind not only Western Europe but remnants of colonialism in modern day Africa. But if God came to reach all people, why would he make himself available to so relatively few?

It’s easy to miss because there are still ill feelings about “White Jesus” etc., but many believe they are rejecting Christianity for an alternative religious expression when what they’re rejecting is European influence. These two things are not the same. Hence, the subject of The Spirit is important because such rejection displaces our very soul and, for at least the time away, renders it ineligible for salvation (as one believes!). Therefore if “…all are one in Christ Jesus”, and we are “…heirs according to the promise” then however visceral the reactions accompanied with racism and insult (real or perceived) I don’t believe we can forget that our weapons are not carnal but spiritual . If anything (and you can make it a sure bet that this is the case) the Enemy uses fear and racism to attack the global Church itself. It’s up to us not to take the bait. For now, take care.

Gregory Longmore, LMHC is an online-only Christian Professional Mental Health therapist based in NYC.