Tag: the color of christ

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Jesus has had a long, exciting, funny, and painful life in America. From the slave ships of the Atlantic Ocean to the Hollywood sets along the Golden Coast, from the visions out of Indian country to the artwork of children, from the firing of bullets to the construction of billboards, Jesus has been born, crucified, and resurrected in America’s racial sagas. Those of the twenty-first century laugh because there is so much to cry over. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: Jesus Jokes and Racial Pain

Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

To justify their more rigorous white supremacy that stood against racial segregation and for immigrant restriction and conservative politics, the Klan in the 1910s and ’20s turned to the white Jesus. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey: The KKK and Jesus Christ

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: White Jesus and the Publius Lentulus Letter

The most fascinating thing about the letter is that before the Civil War, just about everyone knew that it was a fraud. Whenever Americans discussed it, such as the President of Yale University Ezra Stiles, they admitted that it was a fake and that the Bible said nothing of what Jesus looked like. But then between the Civil War and the Great Depression, white Americans transformed it into a believed truth. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: White Jesus and the Publius Lentulus Letter

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Jesus was part of the Revolution and formation of the United States, but not as much as one might expect. As a physical presence, he was almost completely absent. And in the language of law and legislation for the new republic, he was virtually as nonexistent. In comparison to how prominent Jesus would become in the United States of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Revolution and founding of the new nation were profoundly Christ-less. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

When Americans made Jesus white, they gave a racial spin to creation, to redemption in the form of Jesus, and to the future Apocalypse. This is crucial because it allows white people to see whiteness and racial categories as everlasting. Continue Reading Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

Video: Jesus Christ at Comic-Con

In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey discuss America’s perceptions of the race of Jesus Christ. To observe some popular opinions, an interviewer and a camera went to Comic-Con, where they asked attendees about their views of Jesus. From questions about who would win in a fight, Jesus or the Joker? to popular perceptions of Jesus’ race, see the colorful answers from the even more colorful Comic-Con goers. Continue Reading Video: Jesus Christ at Comic-Con