Let’s get right to it with no chaser: If there was a Jesus, he wouldn’t have looked anything like the images we’re familiar with. The pictures of Jesus, Mary and the saints we see everywhere and in every Catholic Church are apocryphal and very inaccurate. Based on extensive research, the History Channel documented the work of expert historians and posted a picture of what the real Jesus might have looked like, and it’s incredibly different from most popular paintings of Christ. Jesus’ lineage can be traced throughout Africa and the Middle East, yet somehow he’s usually portrayed with blue eyes or fair long hair. In actuality, because he was a Galilean Jew in that period, he was probably much darker with shorter, curlier hair texture. Also from factual research, Jesus has black African ancestry from both Mary and Joseph. For those that only acknowledge Mary’s ancestry, the result is still the same. Other descriptions of Jesus and some of his family ties have been conveniently destroyed; however, we know enough to decipher more truthful depictions. Even though we know all of this in this day and age, the fraudulent images of Christ are still recognized and prevalent. Regardless of what we all know, we still cling to the absurd images pushed on us that were promoted for centuries.

How this representation of Christ came to be is simple: When Christianity expanded all over the world, each culture painted Jesus as they themselves looked for local approval.

Years after Christ’s death, Christianity transformed into a very structured, organized religion. Like many things men create, Christianity initially had the best intentions to spread Christ’s message, but resulted in various negative consequences with political, racial and cultural posturing.

Christianity began to spread from Jerusalem and became the official state church of Armenia, then Ethiopia, and Georgia. Eventually, Christianity spread further and became the state church of the Roman Empire by 380 AD and began to spread to Europe for political reasons. Christianity became strong in all of Europe by The Middle Ages. It was during these times that Christianity became the dominant world religion, and European kings, notability, artists, zealots and churches began to modify the image of Christ, and painted Christ and other biblical patriarchs as European Caucasians. Elements of old pagan sun worship were subtly added to the depictions as the patriarchs and saints were given halos. They began painting images of God, The Father, and the angels as Caucasians, and these are the images that reverberated around the world all the way to present day.

Many indigenous cultures had gods and deities, but mostly depicted as animals, objects, race-less, inhuman entities and spirits. In Europe, however, all of the mythological deities prior to the influx of Christianity were depicted as white men and women and it eventually transfused into biblical depictions.

These churches made trinkets of Jesus, Mary, crucifixes in silver and gold, and countless other things of value that, ironically, Christ would be vehemently against. People looked up to these bejeweled images, works of art and symbols and prayed to them. These shining, grand works of art reflexively served as a promoter of Christianity to the rest of the world. As people grew in their reverence for these images, the face of the European God, angels, Christ and Mary began to stick.

Many of the early artists and sculptors may have had good intentions or made them for the approval of European monarchy, but these images were erroneous and had very inconspicuous negative effects that would last for thousands of years.

Mankind did it again, and this was wrong on many levels. Firstly, for a people who claimed to follow the teachings of the Bible and Christ, the Bible clearly states that we should never attempt to create images of things in heaven and look upon them with reverence. And not only is it extremely audacious to designate a race to the Creator of all men and races, Exodus 20:3 states emphatically that we should never make idols in the form of anything in heaven. Secondly, depicting God and everything holy as blue-eyed or Caucasian had very negative and oppressive effects in the subconscious of non-whites.

When Christian missionaries came to Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and when missionaries came to convert other indigenous peoples, they brought these tainted images with them. So along with the Christian faith came the inadvertent allusion of white supremacy.

It was done to Africans during colonialism and neo-colonialism. It was done to people in the East and Asia. It was done to Native Americans and indigenous people all over the world. Missionaries went out to spread Christianity, and with it, the nations from where they came had political and social motives to encourage Mission work. Missionaries simultaneously spread their culture, languages and reeducated the people. They built schools, churches and ministered to the poor. As the poor became appreciative of the charities and mission work, their influence grew. These people started to become detached from their own cultures and dogmas. Soon, Christianity, Western culture and images of a white God began to infiltrate the minds and hearts of indigenous people. Even though the spiritual message was inclusive, the religious imagery was not universal. And though race had no place in Christian doctrine, through earthly religious imagery, Christianity inadvertently and subconsciously implied the notion that God, the angels, Jesus and others were white.

In this day and age, any educated person knows all of this very well already. So why are all the pictures still the same? Most modern Protestant churches don’t have many religious pictures and art anymore. Catholic churches however, are very notorious for these images.

Religious leaders argue that the images shouldn’t be significant. They feel that they’re only symbolic, and that the message is what’s paramount. If it truly doesn’t matter, then why knowingly keep or continue to promote, uphold and create images that are false and historically inaccurate? Why continue to make new pictures, drawings, movies and shows depicting this false Jesus and planting the same seed in newer generations? If it truly doesn’t matter, why not depict a more historically accurate Jesus when the opportunity permits it? In fact, whenever a dark Jesus is depicted in modern culture, it’s usually spun as something blasphemous or something to produce humor. A light, blue-eyed Jesus is utterly ridiculous, yet portraying a dark one which would be more historically accurate would cause a stir. How very ironic.

Jesus most likely looked a kin to Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. However, if you asked children to draw a picture of Jesus, they would draw a picture of Keith Urban.

Comic Relief Jesus

The veiled elite have made us a people who love to live in a lie and feed pride. Our history books are full of lies, exaggerations, altered details and omitted information. We continue to follow that pattern. We change history and keep lies in tact if it serves our interests. We don’t correct things that we’ve grown comfortable with. We still hold national holidays for sinister, murderous criminals like Christopher Columbus and sweep bad things under the rug. We’re socialized to lie, and make lies the truth. With religion and Christianity however, there should be zero tolerance for alterations and inaccuracies. Understand that when this issue comes up, oh yes it is a big deal. All those religious images are reminders of the old world corruptions of Christianity, thousands of years of white supremacy, and the ethnocentric perspective that we still need to grow away from. A flawed way of guided thinking has been nurtured for a long time.

Instead of people growing spiritually in a world that acknowledges people of all shades and hues, and knowing that there are special and important patriarchs of all ethnicities, everything has been changed and absorbed into one dominant race. Because of this propagated falsehood, it became more conducive for generations of white children to grow into a subconscious entitlement. When you hear of all the atrocities regarding race relations in this country’s history, don’t think racism came out of the blue or that it was inherent. Diligent research by Howard Zinn proves people are innately better than that. Racism was trained and instilled into people for decades and in myriad ways. Separations between races and classes have also been trained. The portrayal of God and the patriarchs as white men to the rest of the world had many subconscious ramifications. Don’t listen to religious leaders attempting to down play and ignore it. It was always a big deal that affected many, not to be blown off.

Why is it important? And is it correct that we shouldn’t focus on pictures? It is important because I truly believe in improving race relations. I believe in the old cliché things people claim to want like world peace and an end to racism. I want everyone to learn to love and respect each other. I know that it will never happen in my lifetime, but things can definitely improve with each decade. One sure way to help end racism is to start telling the truth. Racism was begat in deception and the nurturing of lies. The powers that be once even wanted everyone to believe people of color were 3/5^th’s of man and even wrote books on it. Because the powers that be pumped lies and ideas into people’s heads for so many years to justify hatred and suppression of people, it will take many years of racial appropriation to combat it. When we’re mature enough to stop accrediting everything to one race, future generations will be more inclusive and open minded. When so called Christians are ready to practice what they preach and acknowledge things done in the past that probably shouldn’t have been done instead of downplaying it, people in future generations have a chance at improving relations.

Case in point, many people have heard of the studies in which black children were shown pictures of children of different races and were asked to pick the good kids with good qualities over the bad. As expected they picked the typically Caucasian kids to have the good qualities and the darker kids the bad. That’s an example of the deep rooted mental conditioning that religion and religious imagery helped establish among many other contributing variables. With all things so heavily tilted in one direction, there will always be racial condescension, resentment, and imbalance.

Simply understand that to show pictures of Jesus as he wasn’t, and to show pictures of God, the angels and everything holy as white was always wrong. We were never supposed to do that. In a world full of black people, white people, Asians, Hispanics, aboriginal, or whatever have you, to paint a picture of the face of God and paint him white is beyond audacious. Most of us never saw the negative subconscious consequences for all of us, and it’s never too late to acknowledge it. Choosing to ignore it and continuing to subscribe to the old religious imagery is irresponsible. We’re living in one of many mistakes of our predecessors. Let’s not exist in the error of their ways. One of the main purposes to our lives as well as life’s biggest challenges is enlightenment and bettering ourselves, not sitting back justifying our wrongs.

People have no idea how to think as God does or as one truly connected to the Light. We’re only human; we can understand when we hear the right thing, but we either choose to adhere to it, or we intellectualize and rationalize the wrong thing and move in the other direction. Unfortunately we often do the latter. The people in the past responsible for the onset of those images did so because of limited understanding of the celestial, cultural reasons, and they didn’t know better. It was a different time.

The next time you see an image of a black God or Jesus, never arrogantly object to it as blasphemous or see it as something humorous. It’s an equivalent, meaningless earthly manifestation of what you’re already accustomed to, just of a different perspective. We all have to break the chains of a mental conditioning and evil, man-made entitlements. Digging deep and being honest, we know what happened and what we’re living through now. It’s never too late to genuinely be about the true ideals of what religion was meant to be. And in a world that needs healing, with so many different types of people around us all wanting the same things in different ways and from different pasts and perspectives, it’s never too late to stop subconsciously rationalizing the color of God slaves to ego, and open your eyes and “see”.