BLM leader denounces icons of "white Jesus"

RDKirk

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Totally agree. I have zero problem with a black or Asian Jesus. It. Doesn’t. Matter.

And that is a significant difference between your Eastern Orthodox viewpoint of the iconography of Jesus and the historical viewpoint of American Protestant Christians...which has shaped racial issues in the US.

What happened historically with American Protestants is that even while denouncing iconography doctrinally, they yet used the northern European image of Jesus as a folk evidence of Jesus' racial identity for racial purposes.

Black Catholics and the very few other non-Protestant Christian blacks of those earlier times knew of iconography that depicted Jesus as someone other than northern European. But if a black Christian had dared to depict Jesus in such a way...for most of the 20th century that would have been cause for lynching.
 
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TheLostCoin

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And that is a significant difference between your Eastern Orthodox viewpoint of the iconography of Jesus and the historical viewpoint of American Protestant Christians...which has shaped racial issues in the US.

What happened historically with American Protestants is that even while denouncing iconography doctrinally, they yet used the northern European image of Jesus as a folk evidence of Jesus' racial identity for racial purposes.

Black Catholics and the very few other non-Protestant Christian blacks of those earlier times knew of iconography that depicted Jesus as someone other than northern European. But if a black Christian had dared to depict Jesus in such a way...for most of the 20th century that would have been cause for lynching.

But we aren't in the 20th century anymore. Nobody's lynching blacks for white depictions of Jesus.

Also, that doesn't mean "lol you white privileged cis filth you don't understand what black people go through," I'm well aware of how socioeconomic conditions have kept blacks in their place and that is problematic, but what things represent to people change over time.

This image has changed over time in its meaning:
9d999c85003d175b7bac789aad89591f.jpg
 
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archer75

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What devout Christian takes the Archbishop of Canterbury seriously anymore lol

Contemporary Anglicanism is just one big free for all, "pick and choose" Christianity.
This seems like unnecessary confession-bashing to me. We already know the Abp of Canterbury isn't in communion with us. And our hierarchs say and do things we don't like, too.
 
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rusmeister

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But we aren't in the 20th century anymore. Nobody's lynching blacks for white depictions of Jesus.

Also, that doesn't mean "lol you white privileged cis filth you don't understand what black people go through," I'm well aware of how socioeconomic conditions have kept blacks in their place and that is problematic, but what things represent to people change over time.

This image has changed over time in its meaning:
I agree almost completely - but the idea of meaning changing is more complex, and there are both permanent and passing elements of images and words, and one must distinguish.
 
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dzheremi

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I think a point that might be being missed in some of the talk about Ethiopian icons (which would also apply to other African icons) is that the point is not to 'Africanize' Jesus and say, yes, He is Ethiopian/Eritrean/Egyptian/whatever, but rather to emphasize that He is incarnate as a human person. So in Africa or in any place, He may be depicted in the general way that people in that place look. 'Black Jesus' seems to only be a fixation of those for whom the 'color line' (a seemingly uniquely American obsession) is especially salient, but I have not noticed that attitude among any of my Ethiopian, Sudanese, or Egyptian friends (except when responding to 'Afrocentrist' pseudo-scholars who want to take everything in Egypt and make it 'black'), and it wouldn't really make sense to see it there. For sure, there is a difference noted in color between someone from Alexandria and someone from Aswan, for instance, but that's related to the actual level of Nubian admixture --i.e., why 'Coptic' is an ethnic or ethnoreligious identifier, not a racial one. There are 'Nubian Copts', if you will, as you can clearly see in this picture from the ordination of one Fr. Kyrillos in the Church of St. Mary and St. George in Omdurman, Sudan (note the good father on the far right):

2.jpg


It has been this way forever (or at least since the 4th century, when HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic sent the first bishops to the Nubian territory of Philae), and we have also had bishops in Sudan who speak Nubian in addition to Arabic, even though sadly the majority of Nubians are now Muslims, at least since the fall of the last of the Nubian Christian kingdoms in the beginning of the 16th century.

The question of what kind of icons should be produced by such a mixed people in order to be most faithful to how Christ looked phenotypically is frankly not really a question. Everyone knows He is born in Bethlehem, not Abu Simbel or for that matter Axum. And actually if we are to go by the more ancient witness, as can be found for instance in the restored icons of the Faras cathedral (the jewel of Nubian Christianity, sadly destroyed with the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s, as many Nubian villages were), we can see that it was also a practice among the Nubians -- who are nothing if not native black Africans -- to depict Christ and the Theotokos as (relative to themselves) white people, in comparison to the icons they made of their own bishops:

1382132536c0640nubianbishop.jpg

Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Theotokos alongside HG Bishop Marianos of Alodia (r. 1005-1039), c. 11th century

I would ask people like this Shaun King idiot if this too is 'white supremacy', and if so how. This is the native Nubian art, done in their own cathedral, to honor Christ our Lord and God, the ever-virgin holy Theotokos, and their own holy bishops. You literally can't get more African than this. (Sudan is called that in the first place because to the Arabs, these preexisting kingdoms were the lands of the blacks = bilad al-sudan)

Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, in case anyone is getting the wrong idea that because Ethiopians or others traditionally depict Christ as 'black', therefore they are denying that He was actually not black or otherwise making Him into something He isn't. I don't think that's what's going on at all, and I've communed with people from Ethiopia, Sudan, and of course Egypt from the very first day that I could be communed. It's just funny that if you actually talk to Ethiopians about this (as I have), they can sometimes become confused and/or incredulous, like "Oh, that's what you see in our icons? A bunch of 'black' people?" Obviously that kind of perception makes perfect sense if you yourself come from America or Europe, but if you're from Ethiopia where that's just what most people look like, there almost isn't that contrast to be made, and instead people tend to focus on things like (broadly speaking) ethnic group or language group, e.g., are you 'Habesha' (a Semitic person from the highlands) or something else. (The 'something else' also being black, whether its Cushitic, Omotic, or whatever.)

Though this is not the kind of thing that can be definitively proven, I have a hunch that this kind of false dichotomy (Christ having to be black to be faithful to the tradition as it has developed in the country, or having to be 'white' to be more historically accurate, as though icons should be like photographs; obviously that's even less the case in the OO world with its deliberately very non-realistic icons than it is in the EO world) is at least part of the reason why western art has been more accepted in some OO circles (i.e., the 'Sacred Heart' imagery in Coptic homes, or the presence of western art in some Ethiopian churches; see below), since these are depictions of Jesus, after all (read: they don't even know that there is non-Orthodox theology wrapped up in the 'Sacred Heart' image; I know this because I've asked Coptic friends who have that stuff in their homes). It's not necessarily a concern that they don't come from Ethiopia, or Egypt, or wherever. That is, of course, distressing to people like me and others who don't want to see the theology of the icon continue to die in our churches, but that's another topic for another day, I suppose.

Proof:

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo mezmur (paraliturgical song) "Bebete Mekdesih Yasadekegn" sung by Mirtinesh Tilahun (note the mix of Ethiopian and European imagery)

coptic-children.png

Coptic village Deir El 'Adra (Monastery of the Virgin), Egypt 1997 (note 'Sacred Heart' imagery in depiction of Christ on the wall; it's cut off here, but next to the drawing is the writing in Arabic "God is love", so it's obvious what the highlighting of the heart means to them, even if it doesn't indicate any kind of acceptance of the RC devotion)

Given that this kind of stuff slips in because people honestly don't know any better, I think the greater danger is not in depicting Christ as a certain color, but the ignorance of the people as to where the boundaries of proper faith and practice even are (which obviously touches more than iconography, but it's there too). Or, as HH Pope Shenouda III once put it...


But I guess some people in the West really don't want to hear what native Africans like HH have to say about anything, because this is really a Western and more specifically American problem (there is racism in Egypt against Nubians, for sure, but it doesn't mean that the American problem can simply be mapped onto Egypt with no regard as to how that society and American society are very different), and they don't like being convicted of being a bunch of heretics (even if in the process 'we' are convicting ourselves of inviting this stuff into our churches, as in the video). Too bad. It is as it is. "Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy." (A statement with which I'm 100% sure the EO agree, even if they don't see HH as being Orthodox himself.)
 
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TheLostCoin

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I agree almost completely - but the idea of meaning changing is more complex, and there are both permanent and passing elements of images and words, and one must distinguish.
I don't think you can argue that 20th century Protestant views on white Jesus is a "permanent" viewpoint or meaning.
 
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buzuxi02

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He is, and will always be from an area of the world that looks different than someone who is African, or European, and more similar to someone who is Jewish, or Palestinian.
I would say they would look more European than African as most middle easterners are white.
Case in point my sister in law is Cypriot. Cyprus is a middle eastern country yet she herself and everyone who meets her identifies her as white. Part of the myth of Americans especially american minorities is the belief that Caucasian tribes ends in Italy.
Here are Iranian natives chanting Orthodox hymns in Aramaic. One is a red head:

 
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RDKirk

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But we aren't in the 20th century anymore. Nobody's lynching blacks for white depictions of Jesus.

Kids born in the 21st century aren't running the country yet.

The US is still being run by the generation that would have lynched blacks for white depictions of Jesus.
 
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Phronema

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I would say they would look more European than African as most middle easterners are white.
Case in point my sister in law is Cypriot. Cyprus is a middle eastern country yet she herself and everyone who meets her identifies her as white. Part of the myth of Americans especially american minorities is the belief that Caucasian tribes ends in Italy.
Here are Iranian natives chanting Orthodox hymns in Aramaic. One is a red head:


I agree with this.

I was just trying to get across that depicting Him on an icon as a native Ugandan, or Swede would be equally off because He likely looked middle eastern/mediterranean. In my experience the people in say Jordan where Christ was baptized, and I have spent a considerable amount of time there tend to look middle eastern/mediterranean, and I doubt it's changed much in 2,000 years. I'll also add that it's true that some of the natives there do look European, but they tend to look as if they're from Greece, or Italy.

Ultimately though it doesn't matter which color He is depicted with/as, and it will of course change depending on the region where the icon was created, and that's expected and fine. None of that bothers me personally. He died for us all, and that's what matters to me. My overall point was to say that to see any rendition of Christ as racist is ridiculous to me.
 
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rusmeister

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I don't think you can argue that 20th century Protestant views on white Jesus is a "permanent" viewpoint or meaning.
Of course not. But you made a general statement: “...what things represent to people change over time.”
I was just responding to that. The Cross as a symbol has a permanent meaning, even its enemies see something else. It is their vision that is twisted. The Cross doesn't change over time or become something else - not a cross. Just for example.
 
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rusmeister

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Kids born in the 21st century aren't running the country yet.

The US is still being run by the generation that would have lynched blacks for white depictions of Jesus.

This is a very strange sentence. Jesus was generally depicted as white, though people were not concerned that his skin be specifically white. The idea that anyone would have been murdered for depicting Him as white is absurd. Saying that “the generation would have lynched” imputes guilt of, at the very least, attitude, even to the oldest living generation (my parents’), people born from @1940-1960, and an attitude which implies all or practically all, and connected with the idea (of whites lynching blacks) seems to be a continuation of judging people based on their skin color and not their actions, as opposed to speaking specifically about people who did commit lynchings.
As to who the US and other nations are run by, it seems to me a lot more by people who buy the politicians that we elect from the extremely and excessively limited choice offered to us. That would point more to plutocrats (among those we can name) like the Rothschilds, the Saudi ruling family, and Soros (who has been pointed to as funding BLM, among other things), and the ultimate owners of the established mass media.

Thus, it’s not terribly clear what you mean.
 
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Barney2.0

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Jesus should look like a Palestinian Jew, because that's what He is.

and I don't think he has spoken to all the artists to know which were made as racist propaganda, and which came out of a Renaissance style of artwork.
The Sinai Icon of Christ is pretty accurate in my opinion.
 
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Chesterton

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It seems hard for folks to wrap their heads around the fact that BLM is a virtual entity. Anyone can put up a website and claim "BLM." Yes, there were four women who originated the hashtag and put up a website, but their control is no greater than that.

BLM physical events (such as marches) are essentially "flash mobs." Someone--anyone, anywhere--can set up a BLM event, put it on social media, and if it catches the sentiment of the local crowd it happens or it doesn't.

Anyone can grab a microphone or start a tweet with a BLM stance, and the black community (largely black Twitter, because BLM is a virtual entity) will respond according to the prevailing sentiment. They'll either support it, or ignore it, or tweet it out of its virtual existence.
No, it's easy to grasp, it's just irrelevant. The Ku Klux Klan is a virtual entity. Anyone can put up a website and claim "Klan".
 
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rusmeister

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RDKirk said:
And so, are you worried about the Klan?



So why are you concerned about BLM, since you categorize the Klan as the same kind of virtual entity as BLM?
Because the Klan is not getting millions of dollars in funding from super-rich entities and being promoted and kneeled before by our political leaders and policemen all over the place.
BLM is really about reverse racism and is being funded because it promotes anarchy, and the funders know that people will submit to a tyranny to end anarchy. It is the opportunism of a few masked as black supremacy, and is not concerned with black lives except for the few shot by white policemen. All other black lives are immaterial, except insofar as they support "the cause".
And yes, shutting down police departments is the very essence of anarchy, and destroying statues, erasing the past (the philosophy expressed remarkably clearly in "The Last Jedi") is decidedly an overthrow of existing civilization. Anarchy is a greater evil than tyranny. That's why tyrants are waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces.
 
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RDKirk

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Because the Klan is not getting millions of dollars in funding from super-rich entities and being promoted and kneeled before by our political leaders and policemen all over the place..

What I see is cheap lip service to the sentiment.
 
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